The ECHR case of Gartukayev v. Russia (no. 71933/01).

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EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

688

13.12.2005

Press release issued by the Registrar

Chamber judgments concerning Russia

The applicant, Vakha Gartukayev, is a Russian national. He is an ethnic Chechen who was born in 1941. Since 1996 the applicant has been living in Nalchik in the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic of the Russian Federation.

In January 2000, on returning to Nalchik, he was refused entry to Kabardino-Balkaria at the check-point “Kurp-2”. The applicant took out proceedings alleging that his constitutional right to liberty of movement had been violated. The Nalchik Town Court found that since the applicant had failed to prove that he had shown his migrant’s card, the police officers could not be found to have acted unlawfully. The applicant appealed submitting, in particular, that the regulation requiring the special registration of Chechens on the basis of migrants’ cards had not been valid and enforceable because it had never been officially published.

The applicant alleged that a restriction on his right to liberty of movement had not been lawful or justified. He relied on Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 (freedom of movement).

The Court noted that the Government accepted that the requirement for former Chechen residents to produce a migrant’s card at the administrative border with Karbardino-Balkaria had been introduced by a regulation which had not had the quality of law in the domestic legal system.

The Court therefore held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 in that the restriction on the applicant’s right to liberty of movement was not imposed in accordance with the law. It awarded the applicant EUR 2,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.