Published on 10 November 2025
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 29497/24
Ain KÕIV
against Estonia
lodged on 7 October 2024
communicated on 21 October 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The applicant had been serving as a police officer since 1991. The application concerns his dismissal from service after he failed to vaccinate himself against Covid-19.
By a decree (käskkiri) no. 117 of 3 November 2021 (titled “Implementation of Covid-19 Risk Analysis”), the Director General of the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board (Politsei- ja Piirivalveamet, hereafter “the PBGB”) required that all its employees get vaccinated against Covid-19 as a prerequisite of serving in the organisation. Compliance with that requirement could be demonstrated either by submitting a vaccination certificate or a recovery certificate (valid if diagnosis had been within the past 180 days). The applicant, who had received the first dose of vaccine some time earlier but had decided not to continue with the second dose, failed to present the relevant certificate by the required deadline, and was dismissed from service on 21 December 2021.
The applicant challenged his dismissal. The first- and second-instance courts declared the decision to dismiss him unlawful. However, the Supreme Court granted the PBGB’s appeal on points of law and overturned the lower courts’ judgments.
The Supreme Court found that the decree no. 117, an internal administrative act (halduse siseakt), was based on Occupational Health and Safety Act (töötervishoiu ja tööohutuse seadus) and on Regulation no. 144 of the Government of 5 May 2000 titled “Occupational Health and Safety Requirements in Work Environments Affected by Biological Risk Factors”, which were themselves in compliance with the Constitution and provided a sufficient legal basis for the decree. The decree no. 117 served legitimate aims of ensuring uninterrupted fulfilment of the state’s core functions, and the protection of people’s lives and health. The decree established an indirect vaccination requirement, which was a suitable, necessary and proportionate precautionary measure for achieving the stated objectives. The decree relied on general knowledge about the coronavirus as it had been available at the time of its adoption. Importantly, the decree no. 117 did not, in itself, provide a basis for automatic dismissal from service if an official failed to meet the vaccination requirement. Instead, the decision to dismiss a person remained discretionary. Such discretionary power had to be exercised “if exceptional circumstances existed or if the situation that formed the basis for issuing decree no. 117 had changed”. In the applicant’s case there had been no such circumstances (for example he had not informed the PBGB of the alleged vaccine-related health-issues) and his dismissal from service had thus been proportionate.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Bearing in mind the requirement for the applicant, as a Police and Border Guard official, to get vaccinated against Covid-19 (or present an up-to-date recovery certificate) in accordance with the decree no. 117 of 3 November 2021 of the Director General of the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board, and noting the consequence of the failure to do so, did the case concern a compulsory or voluntary vaccination and has the applicant suffered a violation of his right to respect for his private life, contrary to Article 8 of the Convention (compare and contrast Pasquinelli and Others v. San Marino, no. 24622/22, §§ 57-64, 77 and 93-109, 29 August 2024, and Vavřička and Others v. the Czech Republic [GC], nos. 47621/13 and 5 others, §§ 263-312, 8 April 2021)?