Russia to pay €30,000 to a Georgian female victim of 2006 mass deportation

A Georgian woman will receive €30,000 compensation after she was expelled from Russia in 2006 with her four underage children and being heavily pregnant at the time.

The Court stressed Russia seriously violated the fundamental principles of the European Convention of Human Rights with Georgian citizen Lia Shioshvili, referring to a violation of articles about inhumane and degrading treatment, the right to an effective remedy, freedom of movement and prohibition of collective expulsion.

The ECtHR stated Shioshvili was one of thousands of Georgians who were deported from Russia in the autumn of 2006.

The applicants complained that they had been collectively expelled from Russia but then prevented from leaving the country for almost two weeks whilst being exposed to very poor conditions by the Russian authorities," said the ECtHR. 

Though the family did eventually reach Georgia, after arriving the pregnant mother gave birth to a still-born baby,” said the Court verdict about Shioshvili's case. 

The Court found that  Russian authorities had subjected the mother to collective expulsion "without properly assessing” her case, before unlawfully preventing the family from leaving Russia, requiring them to stay with little money in an unfamiliar city in winter, and then failing to accommodate their needs arising from their very vulnerable situation.

Furthermore, the victims had no access to a remedy in relation to these events.

• The 2006 deportation of Georgians from Russia referred to the deaths, unlawful arrests, expulsions and overall mistreatment of several thousand ethnic Georgians by the Russian government in 2006.
• The official Russian position was that the Georgian victims had violated Russia’s Immigration Laws and their treatment in custody and expulsion from the country was standard law enforcement.
• Georgia appealed to the ECtHR and in 2014 the European Court ruled in Georgia's favour, concluding Russia's actions in 2006 violated the European Convention on Human Rights.
• In 2015 Georgia officially requested an excess of $70 million in damages for the victims. Russia has not paid the money.