ECHR says Russia must pay €2-15,000 to Georgians deported from Russia in 2006

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) stated today that Russia must pay from €2,000 to €15,000 to Georgian nationals who were mistreated by the Russian government in the autumn of 2006, when hundreds of Georgian citizens were illegally detained and then deported from Russia.

The court found that 14 of the 19 applicants were unlawfully expelled from Russia.

It also held that 13 of them had faced a breach of their liberty and security rights, faced inhumane and degrading treatment and did not have access to an effective legal remedy.

On January 31, 2019 the court also announced its judgment in the case of Georgia v. Russia, regarding the arrest, detention and collective expulsion of Georgian nationals from Russia in the autumn of 2006.

ECHR held by sixteen votes to one that Russia has to pay Georgia 10,000,000 euros for non-pecuniary damage suffered by a group of at least 1,500 Georgian nationals.

Russia has time until the end of April to meet the demand.

According to Georgian government claims, during that period more than 4,600 expulsion orders were issued by Russian authorities against Georgian nationals.

More than 2,300 were detained and forcibly expelled and the remaining left the country by their own means.

The mass deportation was preceded by the arrest of four Russian officers on charges of espionage by the previous government of Georgia in September 2006. In revenge, later in 2006 large numbers of Georgian nationals were mistreated in Russia.