EHRAC Achievements: 2003 to present

EHRAC and a team of Azerbaijani lawyers are advising those arrested during and after the Nardaran raids, in preparation for proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights.

Four of the families of those who died on 1 March 2008 tell their stories, asking what happened to their loved ones that day and how the lack of answers to this basic question has affected their lives.

EHRAC and Memorial Human Rights Centre (Moscow) are representing five of the victims’ families before the European Court of Human Rights as they seek to hold the Russian authorities responsible for the deaths of their relatives.

The European Court seeks responses from the Ukrainian and Russian Governments about what happened to four people whom we represent with UHHRU, when they were detained by armed ‘separatists’ in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

The Court issues its long-awaited follow-up decisions to its ground-breaking 2015 Grand Chamber judgments on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, calling for a property restitution mechanism and emphasising the two states’ responsibility to find a political resolution to the conflict.

In Vano Merabishvili’s case, the Grand Chamber paves the way for individual victims of politically-motivated detentions and prosecutions across Europe to challenge state abuse of power more effectively.

EHRAC, GYLA and Union Sapari litigate 3 cases where the police and prosecutors failed to take protective measures to protect women from domestic violence before they were killed by their partners.

We lodge a case on behalf of a trans man challenging Georgia’s refusal to change the gender marker in his official documents, in a new partnership with the Women’s Initiative Supporting Group in Tbilisi.

Over 400 victims and their relatives of the Beslan School Siege finally find justice, as the European Court found Russian responsibility for four separate violations of the right to life.

The Mejlis, the representative body of Crimean Tatars, submits an application to the European Court challenging its designation as an ‘extremist’ organisation and subsequent banning by the Russian authorities.

EHRAC lawyers Prof. Philip Leach and Joanne Sawyer represent Ivane Merabishvili in an oral hearing before the Grand Chamber of the European Court, arguing that his pre-trial detention was unlawful, unnecessary and politically motivated.

The European Court’s judgment refers extensively to our groundbreaking case Volkov v Ukraine in highlighting the shortcomings in the judicial system.

The Court rules that the conditions of the detention of 12 Georgians who were deported from Russia was “arbitrary and unlawful” detention

EHRAC submits a breakdown on the international standards on post-conflict property restitution to the Council of Europe concerning our precedent-setting Nagorno-Karabakh case, Sargsyan v Azerbaijan, and the parallel case against Armenia.

The Court finds the Azerbaijani authorities’ failure to provide adequate medical treatment to Leyla and Arif Yunus during their pre-trial detention constituted inhuman and degrading treatment – the first such finding of a violation against Azerbaijan.

The Court finds the purpose of Rasul Jafarov’s detention was to punish him for his human rights activities, the first time that the Court has found such a violation based on the repression of human rights defenders.

To mark International Human Rights Day 2015, EHRAC screens Barzakh at Pushkin House, a film portraying the day-to-day suffering faced by the families of the ‘disappeared’ men of Chechnya.

EHRAC and Memorial win the case of Zakharov v Russia finding that the Russian legislation on surveillance of mobile telephones fails to provide for “adequate and effective guarantees against arbitrariness and the risk of abuse.”

EHRAC gives a voice to those at the front line of defending human rights in Russia and Azerbaijan during our panel discussion at the Law Society.

The European Court gives its strongest statement yet that Russia must hold to account the perpetrators of the Katyr-Yurt bombing in 2000, and take steps to ensure such events never happen again.

We win the first ever case against Georgia before the UN CEDAW Committee with Article 42 of the Constitution, concerning long-term physical and sexual abuse of a mother and daughter by their husband/father.

We win our joint case with Legal Guide, Sargsyan v Azerbaijan, regarding the property rights of citizens forced to flee their homes because of hostilities around Nagorno-Karabakh.

In 2015 EHRAC started litigating the case of Aghdgomelashvili and Japaridze v Georgia, which concerns allegedly degrading treatment of LGBTI activists by the police. Lodged by Interights and Article 42 in 2011, it is one of the first cases challenging discriminatory treatment against LGBTI individuals in Georgia to be communicated by the Court.

Ten years after the attack on Beslan’s school No. 1, victims and their applicants come one step closer to justice at a Chamber hearing.

EHRAC adapts to work with individual lawyers in Azerbaijan on litigating the cases of imprisoned human rights defenders, including some of our partners.

EHRAC and Memorial lodge a case on behalf of NGOs placed on the “Foreign Agents” registry under a new law enacted in November 2014.

The landmark case of Volkov v Ukraine, which highlights systemic issues in the system of judicial accountability, has led to widespread reform to the Ukrainian Constitution and legislation.

EHRAC Legal Consultant Vahe Grigoryan wins our first case against Armenia, which found authorities unlawfully expropriated Emma Tunyan from her home in central Yerevan in 2004. The judgment is used as new evidence in 2014 to challenge her eviction.

The Court’s judgment in Tsintsabadze v Georgia addresses the systemic issue of prisoner deaths, and the authorities’ failure to adequately investigate them.

The Court delivers a judgment in our second joint case with Memorial on the Katyr-Yurt bombing in 2000, finding Russia responsible for the deaths and injuries of 29 applicants and their relatives.

We win our joint case with GYLA on seeking adequate compensation for the Kiladze brothers, whose parents had been sent to a GULAG in 1938.

Following the war in August 2008, we lodge a group of 32 cases questioning Russian responsibility in indiscriminate shelling, the destruction and looting of property, and ensuing fatalities.

We represent 13 applicants in cases relating to the unlawful detention, torture and deportation of ethnic Georgians from Russia.

The Court finds a violation of the right to respect for private life in a case where the Russia failed to protect the applicant from the environmental pollution emitted by a local company, setting a significant precedent for future such cases.

We win our first six joint cases with Memorial from Chechnya before the European Court, the first ever decisions from an international human rights body from the region.