CASE OF ZEYNALOV AND SADIGOV v. AZERBAIJAN

THIRD SECTION

CASE OF ZEYNALOV AND SADIGOV v. AZERBAIJAN

(Application no. 29041/14)

JUDGMENT
 

STRASBOURG

8 July 2025

This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.

In the case of Zeynalov and Sadigov v. Azerbaijan,

The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:

 Canòlic Mingorance Cairat, President,
 Lətif Hüseynov,
 Vasilka Sancin, judges,
and Olga Chernishova, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the application (no. 29041/14) against the Republic of Azerbaijan lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 26 March 2014 by the applicants listed in the appended table (“the applicants”), who were represented by Ms Z. Sadigova, a lawyer based in Azerbaijan;

the decision to give notice of the complaint under Article 8 of the Convention to the Azerbaijani Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Mr Ç. Əsgərov, and to declare the remainder of the application inadmissible;

the parties’ observations;

Having deliberated in private on 17 June 2025,

Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

1.  The present application concerns an alleged breach of lawyer-client confidentiality.

2.  The first applicant, a journalist, was held in the Baku pre-trial detention facility at the time of the events in question. Criminal proceedings had been instituted against him for extorting a large amount of money as a bribe, following a complaint submitted to the prosecuting authorities by G.A., a member of parliament at that time. The second applicant was his lawyer.

3.  According to the applicants, before and after each of their meetings at the detention facility the first applicant was subjected to a search of his person. After each meeting and before leaving the detention facility, the second applicant’s documents were inspected by the facility’s staff.

4.  Following the publication of a newspaper article in which G.A. had allegedly threatened the first applicant and his family members, the first applicant wrote a letter to the Ministers of Internal Affairs and National Security and gave a copy to the director of the detention facility to send on his behalf. However, according to the applicants, the first applicant did not receive any document confirming the ministers’ receipt of that letter.

5.  Seeing that receipt of his letter had not been officially confirmed, the first applicant gave a copy of the letter to the second applicant during their meeting on 25 November 2011 and asked him to send it to the intended recipients. After the meeting ended and as the second applicant was about to leave the detention facility, he was asked by a staff member whether he had any documents on his person and, if so, to present them. The second applicant refused to do so, following which the staff member allegedly tried to search him by force. The second applicant had no choice but to show the first applicant’s letter, which was seized from him and not returned despite his request to that effect. No record was drawn up about the seizure of the letter in question.

6.  The next day the applicants lodged a complaint with Baku Administrative-Economic Court no. 2, asking it to find unlawful the following:

(a) the supervision of their meetings by the detention facility’s staff through the windows of the meeting rooms;

(b) the installation of audio and video surveillance inside the meeting rooms;

(c) the personal search of the first applicant before and after his meetings with the second applicant;

(d) the inspection of the second applicant’s documents after his meetings with the first applicant; and

(e) the inspection of the second applicant’s documents on 25 November 2011, the seizure of the letter given to him by the first applicant and the failure of the detention facility to return it.

They relied on, inter alia, Article 8 of the Convention and Article 7 of the Law on Advocates and Advocacy Activity. The latter provided, among other things, that questioning lawyers about facts known to them in connection with the performance of their professional duties was prohibited and that all applications to lawyers had to remain confidential.

7.  On 9 October 2012 the first-instance court dismissed the applicants’ complaint. Following appeals made by the applicants, that judgment was upheld on 15 March 2013 and 22 August 2013 by the Baku Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court respectively. The courts held that the applicants had failed to prove their allegations and that the detention facility had acted within its powers and in line with the Provisional Regulations on the Detention of Persons in Detention Facilities approved by the Ministry of Justice on 7 December 2002 (“the Regulations”). The Regulations, in force at the material time, provided that complaints and applications made by detainees were verified by the management of the detention facility (point 4.4); that complaints and applications relating to the conduct of criminal proceedings were sent by the management of the detention facility within three days of their receipt (point 4.7); and that complaints and applications not relating to the conduct of criminal proceedings were examined by the management of the detention facility or sent to the intended recipients in accordance with the law (point 4.8). The courts found that detainees’ applications could only be sent through the management of the detention facility. They held that the personal search of the first applicant before and after meetings, even with his lawyer, as well as the surveillance of those meetings by a staff member through the windows of the meeting rooms, could not be regarded as a breach of the applicants’ rights, as those measures had been intended to protect public security, had answered a “pressing social need” and had been proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued. They further held that no proof had been provided by the applicants as regards the alleged installation of audio and video surveillance devices in the meeting rooms.

8.  The applicants complained under Article 8 of the Convention that their rights had been breached as a result of their having been routinely subjected to searches and inspections before and/or after their meetings and, on one occasion, the seizure of the letter entrusted by the first applicant to the second applicant. They also complained that listening devices had been installed in the meeting rooms in order to covertly listen to their conversations and that they had been kept under constant surveillance through the windows of the meeting rooms.

THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT

ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 8 OF THE CONVENTION

9.  The Court notes that this complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention or inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible.

10.  The applicants argued that the provisions of the Regulations relied on by the courts and the Government (see paragraphs 7 above and 11 below) concerned letters posted by detainees in an ordinary manner. They argued that the Law on Advocates and Advocacy Activity (see paragraph 6 above) fully guaranteed lawyer-client confidentiality and that therefore the interference had not been in accordance with the law and had not been necessary in a democratic society.

11.  The Government argued that the personal inspection of a detainee before and after meetings, even with his or her lawyer, could not be considered a breach of that detainee’s rights or those of the lawyer. They accepted that the seizure of the letter in question had constituted an interference with the applicants’ rights but argued – referring to the domestic courts’ conclusions (see paragraph 7 above) – that it had been lawful. They further argued that the first applicant’s letter had not been addressed to his lawyer (that is, the second applicant) or family members and that its seizure had not therefore resulted in depriving him of contact with the outside world to a significant degree.

12.  The relevant general principles have been summarised in, inter alia, Michaud v. France (no. 12323/11, §§ 117-19, ECHR 2012); Altay v. Turkey (no. 2) (no. 11236/09, §§ 47-52, 9 April 2019); and Namazli v. Azerbaijan (no. 8826/20, §§ 34-37, 20 June 2024).

13.  The Court notes that the personal search of the first applicant, the inspection of the second applicant’s documents and the seizure of the letter in question undoubtedly amounted to interference with the applicants’ right to respect for their private life and correspondence.

14.  The parties were in dispute as to the lawfulness of the interference in question (see paragraphs 10-11 above). The Court does not find it necessary to resolve this matter, as even assuming that the interference was in accordance with the law and pursued the legitimate aim of “the prevention of disorder or crime”, it was not “necessary in a democratic society”, for the following reasons.

15.  In the present case, it has not been argued by the Government, and there is nothing in the case file to lead the Court to conclude, that the staff of the detention facility had been acting on any suspicion – let alone any concrete evidence of wrongdoing by the applicants – when they decided to conduct searches and inspections before and after their meetings and to seize the letter in question (compare Laurent v. France, no. 28798/13, § 47, 24 May 2018, and Namazli, cited above, § 40). Nor has it been argued or demonstrated that the seized letter contained any unlawful element necessitating its seizure from the second applicant or its retention.

16.  The Court further finds the Government’s argument that the letter was not addressed to the second applicant, the first applicant’s lawyer, to be irrelevant. In this connection, the Court reiterates that in establishing the right of everyone to respect for his or her “correspondence”, Article 8 of the Convention protects the confidentiality of private communications, whatever the content of the correspondence concerned, and whatever form it may take (see Klaus Müller v. Germany, no. 24173/18, § 37, 19 November 2020, with further references). Moreover, the Court has recognised that, while Article 8 protects the confidentiality of all correspondence between individuals, it will afford “strengthened protection” to exchanges between lawyers and their clients, as lawyers would be unable to defend their clients if they were unable to guarantee that their exchanges would remain confidential (see R.E. v. the United Kingdom, no. 62498/11, § 131, 27 October 2015). While lawyer-client communications may concern matters which have little or nothing to do with litigation, there is no reason to distinguish between them, since they all concern matters of a private and confidential character (see Vasil Vasilev v. Bulgaria, no. 7610/15, § 90, 16 November 2021, with further references).

17.  When examining the applicants’ complaints, the domestic courts merely noted that the personal search of the first applicant before and after his meetings with the second applicant answered a “pressing social need”, failing to explain what that need consisted of (see paragraph 7 above). Likewise, the Government failed to demonstrate that there was a pressing social need for the interference in question. The Court therefore concludes that the interference with the applicants’ rights was not “necessary in a democratic society” within the meaning of Article 8 § 2 of the Convention (compare Eylem Kaya v. Turkey, no. 26623/07, § 48, 13 December 2016, and Laurent, cited above, § 48).

18.  There has accordingly been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention.

19.  The Government denied the existence of any audio and video surveillance inside the meeting rooms. They further argued that the frequent checks through a window by the detention facility’s supervisor could not be considered a breach of the applicants’ right to confidentiality of their meetings. The applicants maintained their complaint.

20.  Having regard to the facts of the case, the submissions of the parties, and its finding above (see paragraphs 13-18 above), the Court considers that it has dealt with the main legal questions raised by the case and that there is no need to examine the remaining parts of the complaint (see Centre for Legal Resources on behalf of Valentin Câmpeanu v. Romania [GC], no.47848/08, § 156, ECHR 2014).

APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION

21.  Each applicant claimed 15,000 euros (EUR) in respect of non‑pecuniary damage. The first applicant also claimed EUR 2,000 in respect of costs and expenses incurred before the Court. He submitted a copy of a contract for legal services concluded with Ms Z. Sadigova.

22.  The Government argued that the finding of a violation would constitute sufficient reparation for any non-pecuniary damage suffered by the applicants. They further submitted that the second applicant himself was an experienced lawyer who had submitted numerous applications to the Court and that it was not clear why the first applicant had concluded an additional contract for legal services with the second applicant’s wife, Ms Z. Sadigova.

23.  Ruling on an equitable basis, as required by Article 41 of the Convention, the Court awards each applicant EUR 1,200 in respect of non‑pecuniary damage, plus any tax that may be chargeable.

24.  Having regard to the documents in its possession, the Court considers it reasonable to award EUR 500 to the first applicant covering costs for the proceedings before the Court, plus any tax that may be chargeable to him.

FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT, UNANIMOUSLY,

(a)  that the respondent State is to pay, within three months, the following amounts, to be converted into the currency of the respondent State, at the rate applicable at the date of settlement:

(i)  EUR 1,200 (one thousand two hundred euros) to each applicant, plus any tax that may be chargeable, in respect of non‑pecuniary damage;

(ii)  EUR 500 (five hundred euros) to the first applicant, plus any tax that may be chargeable to him, in respect of costs and expenses;

(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;

Done in English, and notified in writing on 8 July 2025, pursuant to Rule 77 §§ 2 and 3 of the Rules of Court.

 Olga Chernishova Canòlic Mingorance Cairat
 Deputy Registrar President

APPENDIX

No.

Applicant’s name

Year of birth

Nationality

Place of residence

1.

Avaz Tapdig oglu ZEYNALOV

1970

Azerbaijani

Baku

2.

Elchin Ali oglu SADIGOV

1981

Azerbaijani

Baku