Communicated on 9 July 2019
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 26129/09
Levon Khorenovich CHAKHMAKHCHYAN and
Armen Artavazdovich OGANESYAN
against Russia
lodged on 18 May 2009
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the conviction of the applicants, a former member of the Federation Council – the upper house of the Russian Parliament – and his son-in-law, a chief inspector of the Russian Chamber of Auditors, of fraud against a major airline company.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Was the exclusion of the public from the applicants’ trial “strictly necessary” for one of the purposes authorised by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?
2. Did the “operative experiment” carried out by the police and involving audio and video recording violate the first applicant’s right to respect for his private life (see Bykov v. Russia [GC], no. 4378/02, 10 March 2009, and Akhlyustin v. Russia, no. 21200/05, 7 November 2017)? In particular, given that at the material time the first applicant was a member of the Federation Council and therefore had immunity from criminal prosecution, was the continuation of the operative experiment after he had become involved in it lawful?
3. Did the interception of the first applicant’s telephone conversations violate his right to respect for his private life and correspondence (see Moskalev v. Russia, no. 44045/05, 7 November 2017)? Did Russian legislation regulate in detail the case of persons whose telephone conversations were intercepted accidentally because they participated in a conversation with a person whose telephone was lawfully tapped by the authorities (see Amann v. Switzerland [GC], no. 27798/95, § 61, ECHR 2000‑II; Matheron v. France, no. 57752/00, §§ 29-44, 29 March 2005; Pruteanu v. Romania, no. 30181/05, §§ 44-45 and 50-58, 3 February 2015; and Versini-Campinchi and Crasnianski v. France, no. 49176/11, §§ 54-55 and 62-74, 16 June 2016)? In particular, did Russian law provide for a procedure to be followed in cases where, while tapping a suspect’s telephone, the authorities accidentally intercepted conversations with a member of Parliament who had immunity from criminal prosecution?
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