Communicated on 6 January 2020
Published on 27 January 2020
FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 3039/09
Malahat Ibrahim gizi NASIBOVA and RESOURCE CENTRE FOR DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT OF NGOS
against Azerbaijan
lodged on 28 December 2008
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The applicants in the present case are a journalist and an association of which she is a co-director. The other co-director of the association is the applicant’s husband, also a journalist, who himself is the applicant in a related application no. 4903/09. The present case concerns allegedly unlawful searches and seizures in the applicant’s flat and the association’s office in connection with the private prosecution proceedings instituted against the applicant’s husband on account of the alleged dissemination of defamatory information, as well as the domestic courts’ refusal to admit the applicants’ civil claim lodged against the law-enforcement authorities concerning the alleged unlawfulness of the searches.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has there been a search and seizure operation in the applicant association’s office and, if so, which authorities carried it out? What was the legal basis for the operation? The parties are requested to submit any available documentary evidence in support of their responses to the above questions.
2. Did the applicants have access to a court for the determination of their civil rights and obligations, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?
3. In respect of the searches and seizures that took place in the first applicant’s home and the applicant association’s office, has there been an interference with the applicants’ right to respect for their private life and home, within the meaning of Article 8 § 1 of the Convention? If so, was that interference in accordance with the law and necessary in terms of Article 8 § 2?
4. In respect of the searches and seizures that took place in the first applicant’s home and office, has there been an interference with the applicant’s freedom of expression, in particular her right as a journalist to refuse to reveal her sources, within the meaning of Article 10 § 1 of the Convention? If so, was that interference prescribed by law and necessary in terms of Article 10 § 2?
5. Did the applicants have at their disposal an effective domestic remedy for their Convention complaints concerning the alleged unlawfulness of the searches, as required by Article 13 of the Convention?
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