Sisojeva and Others v. Latvia (dec.)

Information Note on the Court’s case-law 39

February 2002

Sisojeva and Others v. Latvia (dec.) - 60654/00

Decision 28.2.2002 [Section I]

Article 8

Article 8-1

Respect for family life

Expulsion from Latvia of family of former USSR nationals: admissible

The first two applicants are married and the third and fourth applicants are their daughters. The first and second applicants arrived in Latvia in the late 1960s. The second applicant was stationed there as a member of the Soviet army until he was demobilised in 1989. The third and fourth applicants were born in Latvia. In 1991, after the Soviet Union had broken up and Latvia gained its independence, they became stateless. In 1993 the first three applicants applied to the Latvian Interior Ministry’s Nationality and Immigration Department (“the Department”) to obtain permanent resident status and to be entered in the register of residents. As they were only issued with temporary residence permits, they applied to the courts and obtained a ruling authorising their names to be entered in the register as permanent residents. However, in 1995 the Department discovered that the first three applicants had each been issued with two former Soviet passports in 1992 and were therefore registered as being resident in Russia as well as in Latvia. The Department imposed an administrative fine and applied to have the proceedings reopened, on the ground that the applicants had acted fraudulently. In 1996 the court dealing with the case ordered the removal of their names from the register of residents. On an appeal by the first three applicants the order was set aside and the case remitted to the trial court. In the same year the second and fourth applicants obtained Russian nationality. In 1998 the joint committee for the implementation of the Agreement between the Latvian and Russian Governments on the Social Protection of Retired Members of the Russian Armed Forces and their Families who were resident in Latvia requested the Directorate for Nationality and Migration Affairs (“the Directorate”), which had in the meantime replaced the Department, to issue the applicants with permanent residence permits, pursuant to the agreement. The first-instance court held that the first and third applicants were entitled to apply for passports as “permanent residents without citizenship” and that the second and fourth applicants were entitled to permanent residence permits. An appeal by the Directorate was dismissed; the Directorate subsequently appealed on points of law to the Supreme Court, which quashed the appellate court’s judgment. The court to which the case was referred dismissed the applicants’ applications. They appealed on points of law, but the appeal was dismissed in April 2000 and the Directorate wrote to inform the first, second and fourth applicants that they were required to leave Latvia. As regards the third applicant, who had married a Latvian national in 1993 and had two children of Latvian nationality, the Directorate ruled that she was entitled to apply for a temporary residence permit and stated in July 2001 that she would be issued with a permanent residence permit if she produced the relevant documents; she has refused to do so.

Inadmissible under Article 8 in respect of the third applicant: The third applicant was currently not at any risk of being deported. The Directorate had informed her that it would grant her a permanent residence permit provided she furnished certain documents. She had refused to follow the Directorate’s instructions on the ground that she did not have all the documents requested. There was nothing to suggest that the Directorate would not have exempted her from having to furnish documents which she could not, from an objective viewpoint, have had in her possession. There had been no real justification for her decision to refuse to apply to the Directorate for a residence permit. Having refused of her own free will to follow a course of action which had been suggested by the relevant national authority and would have been likely to redress her complaint, she could not claim to be a victim of a violation of her right to respect for her private and family life. With regard to her complaint concerning the Directorate’s refusal to grant her the status of a “permanent resident without citizenship”, the Convention does not lay down for the Contracting States any given manner for ensuring within their internal law the effective implementation of its provisions. The scope of Article 8 does not extend to affording applicants the right to a particular type of residence permit, provided that the solution proposed by the authorities enables them to exercise, without any interference, their right to respect for their private and family life. In the instant case, a permanent residence permit would have allowed the third applicant to live with her family in Latvia indefinitely and would therefore provide an adequate safeguard of her rights under Article 8: manifestly ill-founded.

Admissible under Article 8 in respect of the first, second and fourth applicants.

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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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