Religion – Weltanschauung – Recht [ RWR ]

The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing the following Chamber judgment, which is not final (Avilkina and Others v. Russia [application no. 1585/09]). The case concerned alleged harassment of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The applicants are a religious organisation, the Administrative Centre of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, which is based in St Petersburg, and three Russian nationals who are Jehovah’s Witnesses: Yekaterina Avilkina, who was born in 2006 and lives in Nalchik, Nina Dubinina, who was born in 1959 and lives in Murmansk, and, Valentina Zhukova, who was born in 1956 and lives in the Leningrad region.

Relying on Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) and Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination), the applicants notably complained about disclosure of their medical files to the Russian prosecution authorities following their refusal to have blood transfusions during their stay in public hospitals. In connection with an inquiry into the lawfulness of the applicant organisation’s activities, the prosecuting authorities had instructed all St Petersburg hospitals to report refusals of blood transfusions by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

• Violation of Article 8 as concerned Ms Avilkina and Ms Zhukova.
• Just satisfaction: € 5,000 (non-pecuniary damage) to Ms Avilkina and Ms Zhukova, each, and € 2,522 to Ms Avilkina and € 1,880 to Ms Zhukova for costs and expenses

The complaint brought by Ms Dubinina was declared inadmissible as no disclosure of her medical files had actually taken place, and this was not in dispute by the parties.

The complaints brought by the applicant religious organisation were also declared inadmissible.

As concerned Ms Avilkina and Ms Zhukova, the Court notably found that there had been no pressing social need to disclose confidential medical information on them. In particular, the hospitals where the applicants had been treated had not reported any alleged criminal behaviour on either applicant’s behalf. Moreover, the medical staff could have requested judicial authorisation for Ms Avilkina, two years old at the time, to have a blood transfusion if they had believed her to have been in a life-threatening situation; and, the doctors who reported on Ms Zhukova did not suggest that her refusal to have a blood transfusion was the result of pressure from other Jehova’s Witnesses. The means employed by the prosecutor in conducting the inquiry, involving disclosure of confidential information without any prior warning or opportunity to object, need not have been so oppressive. Therefore the authorities had made no effort to strike a fair balance between, on the one hand, the applicants’ right to respect for their private life and, on the other, the prosecutor’s aim of protecting public health. Nor indeed did they provide any relevant or sufficient reasons to justify the disclosure of such confidential information.

Given that finding of a violation, it considered that there was no need to examine the applicants’ complaints from the standpoint of Article 14.

Press release ECHR 171 (2013) 06/06/2013