| Applicant name | KOBALIYA AND OTHERS |
| Applicant type | natural person |
| Number of applicants | 107 |
| Country | Russia |
| Application no. | 39446/16 18995/17 27215/17 41535/17 7995/18 14380/18 15236/18 21409/18 30514/18 51487/18 4100/19 16148/19 19154/19 27874/19 42416/19 44137/19 64060/19 11264/20 14412/20 14449/20 16359/20 33021/20 34412/20 34910/20 40943/20 41349/20 49654/20 53756/20 2115/21 19160/21 19659/21 21869/21 46839/21 49411/21 61521/21 12583/22 18098/22 26751/22 27996/22 30554/22 31314/22 34158/22 34737/22 34740/22 36373/22 36815/22 40319/22 41296/22 41298/22 45031/22 46439/22 47149/22 47602/22 49822/22 52486/22 54396/22 55462/22 56066/22 57022/22 889/23 10368/23 13076/23 19172/23 19394/23 19395/23 19423/23 19848/23 21786/23 22965/23 25731/23 27354/23 27601/23 28810/23 28961/23 29705/23 29707/23 30434/23 31356/23 32172/23 32180/23 32185/23 32187/23 33050/23 33130/23 33425/23 33592/23 33749/23 35746/23 35754/23 35774/23 35789/23 35793/23 36457/23 37062/23 37418/23 40140/23 40243/23 41570/23 41598/23 41797/23 42200/23 578/24 591/24 595/24 614/24 618/24 |
| Date | 22/10/2024 |
| Judges | Pere Pastor Vilanova, President, Jolien Schukking, Georgios A. Serghides, Peeter Roosma, Ioannis Ktistakis, Oddný Mjöll Arnardóttir, Diana Kovatcheva |
| Institution | Court |
| Type | Judgment |
| Outcome Art. 8 | violation |
| Reason | Not necessary (national security; disorder); no public interest |
| Type of privacy | Private life |
| Keywords | Even if; foreign agent |
| Facts of the case | The applicants who had been designated as “foreign agents” in their individual capacity complained that their designation as “foreign agents” and the resulting public exposure, excessive reporting obligations, and restrictions on their professional activities constituted unjustified interference with their right to respect for private life under Article 8 of the Convention |
| Analysis | The Court notes that the individual applicants’ designation as “foreign agents” has had multiple repercussions on their private and professional life. Firstly, the applicants’ names, along with dates of birth, tax and social security numbers, were published online on the Ministry of Justice’s website. Even if such data were classified domestically as information in the public interest, the publication of the names and other personal details, particularly when combined with the stigmatising label of “foreign agent” attached to them, must be regarded as an interference with their right to respect for their private life. Secondly, the designated applicants were required to submit frequent and detailed reports on their personal income and expenses to the Ministry of Justice. This obligation extended to all income and expenses, regardless of how insignificant the sums were or the purpose or origin of the funds, including remittances from family members. The obligation to disclose such detailed financial information of a private nature to the authorities also constitutes an interference with the sphere of private life protected by Article 8. Thirdly, the applicants were barred from exercising certain professions or occupations, including prohibitions on employment at public schools and universities, providing instruction to minors and limiting their publications to adult audiences. Practising lawyers specialising in criminal defence cases involving State secrets had their access to State secrets revoked as a result of the designation, thereby preventing them from working on such cases. In addition, a ban on advertising with “foreign agents” deprived journalists and media figures with popular YouTube channels and websites of the ability to finance their editorial teams through advertising revenue. The Court finds that these restrictions had serious consequences for the applicants’ social and professional lives and reputations and thus constituted an interference with the right to respect for private life protected by Article 8 of the Convention. In the absence of the Government’s observations on this point, will not dwell on the “quality of law” requirement. It will also, for the sake of argument, proceed on the assumption that the interference pursued the stated legitimate aims of protecting national security and preventing disorder by increasing public awareness of the applicants’ “foreign agent” designation. This fundamental flaw in the legislation pertaining to “foreign agents” undermines any possible justification for the various forms of interference with the applicants’ private lives. Given that the applicants’ connection, let alone dependence, on any foreign entity has not been established and the misleading label has been applied without evidence, the publication of their personal data online did not serve any public interest. Furthermore, there is no indication that, in establishing a public register of “foreign agents”, the Russian legislature gave any consideration whatsoever to issues concerning the protection of personal data. Turning to the obligation to submit quarterly reports on personal expenditure, the Court reiterates that, as it has not been demonstrated that the individual applicants had been paid for their activities by foreign entities such extensive monitoring of their expenses was excessive and disproportionate to the stated aim. Lastly, as regards the restrictions on the exercise of a profession, access to elected office and civil service, or the prohibition on teaching and writing for children, the Court notes that even considerably less severe measures – such as the dismissal of personnel or civil servants of former undemocratic regimes under lustration measures – have been found to violate various provisions of the Convention when applied without adequate individual assessment of the person’s conduct. The Court has also held that restrictions on a person’s opportunity to seek employment with a private company, due to an alleged lack of loyalty to the State, cannot be justified from the perspective of the Convention in the same way as restrictions on access to employment in the public service, regardless of the private company’s importance to the State’s economic, political, or security interests. In light of its case-law, the Court finds that the far broader restrictions imposed on the designated individual applicants on the basis of their unwarranted designation as “foreign agents”, cannot be justified as being “necessary in a democratic society”. |
| Other Article violation? | 10 and 11 |
| Damage awarded | Regard being had to the supporting documents and its approach in Ecodefence and Others (cited above, § 197), the Court awards the amounts claimed as per the appendix in respect of pecuniary damage, EUR 10,000 to each applicant or such smaller amount as was actually claimed in respect of non-pecuniary damage, and EUR 850 per application or such smaller amount as was actually claimed in respect of costs and expenses, plus any tax that may be chargeable to the applicants. |
| Documents | Judgment |