Latvia was found guilty of violating Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Eleven of the 17 judges voted that the state had violated Slivenko's right to respect for private life and home.
According to the ruling, Tatyana Slivenko lived in Latvia for 40 years after her parents brought her to the country as a one-month-old child. She grew up in that country, studied, and got married. Her daughter, Karina Slivenko, was born in Latvia and lived there until she was 18. “The applicants were part of Latvian society and posed no threat to national security, because they were part of the family of Tatyana's father, who retired in 1986,” the court ruling says. And the Latvian authorities had no grounds for deporting them.
However, the Russian-speaking family still failed to win the case completely. In particular, the court concluded that there was no need to separately examine the applicants' complaints of a violation of Article 14 of the convention, which prohibits discrimination. The court in Strasbourg also found no violations of the right to liberty and security guaranteed by paragraph 1 of Article 5 of the convention.
According to the human rights court's decision, Latvia must pay each of the applicants 10,000 euros in compensation. As Slivenko's lawyer Alexander Asnis reports, the plaintiffs are fully satisfied with the outcome of the case, including the amount of compensation, despite the fact that the moral damages in the lawsuit were estimated at $400,000. “Based on the practice of the human rights court, 10,000 euros per applicant is an unprecedentedly large payment in such cases,” he said. According to the lawyer, the Strasbourg court's decision allows the Slivenkos not only to receive monetary compensation, but also to raise the question of returning to Latvia and “granting them a legal status that will allow them to permanently and freely live and study in that country.” As the lawyer explained, the Russian-speaking family can also demand, on the basis of the court decision, the return of their municipal apartment in Riga from which the Slivenkos were evicted. Moreover, if the Latvian authorities heed Strasbourg, not only Tatyana and Karina Slivenko, but also the head of the family, Nikolai Slivenko, will be able to move to Riga. “If they receive permanent residence permits, he must be given a temporary one,” the lawyer said.
However, according to Alexander Asnis, after the court decision was announced, the Latvian representative to the EU on human rights behaved incorrectly, saying that “Latvia agrees to pay monetary compensation, and everything else does not follow from the decision.” Nevertheless, Latvia, which is joining the European Union, will have to show respect for Europe's legal institution.
“Human rights court decisions, besides setting the amount of compensation, are of a recommendatory nature - Strasbourg cannot force respondents to comply with the ruling,” the lawyer said. “But countries try to correct the violations noted by the court. Failure to comply with a ruling is fraught with the most serious consequences, especially for a young EU member.”
Tatyana Slivenko's husband Nikolai (a former lieutenant colonel of the USSR armed forces) was refused in 1994 the residence permit that his family had. Two years after several lawsuits filed by Tatyana Slivenko in Latvia, the authorities confiscated all her documents, searched her Riga apartment, and then ordered her to leave the country. The Slivenko family was forced to move to Kursk, where the Russian Defence Ministry allocated them a two-room apartment. Now they cannot even come to Latvia for a short time to visit their elderly parents.
The Slivenkos filed their complaint with Strasbourg back in 1999. The outcome of the case became clear about a year before the current decision of the judges - in January 2002, the European Court declared the plaintiff's claims against the Republic of Latvia “partially admissible.” But the judges then did not rush to a verdict - the parties were given three months for reconciliation. True, the Slivenkos were unable to reach an agreement with the Latvian authorities, no settlement agreement was signed, and the case began to be examined on the merits in Strasbourg.
The positive decision in the Slivenko case - the first of 20 similar complaints filed by representatives of Latvia's Russian-speaking population against that country - will also affect the fate of the other plaintiffs. According to human rights organizations, another 20,000 people could file such lawsuits in the near future.