Communicated on 13 May 2015
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 29582/09
YAKUT REPUBLICAN TRADE-UNION FEDERATION
against Russia
lodged on 28 March 2009
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, the Yakut Republican Trade-Union Federation is a non-governmental organisation set up in Russia’s Yakutia region in 1991. It is represented before the Court by its chairman Mr Aleksandr Loginov.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
The Federal State Establishment “Penal Colony no. 7” is a high-security Siberian prison located in Yakutsk, 4,900 km east of Moscow. Its inmates work in a lumber mill or at prison maintenance and operation jobs. The workers felt disadvantaged as the prison administration purportedly set their wages below the statutory minimum, held back disability benefits, exposed them to overwork, neglected industrial safety, and concealed accidents.
To better the working conditions, the inmates decided to form a trade union. In February 2006 twenty of them convened and voted the creation of the union and its adhesion to the applicant federation. The applicant federation admitted the union as a member.
Although the prison administration did not mind the unionisation, in June 2007 the republican prosecutor’s office found it illegal: qualified by the Code of Corrections as a means of correction, prison labour was not a professional activity, and in the eyes of the law inmates shared no industrial or trade interests. Besides, argued the prosecutor, the Law on Public Associations forbade convicts from founding or joining associations. The prosecutor ordered the applicant to expel the union. The applicant defied the order mainly by citing the supremacy of international law. It said that the ILO Convention on the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise 1948 shielded unions from government obstruction.
The prosecutor’s office asked a court to invalidate the union’s formation but lost. On 21 January 2008 the Yakutsk Town Court found that the ban on prisoner associations entered into force after the union had been set up.
In August 2008 the prosecutor’s office applied to the court again, this time asking to order the applicant to expel the union. On 23 September 2008 the town court applied the ban and held for the prosecutor. On 10 November 2008 the Supreme Court of Yakutia upheld the judgment. On 10 December 2008 the applicant complied with the judgment and removed the prisoners’ trade union from its ranks.
B. Relevant domestic law
The Constitution, Article 30:
“Everyone has the right to association, including the right to form trade unions for the protection of his interests. The freedom of activity of public associations is guaranteed.”
The Law on Public Associations 1995, section 19, as in force from 18 April 2006:
“May not be a founder or member of an association [...] a person detained after conviction by a court.”
The Code of Corrections 1997, Article 19 § 2:
“The principal means for correcting convicts comprise ... socially useful work ....”
COMPLAINT
The applicant refers to Articles 6 and 11 of of the Convention to complain about the statutory ban on the unionisation of inmates.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has the applicant exhausted all effective domestic remedies, as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, was the Constitutional Court an effective remedy within the meaning of this provision?
2. Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to freedom of association, in particular its right to form a trade union, contrary to Article 11 of the Convention?
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