IV. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 3 OF THE CONVENTION

143. The applicants relied on Article 3 of the Convention, submitting that, owing to a lack of information about the fate of their relatives and the Russian authorities’ dismissive approach to their requests for information, they had endured inhuman and degrading treatment in breach of Article 3 of the Convention. Article 3 reads:

“No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

A. The parties’ submissions

1. The Russian Government

144. The Government put forward three arguments. Firstly, they pointed out that the right to rehabilitation fell outside the scope of the proceedings before the Court. Secondly, they stressed that the Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office had provided the applicants with all the relevant information about their relatives that was available in criminal case no. 159. Thirdly, they maintained that the mere fact that the Russian authorities’ replies to the applicants had been different did not amount to inhuman or degrading treatment and that the Russian authorities had had no intention of causing suffering to the applicants by providing the information contained in their replies.

145. The Government also contrasted the instant case with the case of Gongadze v. Ukraine (no. 34056/02, ECHR 2005‑XI). The Gongadze case concerned the disappearance of the applicant’s husband and for more than five years the applicant received contradictory information from the Ukrainian authorities about the identification of his body which gave her hope that her husband might be alive. As regards the instant case, the Government claimed that the death of the applicants’ relatives had not been established and their bodies had not been discovered or identified. The applicants themselves had been neither witnesses or participants to the “events”.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 829