Legal summary
November 2025
Manukyan v. Armenia - 5778/17
Judgment 13.11.2025 [Section V]
Article 8
Positive obligations
Article 8-1
Respect for private life
Collection and storage of applicant’s personal information by security services and coercion to cooperate with them using threats: violation
Article 8
Positive obligations
Lack of effective investigation into serious and plausible allegations of several criminal offences related to acts of the Security Services: violation
Facts – In 2014, the applicant, a newly elected member of the standing governing body of an opposition party, was approached by an agent of the National Security Service of Armenia (“the NSS”) and was asked to cooperate with that service on a systematic basis. According to the Government, the proposal was made with the authorisation of the management of the relevant unit of the NSS. During a meeting, following the applicant’s refusal to cooperate, the NSS agent made various threats concerning the potential consequences of that refusal. He stated, inter alia, that there might be very serious consequences for the applicant and those close to him; he essentially claimed to know almost everything about the applicant; he suggested that damaging information about the applicant and his political party might be leaked to the press; he asserted that it was up to him to decide whether the applicant would be allowed to leave Armenia; and he warned him that he would be blacklisted and have no future in the State. The applicant made an audio recording of the conversation without the NSS agent’s knowledge.
The applicant submitted a crime report along with the audio recording of the conversation, to which the Prosecutor General’s Office replied that the actions attributed to the NSS agent did not contain prima facie elements of a criminal offence and that those circumstances had also been confirmed by the information received from the NSS. The applicant appealed and was eventually successful; in March 2016 the Court of Cassation found, inter alia, that the crime report disclosed prima facie information about elements of specific criminal acts and that verification of that information could be reasonably expected to reveal sufficient grounds for instituting criminal proceedings.
Subsequently, in October 2016 a prosecutor, after re-examining the crime report, refused to institute criminal proceedings on the grounds that the actions attributed to the NSS agent did not contain prima facie elements of a criminal offence. The applicant’s appeals were unsuccessful.
In the meantime, the NSS agent was appointed Press Secretary to the President of Armenia. Furthermore, in January 2016 the applicant left the country for the Netherlands where he was subsequently granted asylum.
Law – Article 8:
(1) Alleged violation of Article 8 on account of collection and storage of personal information and on account of threats –
(a) The existence of interference – Neither the authenticity of the audio recording, nor the identity of the applicant’s interlocutor or the contents of the conversation, had ever been disputed in the domestic proceedings or before the Court. The Court found that the NSS agent’s statements and the applicant’s complaints revealed two interconnected issues potentially giving rise to an interference with the applicant’s rights under Article 8.
(i) Collection and storage of information – The NSS agent’s statements provided at least prima facie grounds to believe that the NSS had collected a substantial amount of personal information about the applicant and his political party. The Government had effectively admitted that some information about the applicant had been collected. The NSS agent’s statements had further suggested that the information had remained available to him and to the NSS, which presupposed that it had been stored – a conclusion further supported by the absence of any indication from the Government that the data had ever been deleted or destroyed.
The nature and extent of the information in question remained within the exclusive knowledge of the authorities, as it had not been disclosed to the applicant or to the Court. It would therefore be unjustified to expect the applicant to specify the scope of that information, especially given the authorities’ own failure to clarify the matter through an effective investigation.
(ii) Use of threats – The threats made by the NSS agent had been of a serious nature and capable of causing well-founded fear, anxiety and a feeling of uncertainty, affecting the applicant’s psychological integrity and well-being. Such threats might also have had a chilling effect on the applicant’s ability to act freely and independently, including in matters concerning his career, his public or political activity and place of residence, thereby interfering with his personal autonomy. It was notable that after the events in question, the applicant had relocated to the Netherlands, where he had been granted asylum.
Such threats carried greater weight and potential for affecting an individual’s psychological integrity and well-being when they originated from an agent of State security services, given the authority, power and influence such agents might exercise. That was especially true in the present case, given the unpredictable and covert nature of the consequences tacitly conveyed in the threats. The mere fact that the applicant had been able to travel in and out of Armenia, despite various threats including possible travel restrictions, did not diminish the impact of those threats on the applicant.
The interview had been sanctioned by the NSS superior officers. The NSS had neither denounced those threats, nor indicated that they had been merely unauthorised statements of an individual agent. It would thus not have been unreasonable for the applicant to infer that the threats had been part of a deliberate strategy employed against him by the NSS as a whole, thereby exacerbating their perceived seriousness. That perception might further have been reinforced by the agent’s subsequent appointment as Press Secretary to the President of Armenia.
(iii) Conclusion concerning the existence of interference – The NSS had collected and stored personal information about the applicant and serious threats against him, with potential impact on his psychological integrity and personal autonomy, had been made by its agent. Each of these two actions had amounted to a State interference with the applicant’s private life.
(b) Justification of the interference – While the Government had contended that the data collection had been aimed at facilitating potential cooperation with the applicant and protecting national security, they had not demonstrated that domestic law had authorised the NSS to collect information with the aim of attempting to coerce into cooperation with the secret services. Furthermore, they had failed to identify any concrete or even alleged national security concern, and no such concern had been referred to in the prosecutor’s decision or in any other material submitted to the Court. On the contrary, in the recorded conversation, the NSS agent had stated that the reason for seeking the applicant’s cooperation had been that he was a “promising individual”. The absence of any information concerning national security interests, when considered together with the applicant’s political affiliation, gave rise to legitimate concerns about the true motives behind the NSS’s actions and, consequently, their compliance with the basic principles of rule of law.
Nor did the two classified orders of the NSS’s Director – the contents of which were not disclosed even to the Court – put forward by the Government as a legal basis for the agent’s actions, satisfy the requirements of “foreseeability” and “accessibility” and could not provide a substantive legal basis for establishing for the cooperation with the NSS or for the collection of personal information.
Furthermore, domestic law permitted the NSS to cooperate with individuals only on a voluntary basis. The use of coercive methods and threats by the NSS agent had been manifestly incompatible with that requirement and had also been fundamentally at odds with the principle of the rule of law.
Therefore, the interference had not been “in accordance with the law”.
Although that finding was sufficient find a violation of Article 8, the Court considered it important to also refer to its finding of the absence of any demonstrated national security interest at stake.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
(2) Alleged violation of Article 8 on account of failure to investigate – The actions interfering with the applicant’s private life had been serious. He had also submitted a crime report and made plausible allegations that the NSS agent’s actions had contained elements of several criminal offences, including the unlawful collection, storage, use or distribution of information concerning personal or family life; interference with the exercise of the freedom of association; and exceeding official powers. In that respect, the Court referred to the findings of the Court of Cassation in its decision of March 2016. No alternative means of effective protection had been alleged or shown to exist. Those circumstances were sufficient to trigger the State’s positive obligation to conduct an effective investigation.
No investigative measures had been undertaken to establish the circumstances of the case, including the true motives behind the actions of the NSS and its agent, the nature and extent of the information collected and the seriousness of the threats. The NSS agent and his supervisors had not been interviewed. While it appeared that the Prosecutor General’s Office had obtained some information from the NSS, its content had neither been examined nor disclosed.
Ultimately, the prosecutor, limiting himself to a superficial and selective assessment of the audio recording, had refused to institute criminal proceedings. In particular, he had stated that the crime report had not specified which threats had been made, even though that information had clearly been provided to him in the form of the audio recording. Moreover, he had readily accepted the NSS agent’s assertion during the recorded conversation that cooperation had been meant to be voluntary, while overlooking the obvious threats and coercive remarks, which had been manifestly incompatible with the notion of voluntary cooperation. Despite the above-mentioned deficiencies, the prosecutor’s decision had been upheld on appeal.
The blatantly unlawful actions undertaken by a State agent had remained unaddressed by the public authorities and had never prompted attempts to ensure that no such unlawful actions would be undertaken again.
Accordingly, the respondent State had failed to comply with its positive obligations to conduct an effective investigation.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41: EUR 5,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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