Cyberviolence against a woman by her partner! Insufficient investigation and non-protection of the victim. Violation of privacy
JUDGMENT
Volodina v. Russia 14.09.2021 (no. 2) (app. no. 40419/19)
SUMMARY
The case concerned the applicant’s allegation that the Russian authorities had failed to protect her
against the repeated cyberviolence of her partner who had created fake profiles in her name,
published her intimate photos, tracked her movements and sent her death threats via social media.
The Court found in particular that, despite having the legal tools available to prosecute the
applicant’s partner, the authorities had not carried out an effective investigation and had not
considered at any point in time what could and should have been done to protect the applicant from
recurrent online harassment. The authorities had therefore failed to comply with their obligations
under Article 8 to protect the applicant from severe abuse.
These findings mirror those of a previous judgment concerning the same applicant, Volodina
v. Russia (no. 41261/17), in which the European Court held that the Russian authorities’ response to
the repeated acts of domestic violence had been manifestly inadequate.
PROVISION
Article 8
PRINCIPAL FACTS
The applicant, Valeriya Igorevna Volodina, is a Russian national who was born in 1985. She changed
her name in 2018, and her new name and address are not disclosed for security reasons.
After Ms Volodina separated from her partner, S., an Azerbaijani national, he began assaulting and
harassing her. The failure to protect her from the acts of violence was the subject of the applicant’s
first case with the European Court, Volodina v. Russia.
In addition to assaults, Ms Volodina suffered acts of online harassment. In June 2016 she complained
to the police that S. had used her name, personal details and nude photographs of her to create fake
social-media profiles, adding classmates of their son and his schoolteacher as friends. She also
reported to the police her fake profiles on Instagram and on a Russian social network, the discovery
of a GPS tracker device in the lining of her bag, and death threats sent to her via social media.
The authorities initially declined to go any further with the complaints, citing lack of territorial
jurisdiction or lack of an offence. A criminal investigation was eventually opened in March 2018.
In October 2020, the police closed the case under the statute of limitation, even though they found
it established that it had been S. who had published nude photos of the applicant – found on his
phone – without her consent.
No criminal investigations were opened into the discovery of a GPS tracker or death threats. The
police did not investigate the online death threats at all, concluding that no offence had been
committed because the threats had not been “real”.
Relying on Article 8 (right to respect for private life), the applicant complained that the authorities
had failed to protect her against repeated online violence and to effectively investigate her
allegations. She criticised in particular the fact that Russian law does not explicitly target the
manifestations that domestic violence can take in cyberspace, such as online stalking or
impersonation.
THE DECISION OF THE COURT…
The Court reiterated that States were obliged to establish and apply effectively a system for
punishing all forms of domestic violence, whether occurring offline or online, and to provide sufficient safeguards for the victims.
Firstly, the Court was satisfied that Russian law contained both civil-law mechanisms and criminallaw provisions for the protection of an individual’s private life. The authorities had thus been
equipped with the legal tools to investigate the cyberviolence of which the applicant had been a
victim.
However, Russian law did not provide victims of domestic violence with any measure of protection,
such as restraining or protection orders. A newly created order to prohibit certain conduct did not
offer adequate protection to victims in the applicant’s situation. Such orders only become available
after sufficient evidence to charge the perpetrator had been gathered but, in the applicant’s case,
the investigation against S. had not progressed beyond the stage of suspicion. The Court found that
the response of the Russian authorities to the known risk of recurrent violence had been manifestly
inadequate and that, through their inaction and failure to take measures of deterrence, they had
allowed S. to continue threatening, harassing and assaulting the applicant.
Lastly, the manner in which the Russian authorities had handled the investigation, in particular an
initial two-year delay in opening a criminal case and the slow pace of the proceedings leading to the
prosecution eventually becoming time-barred, showed that they had failed to ensure that the
perpetrator of acts of cyberviolence be brought to justice. The perpetrator’s ensuing impunity had
put in doubt the ability of the State machinery to produce a sufficiently deterrent effect to protect
women from cyberviolence.
Just satisfaction (Article 41)
The Court held that Russia was to pay the applicant 7,500 euros (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary
damage and EUR 5,386.46 in respect of costs and expenses.
