The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Bulgaria appeared unable to provide effective guarantees that its citizens would not be subjected to “abusive surveillance” by the authorities.
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled on Tuesday in favour of two lawyers who claimed that under the system of secret surveillance in Bulgaria, the communications of anyone in the country can be intercepted and accessed by the authorities.
The two lawyers, Mihail Ekimdzhiev and Aleksandar Kashamov, complained that the laws governing the interception and retention of surveillance data do not provide sufficient safeguards against arbitrary or abusive surveillance and accessing of the data.
Ekimdzhiev and Kashamov also argued that Bulgaria’s National Bureau for Control of Special Means of Surveillance operates with limited transparency, and that there is no effective remedy if there are abuses.
Neither claimed that they had been put under secret surveillance, but argued that the nature of their activities put them at risk of being put under surveillance and therefore of having their communications data accessed by the authorities.
The Strasbourg-based court ruled that Bulgaria had violated the right to respect for private life and correspondence under the European Convention on Human Rights with regard to secret surveillance and to the retention and accessing of communications data.
“The system of overseeing secret surveillance in Bulgaria as it was currently organised did not appear capable of providing effective guarantees against abusive surveillance,” it said in a statement.
Ekimdzhiev and Others v. Bulgaria, judgment: Inadequate legal safeguards against arbitrariness and abuse for secret surveillance, retention and access of communications data: violations https://t.co/UyWibIlF0D#ECHR#CEDH#ECHRlegalsummaries
Article 8 – surveillance, retention and access to communications data did not meet the quality-of-law requirements of the Convention Ekimdzhiev and Others v.Bulgaria (application no. 70078/12)… 2/3
1. The present two applications concern the restrictions imposed on the bank accounts of the applicants and on the freedom of movement of the applicant by the domestic authorities. The applicants raise various complaints under Articles 6, 11, 13, 18 and 34 of the Convention, Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention and Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 to the Convention.
THE FACTS
2. The applicants’ details and the names of their representatives are listed in the Appendix.
3. The Government were represented by their Agent, Mr Ç. Əsgərov.
7. Soon thereafter the bank accounts of numerous non-governmental organisations and civil society activists were frozen by the domestic authorities within the framework of criminal case no. 142006023. The domestic proceedings concerning the freezing of those bank accounts are the subject of the present two and other applications pending before the Court (see, for example the communicated cases, Imranova andOthers v.Azerbaijan, nos. 59462/14 and 4 others; Economic Research Centre andOthers v.Azerbaijan, nos. 74254/14 and 5 others; and Abdullayev andOthers v.Azerbaijan, nos. 74363/14 and 7 others).
8. Various human rights defenders and civil society activists were also arrested within the framework of the same criminal proceedings in connection with their activities within or with various non-governmental organisations. The domestic proceedings concerning the arrest and pre-trial detention of some of those human rights defenders and civil society activists have already been examined by the Court (see, for example, Rasul Jafarovv. Azerbaijan, no. 69981/14, 17 March 2016; Mammadli v. Azerbaijan, no. 47145/14, 19 April 2018; Aliyev v. Azerbaijan, nos. 68762/14 and 71200/14, 20 September 2018; and Yunusova and Yunusov v.Azerbaijan (no. 2), no. 68817/14, 16 July 2020).
9. In July 2014 the applicant was invited to the Prosecutor General’s Office where he was questioned about the applicant association’s activities. Between July 2014 and 2016 he was again questioned, on several occasions, by the prosecuting authorities about the same activities.
IMPOSITION OF THE RESTRICTIONS ON THE APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS
In respect of the applicant association’s bank accounts
11. According to the applicant association, on an unspecified date in July 2014 its chairman, the applicant, went to the local branch of the International Bank of Azerbaijan where he was informed by a bank official of the attachment order.
12. On 14 July 2014 the applicant association asked the Nasimi District Court for a copy of the attachment order and received it on the same day.
13. On 16 July 2014 the applicant association appealed against the Nasimi District Court’s order of 19 May 2014, claiming a breach of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention. It submitted that an attachment order could not be taken in respect of its bank accounts within the meaning of Article 248 of the CCrP since neither the applicant association nor its members were accused in any criminal proceedings. It also noted that an attachment order could be taken within the meaning of Article 248.1 of the CCrP only for the purposes of ensuring the payment of a civil claim or the confiscation of property when provided for by criminal law. However, criminal case no. 142006023 was instituted under Articles 308.1 and 313 of the Criminal Code which did not provide for confiscation of property as a sanction. Lastly, it pointed out that the attachment order was disproportionate since, even assuming that there were doubts about the origin of the money received from the United States of America’s National Endowment for Democracy, the attachment order should have concerned only the impugned amount, and not all the bank accounts of the applicant association. Together with its appeal, the applicant association also lodged a request for restoration of the time-limit for lodging an appeal. In support of its restoration request, it submitted that it had never been informed of the Nasimi District Court’s hearing of 19 May 2014 and had obtained a copy of the impugned order only on 14 July 2014.
14. On 18 July 2014 the Nasimi District Court dismissed the applicant association’s request for restoration of the time-limit for lodging an appeal. The court found that the applicant association had failed to submit any evidence showing that there was a valid reason for missing the three-day time-limit for lodging an appeal. The decision did not address the applicant association’s arguments concerning the court’s failure to inform it of its hearing of 19 May 2014 or to provide it with a copy of the impugned order of its own initiative.
15. On 21 July 2014 the applicant association appealed against that decision, reiterating its previous arguments.
16. On 24 July 2014 the Baku Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, without examining the applicant association’s arguments in respect of the restoration of the time-limit for lodging an appeal.
[…]
FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT, UNANIMOUSLY,
Decides to join the applications;
Declares the applications admissible;
Holds that there has been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention in respect of both applicants;
Holds that there has been a violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 to the Convention on account of the travel ban imposed on the applicant by the domestic courts;
(a) that the respondent State is to pay the applicants, within three months from the date on which the judgment becomes final in accordance with Article 44 § 2 of the Convention, the following amounts, to be converted into the currency of the respondent State at the rate applicable at the date of settlement:
(i) EUR 8,000 (eight thousand euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable, to the applicant association in respect of pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage;
(ii) EUR 15,000 (fifteen thousand euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable, to the applicant in respect of pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage;
(iii) EUR 1,900 (one thousand and nine hundred euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable to the applicants, in respect of costs and expenses, to be paid directly into the bank account of their representative, Mr R. Mustafazade;
(b) that from the expiry of the above-mentioned three months until settlement simple interest shall be payable on the above amounts at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points;
Dismisses the remainder of the applicants’ claim for just satisfaction.
ECtHR judgment today – Azerbaijani human rights lawyer and NGO subject to freezing of bank accounts and travel ban. Multiple violations of ECHR inc Art 18. @EHRAC_hq @MDXlaw With interventions from @OSFJustice & @ICJ_org https://t.co/IMAJn619ui
For years there has been an interesting debate in Europe about whether protections for lawyers’ rights should be strengthened. The Council of Europe (CoE), which covers 47 member states including the UK, is considering whether continuing attacks on lawyers call for a new legal instrument.
In other words, are the CoE’s 2000 recommendation ‘on the freedom of exercise of the profession of lawyers’, R(2000)21, together with the rights embedded in the European Convention on Human Rights, enough to ensure that lawyers do not suffer when carrying out their duties – and suffer they do, as explained below.
Now a new CoE report says that our rights need a new binding convention specifically focused on lawyers. The report is almost unfindable on the CoE website, and labours under the distinctly unappealing title of ‘Feasibility study on a new, binding or non-binding, European legal instrument on the profession of lawyer – possible added-value and effectiveness’.
Despite this obscurity, and the fact that it is written as a technical report for a technical committee and so not quite up to the excitement of an airport thriller, it turns out to be one of the most useful documents written about the European legal profession for a long time. And it is by an English barrister, Jeremy McBride.
It is useful for many reasons. First, it recites the violence and threats that lawyers face: murder and other assaults; being prevented from meeting clients; communications being monitored and homes and businesses searched; forcing lawyers to act as witnesses against clients; using admission or disciplinary procedures to exclude those whom the authorities consider politically undesirable; and creating bars which are not independent enough to protect members.
Each of these categories is documented with cases. And the report states that it is impossible exactly to quantify the problem, since there is no place in Europe or elsewhere which monitors the position of lawyers alone. Attacks on lawyers are monitored via other collective mandates, such as with human rights defenders or with judges.
Hearing before the Legal Affairs Committee of the @PACE_LegalHR : the CCBE representative @LaurentPettiti stressed the need for a European convention on the profession of #lawyer as adding value to the soft law instruments and case law of the ECtHR. pic.twitter.com/xqHOIFNqxC
Every Friday since November, a group of activists founded by Turkish lawyers in Europe have gathered before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) as part of the ‘Movement for Unconditional Justice’. Their goal: bring Turkey’s judicial plight and rights violations to the attention of Europe’s top human rights court.
“Detaining lawyers has become routine practice in Turkey, deepening the climate of fear and repression across the country. Lawyers are also coming under physical, sometimes fatal, attack,” warns Stefan Simanowitz of Amnesty International
Turkish lawyers have been among the primary victims of an ongoing government crackdown implemented in the aftermath of the failed military coup back in 2016, in which 250 people were killed. The Turkish government accuse them of representing clients who had links to the network behind the coup, with President Tayyip Erdogan speaking last September of the need to ‘cut the road from lawyer to terrorist’. Straight after his speech, 115 lawyers from different groups were detained. Over the last decade, Turkish courts have handed down 2,728 years of prison sentences to 441 attorneys.
Roisin Pillay, Director of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) said that ‘lawyers should never be arrested or sanctioned for representing their clients, or identified with their clients’ causes.’
The detentions are just one facet of an ever-escalating series of hurdles placed before the country’s lawyers.
Erosion of independence of judges & lawyers in #Turkey continues. In last decade, Turkish courts have handed down 2,728 years of prison sentences to 441 attorneys, according to media reports. Lawyers should never be punished for represent. @Dr_JAMavedzengehttps://t.co/J70sLsATll
"He is an honorable Turkish citizen who has been involved in tireless efforts to champion human rights in #Turkey and continues to work with many institutions that share the same values and who are struggling to this end." 👇
— International Observatory of Human Rights (@observatoryihr) February 16, 2021
Gergerlioğlu, a human rights activist and an MP, has been threatened by Uşak Police Chief who accused him of involvement in “terrorism.” Watch interview on IOHR TVhttps://t.co/sWIftExIcF
In Turkey, political / arbitrary prosecutions have 'holistic' approach which involve: a) arbitrary detention, b) seizure of property rights, c) dehumanization / isolation, d) denial of social rights, As if that were not enough to jail Kavala, now his company is being dissolved. https://t.co/a48H9ZWu1V
Human rights lawyer @KeskinEren1 was sentenced to six years in prison. Responding to the sentence, she said "we only defended human rights. Cowards die many times before their deaths. There is a life in prison as well." #Turkeyhttps://t.co/iBLzUsmG6B
Statement of the Platform for an Independent Judiciary in Turkey on the rejection of third party intervention by @ECHR_CEDH: the Court is sufficiently informed about the situation of the judiciary in Turkey and its dependency on the government.@EAJ_AEM_ERV@AEAJ2000@Judges4Jpic.twitter.com/dJmgufe3X1
Within the scope of an arrest campaign targeting Kurdish opposition groups, more than 60 people including lawyers Berivan Özpolat and Alaadin Aslan were arrested in Gaziantep today. #Turkey
“Since the 2016’s coup attempt more than 1600 lawyers have been arrested and prosecuted. 450 have been sentenced to a total of 2786 years in prison on the grounds of membership of an armed terrorism organization or of spreading terrorist propaganda.” https://t.co/FymUkpOLh9
Salam, please find the unroll here: Turkish Court of Cassation upheld the sentences given to lawyers Mehmet Alper Dabağ (6-years) and Turan Canpolat… https://t.co/8MGGKxswsK Talk to you soon. 🤖
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on Tuesday fined Turkey over the local prison administration’s refusal to grant a request for access to certain Internet sites lodged by lawyer Ramazan Demir in the course of his pre-trial detention in İstanbul’s Silivri Prison, where most political prisoners are held, in 2016.
The rights court also ordered Turkey to pay 1,500 euros in compensation to Demir.
Demir, a human rights lawyer, represents Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş, former co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, before the ECtHR. Accused of membership in a terrorist organization and disseminating propaganda for a terrorist organization, Demir was put in pre-trial detention on April 6, 2016 and released on September 7 of the same year.
On April 12, 2016 Demir asked the prison administration to allow him to access the Internet sites of the ECtHR, Turkey’s Constitutional Court and the Official Gazette so he could obtain legal information needed to follow his clients’ cases before these two courts and to prepare his own defense in the criminal proceedings against him.
Citing Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, Demir complained that his right to receive information had been violated by Turkish prison authorities and courts.
Ramazan Demir c. Turquie, arrêt : Restrictions injustifiées pour un détenu d’accéder à des sites Internet publiant des informations juridiques pour des raisons sécuritaires : violation https://t.co/etqYmn6OG6#ECHR#CEDH#ECHRlegalsummaries
Arrêt Ramazan Demir c. Turquie – impossibilité pour un avocat détenu d'accéder à des sites Internet juridiques tels que celui de la Cour européennehttps://t.co/dOihYS3GqS#ECHR#CEDH#ECHRpress
Judgment Ramazan Demir v. Turkey – refusal to grant a detained lawyer access to law-related websites, such as that of the European Court https://t.co/laY4NhjhTg#ECHR#CEDH#ECHRpress
In its Committee judgment in the case of L.P. and Carvalho v. Portugal (applications nos. 24845/13 and 49103/15) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:
a violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights
The case concerned findings of liability against two lawyers for defamation (L.P.) and for attacking a person’s honour (Mr Carvalho) in respect of two judges, on account of documents drawn up by the lawyers in their capacity as representatives.
The Court found, in particular, that both applicants had been acting in the performance of their professional duties as lawyers. It further considered that the penalties had been apt to have a chilling effect on the profession of lawyer as a whole, especially with regard to lawyers’ defence of their clients’ interests. Consequently, the reasons given by the domestic courts to justify finding the applicants liable had been neither relevant nor sufficient and had not corresponded to a pressing social need. The interference had thus been disproportionate and had not been necessary in a democratic society.
In a unanimous judgment, the European Court of Human Rights today delivered a comprehensive rebuke to Russia over the 2009 death in pretrial detention of Sergei Magnitsky, the accountant who had previously exposed a $230m tax fraud involving officials of Russia’s powerful Interior Ministry.
Responding to complaints brought by his mother and widow, the Strasbourg court ruled that Russia was responsible for Magnitsky’s death, and had subjected him to “intentional” acts of “violence…that amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment”.
This included persistently denying him medical treatment for a life-threatening illness, and a beating by guards just before he died.
The court also ruled that Russia’s investigation into Magnitsky’s death and abuse was inadequate, and that the government’s decision to put him on trial on corruption charges after his death was a manifest breach of the rule of law.
The ruling represents the first fully independent assessment of a case that has led to the imposition of sanctions by the United States and Canada against senior Russian officials accused of complicity in Mr Magnitsky’s death.
At the time of his death, Magnitsky had been held in pretrial detention for 358 days, while supposedly under investigation by the same Moscow Interior Ministry officers he had originally accused of corruption. The court ruled that the period of detention had been unreasonably extended by the Russian authorities, “on grounds which cannot be regarded as ‘sufficient’ to justify its duration”.
On 8 August 2017 Yalchin visited his client, Abbas Huseynov, in the high security Gobustan prison and saw bruises all over his body. Mr Huseynov told him that he had been severely tortured by prison officials, including being beaten with batons, dragged on the floor, tied to a metal pole in the yard and held in a solitary confinement with his hands and legs cuffed, over several days. Upon leaving the prison, he was contacted by several media outlets for information about the worrying situation of his client and he described to the media the treatment his client had been subjected to and the bruises he had seen on him.
The next day, Yalchin requested both the Prison Service and the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate Mr Huseynov’s torture allegations but no investigation has been conducted to date. In response to his complaint the Prison Service requested the Azerbaijan Bar Association (ABA) to take disciplinary measures against Yalchin for allegedly aiming `to cast shadow over the work and reputation of the state structures` and `to cause disorder` and `tension among some groups of the society`. His licence was suspended by the ABA on 20 November 2017, pending decision of the domestic court on his disbarment.
Yalchin was indefinitely disbarred by the Ganja Administrative Economic Court on 22 February 2019 on the basis of the request from the ABA who claimed that he had damaged `the honour, dignity and business reputation` of the Prison Service by providing information to the media about the torture allegations of his client, convicted in the Nardaran case.
My lawyer Yalchin Imanov was illegally disbarred by the Bar Association for speaking out against torture of his clients. Now his case is in ECtHR and… https://t.co/SvqbgBAmLr
— Khadija Ismayilova (@Khadija_Ismayil) July 18, 2019
Azerbaïdjan : l'avocat Yalchin Imanov, rayé parce qu'il a dénoncé les tortures subies en prison par ses clients se pour voit devant la CEDH https://t.co/McSW3UeTen
Turkish citizens are resorting in vain to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in ever greater numbers, as trust in their domestic courts erodes, the Law Society of England and Wales said today in a joint submission to the UN Human Rights Council’s universal periodic review of Turkey on behalf of an international coalition of legal organisations.
’Judges’ and prosecutors’ independence has been systematically undermined in Turkey since the failed coup in 2016,’ Law Society president Simon Davis said. ’Hundreds of judges, prosecutors and lawyers have been arrested, detained and convicted on charges of terrorism without credible evidence.
’Lawyers have been identified with and punished for their clients’ causes. More than 1,500 lawyers have been prosecuted, hundreds of them in mass trials,’ he said. Lawyers who can still practise report intimidation and threats.’
Davis said that this menacing environment undermines the right of every citizen to legal representation and a fair trial, which may explain why Turkish citizens submitted more than 57,000 petitions to the European Court of Human Rights in 2017.
According to the submission, Turkey’s chilling roll call of injustice includes:
57,039 petitions to the ECtHR in 2017 from Turkish citizens, 25,000 of which rejected for failure to exhaust domestic remedies
4,260 judges and prosecutors dismissed
634 judges and prosecutors convicted on terrorism charges
1,546 lawyers prosecuted, 311 sentenced to a total of 1,967 years in prison
599 lawyers arrested and detained
’Turkey must protect the independence of lawyers, judges and prosecutors – in legislation and in practice – so that they can perform their professional duties without intimidation and improper interference,’ Davis said. ’The rule of law and the independence of the legal profession are essential foundations for political, social and economic stability.’
He said that the Law Society and the international legal profession will continue to support colleagues working in difficult conditions and do whatever it can to help restore meaningful access to justice in Turkey.
Joint Stakeholder Submission by the @ODFoundation, the Human Rights Defenders e.V. and the Arrested Lawyers Initiative to the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review – #Turkeyhttps://t.co/gMFjd2SWHl
On the third anniversary of 2016’s coup attempt, Celal Uzunkaya who is general director of the Turkey’s General Directorate of Security (National Police) admits that 540,000 individuals have been detained on grounds of their alleged cohesion or connection with the Gulen Movement / Structure which is outlawed by the Turkish Government after the coup attempt.
In a special interviews with CNN Turk, Mr Uzunkaya said:
Since 15thJuly (2016), 540.000 proceedings have been carried out, in connection with FETO. Is it over? It is not. Was it (FETO) cleaned?, should you ask; it has certainly not been dealt with completely.
Across Turkey, initially, every week in average 1500 – 1700, even 2000 detentions were being made. Nowadays, (thanks to) more qualified (meritable) identifications, we carry out proceeding about around 500-600 people per week who have coherence or connection with FETO.
Until this statement, Turkish government claimed that the criterion which were expressed in the Emergency Decrees, namely ‘coherence, connection, affiliation, relation, link [with or to Gulen Movement / Structure]’ are applied only for administrative measures, not in criminal proceedings. So indeed, Turkey defended itself in the ECHR and the UN Human Rights Mechanism in this manner. For the first time, chief of the Turkish National Police admits ‘coherence or connection’ which are not crime and do not have any legal ground are applied to criminal proceedings as well.
Mr. Uzunkaya also admits that their identification is more qualified than those made after the coup attempt. He says initially, every week in average 1500 – 1700, even 2000 detentions were being made in connection with Gulen Structure, nowadays (with) more qualified (meritable) identifications, around 500-600 people individuals are being detained per week.
IAPL Monitoring Committee on Attacks on Lawyers 