CONCURRING OPINION OF JUDGE SERGHIDES

1. The first applicant is a citizen of the United States of America, a prominent human rights lawyer, who lived and worked in Russia from 2009 to 2021 and who in 2013 married the second applicant, a Russian citizen with whom they have two minor children (the third and fourth applicants). The first of the applicants’ complaints is that the revocation of the first applicant’s residence permit had violated their right to respect for private and family life under Article 8 of the Convention. Their second complaint is that the true intention of the domestic authorities in revoking the first applicant’s residence permit was to prevent her and the second applicant from pursuing their work in the field of human rights in Russia, this being in violation of Article 18 of the Convention providing for limitation on use of restrictions on rights.

2. I voted in favour of all points of the operative provisions, and I adhere to the reasoning of the judgment apart from the distinction drawn in it, regarding the interpretation and application of Article 18 of the Convention in conjunction with Article 8, between restrictions whose purpose is legitimate and others whose purpose is illegitimate depending on which one is considered to be “predominant” (see paragraph 68 of the judgment and the case-law cited).

3. For the reasons I explained in my concurring opinion in Merabishvili v. Georgia ([GC], no. 72508/13, 28 November 2017), such a distinction has no legal foundation, and it is against the letter and purpose of Article 18, aiming at effectively protecting human rights from interferences whose purpose is not one of those for which the Convention allows.

4. The present judgment rightly finds that the interference with the first applicant’s right to respect for her family life pursued an ulterior purpose that did not fall within those for which restrictions of that right are permitted by Article 8 § 2 of the Convention, namely, the purpose of punishing the first and second applicants for their activities in the area of human rights and preventing them from continuing those activities in Russia.

5. Given the above, I conclude that there has been a violation of Article 18 of the Convention taken in conjunction with Article 8. However, unlike the reasoning in the present judgment, I consider it immaterial whether that ulterior purpose was also the predominant purpose of the impugned interference. I would still vote for a violation even if that ulterior purpose was not the predominant one.

APPENDIX

List of applicants:

Application no. 54003/20

No.

Applicant’s name

Year of birth

Nationality

1.

Vanessa Stoessel KOGAN

1981

US

2.

Grigor Yuryevich AVETISYAN

1976

Russian

3.

Aleksandr Grigoryevich AVETISYAN

2014

Russian, US

4.

Luka Grigoryevich AVETISYAN

2017

Russian, US