Chernenko and Others v. Russia (dec.)

Information Note on the Court’s case-law 227
March 2019
Chernenko and Others v. Russia (dec.) - 4246/14, 33840/14, 12821/15 et al.
Decision 5.2.2019 [Section III]
Article 34
Victim
Life prisoners not directly affected by statutory restrictions on family visits in absence of genuine attempt to maintain contact or in case of less frequent visits than permitted: inadmissible
Facts – The applicants had all been convicted of serious criminal offences and sentenced to life imprisonment. All convicts sentenced to life imprisonment had to serve their sentences in special-regime correctional colonies. Upon arrival at a special regime correctional colony such convicts were placed under a strict regime, where they had to spend at least the first ten years of their sentence. Under that regime they were entitled to two short-term visits per year, and since November 2016 to one long-term visit per year. The applicants complained about severe restrictions on their contacts with the outside world during their detention following conviction.
Law – Article 34: In order to claim to be the victim of a breach of the right to respect for private and family life on account of statutory restrictions on visits from family members or other persons in the first ten years of lifelong imprisonment, an applicant had to demonstrate: firstly, that he had relatives or other persons with whom he genuinely wished and attempted to maintain contact in detention, and secondly, that he had used his right to visits as frequently as was permitted under domestic law.
In the applicants’ case, two of the applicants had not demonstrated that they had relatives or other persons with whom they wished to maintain contact while in detention. In the absence of any such persons they could not be said to have been directly affected by the measure complained of. The remaining applicants had demonstrated the existence of relatives and their genuine attempts to maintain contacts with them by clearly specifying those relatives and providing an account of their attempts to maintain correspondence with them and to receive visits from them, or of actual visits from those relatives. They had not however used their right to visit as frequently as was permitted under domestic law. Only one of the applicants had been visited by a member of his family. However, the frequency of those family visits was substantially below that permitted. In the absence of any evidence that the lack of visits had been as a result of the authorities’ refusal to allow them, those applicants could not be said to have been directly affected by the measure complained of.
Conclusion: inadmissible (incompatible ratione personae).
(See also Khoroshenko v. Russia [GC], 41418/04, 30 June 2015, Information Note 186)
 
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