Published on 6 December 2021
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 39118/12
Igor Petrovich GUKOVSKIY
against Russia
lodged on 8 June 2012
communicated on 18 November 2021
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The applicant was one of the organisers of the public meeting held in Moscow on 5 December 2011 after the allegedly rigged elections to the State Duma the day before. The Moscow city administration had approved that meeting in advance, albeit limiting the number of participants to three hundred. Some three thousand people showed up and took part in it, apparently, in a peaceful and non-disruptive manner. It appears that the venue area was “fenced”, and people were required to pass through checkpoints and metal-detector installations administered by the authorities. After the meeting the applicant was arrested and sentenced to fifteen-day detention and a fine under Articles 19.3 and 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offences (CAO) on account of his failure to make sure that the number of demonstrators had not exceeded three hundred people. The court in the first case dismissed his motion to examine a police officer and two witnesses on behalf of the defence.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Were there violations of Articles 10 and 11 of the Convention on account of the applicant’s arrest and two convictions under the CAO? Were they convincingly shown to have been “necessary in a democratic society”? In particular, did the courts establish that it had been practicable for him to exercise the effective control over the number of demonstrators at the venue of the event; that there had been a real risk of disorder and/or a real risk to public safety or rights of others?
2. Was there a violation of Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d) of the Convention in the case under Article 19.3 of the CAO (see Martynyuk v. Russia, no. 13764/15, §§ 21-28, 8 October 2019)?