Expulsion of missionaries of the United Church from Russia with illegal procedures, constitutes a multiple violation of the ECHR
JUDGMENT
Corley and others v. Russia 23.11.2021 (app. no. 292/06 and 43490/06)
SUMMARY
Protection of aliens legally residing in another state from arbitrary deportation decisions. Freedom of religion and prohibition of all inhuman and degrading treatment.
The two applicants are missionaries of the United Church. He is an American and a Japanese citizen respectively. The present case concerns their deportation from Russia due to their religious beliefs and their missionary activity in the host country. As regards the first applicant, the authorities have deliberately and arbitrarily falsified the details of the expiry date of the residence permit during the Christmas holidays, so that no suspension can be requested. He was expelled from the country immediately. The second applicant was charged with breach of the change of address regulation within three days and was immediately expelled for signing a waiver against the decision. Pursuant to Article 1 of the 7th Protocol (procedural safeguards on the deportation of aliens) and Article 9 (freedom of thought, conscience and religion) of the European Convention, they complained that the measures against them had not been lawfully enforced. They also claimed under Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life). In addition, the second applicant lodged a complaint under Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 (freedom of movement) and Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment). Based on Article 5 §§ 1 (f) and 5 (right to liberty and security) he claimed that he had been detained unlawfully but had no right to compensation under Russian law relating to unlawful imprisonment.
The ECtHR taking into account the manner in which they were deported, in particular the involvement of the security services in the deportation proceedings, but also the fact that the authorities themselves created the grounds for deportation by falsifying the expiry date of the first applicant’s residence permit and his illegal arrest. The applicant considered that there had been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 7.
It then held that because they had not been involved in any activity other than missionary work, their forced departure constituted an interference with their right to freedom of religion because their expulsions were intended to stifle the spread of the teachings of the United Church in Russia and violation of their right to family life because both applicants were forced to leave their families for some time.
With regard to the second applicant, the ECtHR held that his arrest and detention under degrading conditions, as well as his inability to seek compensation, constituted a violation of Articles 3 and 5 §1 and 5 of the ECHR.
Finally, it considered that the arrest of the second applicant, for failing to declare the change in his residence within the prescribed period, constituted a violation of freedom of movement.
PROVISIONS
Article 3
Article 5
Article 8
Article 9
Article 1 of the 7th Additional Protocol
Article 2 of the 4rth Additional Protocol
PRINCIPAL FACTS
The applicants are two missionaries of the Unification Church, a religious movement founded by
Rev. Sun Myung Moon, and their families. Mr John Corley, his wife Renée and their son Nikolai, born
in 1953, 1952 and 1995 respectively, are American nationals and now live in Irvington, NY, USA.
Mr Shuji Igarashi, his wife Toshiko and their daughter Hanae, are Japanese nationals, born in 1946,
1947 and 1982 respectively, and now live in Kawasaki, Japan. Since 1990 and 1993 respectively, Mr Corley and Mr Igarashi had lived in Russia with their families and worked as missionaries.
In early 2006, they were both suddenly expelled from Russia ostensibly for having violated residence
regulations.
At that time, Mr Igarashi was the highest-ranking official in the Unification Church of Eurasia, and
Mr Corley’s supervisor. Both had been supervisors of Patrick Nolan, the applicant in Nolan and K.
v. Russia, (no. 2512/04) of 12 February 2009).
In the case of Mr Corley, State officials showed up at his home towards the end of December 2005
and demanded his identity documents purportedly to check his registration with the Passport and
Visa Department. His passport was given back to him three days later with a new leave to remain
which expired before the end of winter holidays. Due to the closure of the courts during the
holidays, no judge to consider his application for suspensive relief could be found. A day after his
leave to remain expired, he was presented with an administrative offence report, a judgment finding
him guilty as charged, and a fine. He was ordered to leave the country immediately and was
escorted to the airport by uniformed officials, where he boarded a flight to Latvia. His application for
judicial review filed from abroad was unsuccessful.
In the case of Mr Igarashi, in February 2006 he went to a rural location near Yekaterinburg to
participate in a religious seminar. Less than three days later, on a Sunday morning, six officers from
the local police and security services arrived at the seminar venue to check his passport and charged
him with failure to register his stay with the local police. A local court was opened especially for him
on a Sunday; it convicted Mr Igarashi that same morning and issued a fine and an order for his
expulsion from Russia. Pending expulsion, he was to be detained. Mr Igarashi was detained in
Yekaterinburg detention centre, in allegedly overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. Police officials
offered him release in exchange for his waiver of his right to appeal and acceptance to pay for
expulsion expenses. Mr Igarashi signed the waiver and was taken directly to the airport. He was
accompanied on the flight to Moscow by two officers of the Federal Migration Service and left
Russia the same day.
Appeal against the judgment which Mr Igarashi lodged from Japan was successful; an appeal court
found that Mr Igarashi had not committed any administrative offence.
Relying on Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 (procedural safeguards relating to expulsion of aliens) and
Article 9 (freedom of thought, conscience and religion) of the European Convention, Mr Corley and
Mr Igarashi complained that the measures against them had not been carried out lawfully, that they
had not benefited from the requisite safeguards and that their enforced departure from Russia had
been part of a pattern of expulsions of the Unification Church’s missionaries aimed at stifling the
spread of Unification Church in Russia. They also alleged under Article 8 (right to respect for private
and family life) that their enforced departure from Russia had interfered with their family lives.
In addition, Mr Igarashi complained under Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 (freedom of movement) and
Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of his heavy-handed arrest, the unseemly
haste of his same-day conviction and imprisonment and the use of the degrading conditions of his
detention to bargain for his agreement to drop any appeal and to immediately leave Russia. Relying
on Article 5 §§ 1 (f) and 5 (right to liberty and security) he alleged that he had been unlawfully
detained but had no right under Russian law to compensation for wrongful imprisonment.
THE DECISION OF THE COURT…
Article 1 of Protocol no. 7
The Court noted that the domestic authorities had used a stratagem to get hold of Mr Corley’s valid
leave to remain. His identity documents had been taken away from him on the pretence of checking
them; he had not been given advance warning of the decision to replace his leave to remain and he
had been unable to ascertain the reasons for that decision or to submit reasons against it. The
Migration Service’s decision replacing his leave to stay with a shorter one did not cite a specific legal
basis for that measure. Moreover, Mr Corley’s new leave to remain was issued one day after the
Russian courts had closed for the winter holidays. It was set to expire before they would reopen for
business after the holidays. By timing the new leave to stay to coincide with a holiday period, the
Russian authorities had consciously created a situation in which Mr Corley’s application for review
could not be considered before his expulsion. He had therefore been denied a realistic possibility of
exercising his rights under Article 1 § 1 of Protocol No. 7.
Mr Igarashi had likewise been induced into believing that the police merely intended to check his
documents. He could not have anticipated that he would be charged with a breach of residence
regulations before the grace period for registering a new residence had expired. The unusually fast
pace of events and the suddenness with which Mr Igarashi had been charged, tried, convicted,
served with an expulsion order and placed in detention pending expulsion in the course of just one
Sunday morning indicated that the authorities had sought to prevent him from making any effective
use of the remedies theoretically available to him.
The waiver of the right to appeal that he had been made to sign was invalid under Russian law and
was not once mentioned in the ensuing appeal proceedings. The circumstances in which a court
convicted and imprisoned Mr Igarashi for an offence he had not committed, and in which his liberty
was leveraged in order to expedite his departure, disclosed the authorities’ determination to make
him leave Russia by all means possible with little concern for legal formalities. As with Mr Corley, the
authorities had deliberately created a situation in which Mr Igarashi had been denied the possibility
of exercising his rights under Article 1 § 1 of Protocol No. 7 prior to his expulsion.
There had therefore been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 in respect of both of them.
Article 2 of Protocol no. 4
Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 guarantees the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose their
residence to everyone who is “lawfully within the territory of a State”. The Court noted that the
appeal court had quashed Mr Igarashi’s conviction on the grounds that he could not be sanctioned
for failing to register a change of his place of stay prior to the expiry of the statutory three-day timelimit. It had thus been acknowledged that that measure had not been legal. There had therefore been a violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 in respect of Mr Igarashi.
Article 9
Mr Corley and Mr Igarashi had come to Russia in 1990 and 1993, respectively, at the invitation of the
Unification Church, a religious association officially registered in Russia. Both of them were
compelled to leave Russia in 2006 on allegedly formal grounds which were not ostensibly related to
their religious work. Nevertheless, there were indications that their enforced departure was
connected with the exercise of their right to freedom of religion and was aimed at preventing the
spreading of the teaching of the Unification Church in Russia.
As there was nothing to indicate that either of them held any employment or position outside the
Unification Church or engaged in anything other than religious work, the Court concluded that the
reasons for their enforced departure were connected with that work. The pattern of involvement of
the security services in the enforced departures of members of the Unification Church from Russia
suggested that those measures had been taken for the purpose of repressing the exercise of their
right to freedom of religion and stifling the spreading of the Church’s teaching in Russia. As the
interests of national security could not serve as a justification for any measures interfering with the
right to freedom of religion, and as the Government had not put forward any justification for the
involvement of security services in what was claimed to be an ordinary breach of residence
regulations, the Court found that there had been a violation of Article 9 of the Convention.
Article 8
Following their enforced departure from Russia, Mr Corley and Mr Igarashi were separated from
their wives and children, who had not been able to follow them immediately due to their community
ties in Russia. The measures forcing them to leave amounted to interference not just with their right
to respect for family life but also that of their family members. As the Court had found that their
expulsion had been carried out in breach of domestic law, such an interference had not been
justified. There had therefore been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention in respect of all the
applicants.
Article 3
The Court has already found that overnight detention in police cells designed for short stays only
and lacking the amenities indispensable for prolonged detention discloses a violation of Article 3 of
the Convention. Following a summary trial, Mr Igarashi had been placed in conditions in which no
provision had been made for meeting his basic needs. The cell was cold, sleeping arrangements were
rudimentary, and basic personal hygiene items were lacking. He had therefore been subjected to
“degrading treatment” in breach of Article 3 of the Convention.
Article 5
The Court considered that Mr Igarashi’s detention had been arbitrary and violated the lawfulness
requirement under Article 5 § 1 of the Convention. However, he had had no enforceable right to
compensation because of the restrictive wording of the relevant provisions of the Civil Code. There
had therefore been a violation of Article 5 §§ 1 and 5 of the Convention in his respect.
Just satisfaction (Article 41)
The Court held that Russia was to pay Mr Igarashi 1,270 euros (EUR) in respect of pecuniary damage,
EUR 10,000 to Mr Corley and EUR 15,000 to Mr Igarashi in respect of non-pecuniary damage and
EUR 4,000 to the applicants jointly in respect of costs and expenses
