FIFTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 20561/15
Anzhela Volodymyrivna PETRAKOVA
against Ukraine
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 5 October 2023 as a Committee composed of:
Lado Chanturia, President,
Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström,
Mykola Gnatovskyy, judges,
and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 20561/15) against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 14 April 2015 by a Ukrainian national, Ms Anzhela Volodymyrivna Petrakova, who was born in 1971 and lives in Lviv (“the applicant”), and who had been granted legal aid and was represented by Mr M.O. Tarakhkalo and Ms V.P. Lebid, lawyers practising in Kyiv;
the decision to give notice of the application to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Mr I. Lishchyna, from the Ministry of Justice;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns the imposition of a ban on the applicant travelling abroad and subsequent delays in lifting that ban, allegedly in violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 4.
2. On 5 December 2011 the Halytskyi District Court of Lviv imposed a ban on the applicant travelling abroad on account of her failure to pay a debt to the V. bank under a writ of execution issued by the same court on 9 June 2010. The decision was executed on 6 January 2012 when the information about the ban on the applicant’s travel abroad was entered into the information system of the State Border Control Service of Ukraine (“the SBCS”).
3. On 29 March 2012 the Lviv Court of Appeal quashed the decision of the first-instance court because the applicant’s unpaid debt to the bank had been secured by a plot of land owned by her, the value of which exceeded the amount of the debt, and therefore the ban on her travelling abroad was deemed unnecessary. The case was examined in the presence of the applicant’s representative. The decision indicated that it would become effective on the date of its delivery but that a cassation appeal could be lodged against it within twenty days of its becoming effective.
4. On 2 April 2012 the applicant purchased tickets for a tour of Egypt.
5. On 11 April 2012, early in the morning the applicant arrived at Kyiv Boryspil International Airport, where she was denied passage across the border on the basis of the ban imposed by the decision of 5 December 2011.
6. On 11 April 2012 the Bailiff Service received a duly certified copy of the decision of 29 March 2012 and registered it on 13 April 2012.
7. On 19 April 2012 the Lviv Regional Justice Department sent the decision of 29 March 2012 to the SBCS, which received it on 25 April 2012.
8. On 3 May 2012 the information about the ban on the applicant’s travel abroad was deleted from the SBCS’s information system.
9. In June 2012 the applicant lodged a claim for damages on account of the allegedly unlawful actions of the SBCS officers and the State bailiffs concerning the incident of 11 April 2012 (see paragraph 5 above). Those civil proceedings were later adjourned pending the outcome of related administrative proceeding against the SBCS officers and the State bailiffs initiated by the applicant in November 2012.
10. On 4 February, 8 October and 5 November 2013 the administrative courts at three levels of jurisdiction rejected the applicant’s administrative complaint as unsubstantiated on the ground that on the date of her attempt to cross the border, that is, on 11 April 2012, neither the SBCS nor the Bailiffs’ Service had yet received a copy of the decision of 29 March 2012.
11. On 11 March, 11 June and 15 October 2014 the civil courts at three levels of jurisdiction rejected the applicant’s claim for damages on the ground that the actions of the SBCS officers and the State bailiffs in respect of the incident of 11 April 2012 had not been unlawful, as had been confirmed by the final court decision (see paragraph 10 above).
THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT
12. The Government submitted that the restriction on the applicant’s freedom of movement had been in accordance with the law and had resulted from her failure to pay back her debt under the court decision. They further noted that the applicant had tried to leave the country less than two weeks after the decision of 29 March 2012 had been adopted and she had not provided the SBCS officers with a copy of that decision. According to the Government, two weeks was too short a period of time to enforce the decision of 29 March 2012 and the domestic courts in two sets of proceedings had not established any illegal actions by the State authorities in the applicant’s case.
13. The applicant considered that the ban on her travelling abroad had been unlawful and unnecessary. She further contended that she had been unlawfully denied passage over the State border as the decision of 5 December 2011 had never entered into force and at the time of her attempt to cross the border, that decision had already been quashed. Lastly, she submitted that it had taken the State authorities thirty-five days (29 March to 3 May 2012) to remove her name from the list of people who were restricted in travelling abroad and she had not been obliged to inform the State authorities about the decision of 29 March 2012 when attempting to cross the border.
14. The Court reiterates its consistent case-law that a ban on travelling abroad constitutes an interference with an applicant’s freedom of movement, and further notes that such a possibility was provided for by law in Ukraine at the material time (see Stetsov v. Ukraine, no. 5170/15, §§ 15 to 17 and 25 to 29, 11 May 2021).
15. In the circumstances of the present case, the applicant complained that the imposition of the ban had been both unlawful and unreasonable and that the belated execution of the decision that lifted the ban had resulted in her being denied travel abroad on 11 April 2012.
16. As to the first aspect, the Court considers that, regardless of any other ground for inadmissibility, such as the actual duration of the ban, which was recorded in the SBCS’s information system for less than five months (6 January to 3 May 2012), the applicant can no longer claim to be a victim of the alleged violation as her appeal to the Lviv Court of Appeal was successful and the ban was lifted by a decision of the same court on 29 March 2012. Accordingly, this complaint is incompatible ratione personae with the provisions of the Convention within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 § 4.
17. As to the allegedly unlawful application of the ban to the applicant, this matter was examined by the administrative courts at three levels of jurisdiction and ended on 5 November 2013, more than six months prior to the lodging of the present application on 14 April 2015. The subsequent civil proceedings for damages cannot be considered an effective remedy in the circumstances of the present case, as they were devoid of any purpose in the light of the administrative courts’ findings that the actions of the SBCS officers and the State bailiffs, in respect of which the applicant claimed damages, had been neither unlawful nor irregular. It follows that this complaint has been lodged out of time and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 2 November 2023.
Martina Keller Lado Chanturia
Deputy Registrar President
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy