Inaction of authorities to protect residents from noise coming from a police station. Violation of the right to respect for privacy and residence

JUDGMENT

Yevgeniy Dmitriyev v. Russia 01.12.2020 (app. no.  17840/06)

see here 

SUMMARY

Noise protection. Right to respect for privacy and peaceful enjoyment of home.

The applicant appealed to the national courts for harassment from the emission of various noises due to the installation of a police station and detention center in the basement of his apartment building. Prior to appealing to the Court, he had complained in writing to the competent authorities but his complaint was not considered. Although the national courts ruled that the police station should be relocated, the decision was not enforced. He brought an action for violation of the right to privacy and residence.

The Cound that the day-to-day operations of the police department had directly interfered with the applicant’s rights under Article 8 of the Convention, due to excessive noise and insufficient measures 13 years and either were not effective or were not taken at all.

The ECtHR held that the delay in taking the action which resulted in the applicant transferring his home disturbed the balance between community rights and the right to respect for privacy and residence.

The Court found a violation of Article 8 of the ECHR and awarded a sum of 5,000 euros for non-pecuniary damage.

PROVISION

Article 8

PRINCIPAL FACTS

The applicant, Yevgeniy Borisovich Dmitriyev, is a Russian national who was born in 1956 and lives in
Kostomuksha (Russia).

The case concerned the applicant’s complaint with regard to the noise and other nuisances from a
police station located beneath his flat.

Between February 1995 and May 2008 Mr Dmitriyev lived with his family in an apartment building in
Kostomuksha. The basement floor of the building was occupied by the local police station and by
temporary detention cells.

In 1996 he complained to the local authorities regarding the noise and refuse from the police
station. The head of the local police replied that although the police station was housed in a building
which was not designed for such a purpose, its relocation was not possible. The applicant and his
neighbours brought a collective complaint in 2000, which the authorities never replied to.

The applicant thus lodged a complaint with the courts against the authorities, demanding the police
station’s relocation. In a judgment of September 2000, the domestic court acknowledged a violation of his right “to peaceful rest” and ordered the authorities to find a solution within a year. The applicant’s claim for non-pecuniary damage was dismissed.
The applicant subsequently complained about the non-enforcement of that judgment, but his
complaints were dismissed by the domestic courts, most recently in February 2006.

Also in 2006, the regional consumer-protection agency inspected the building and concluded that
the authorities had failed to comply with sanitary norms and regulations, in particular with regard to
litter. Furthermore, banging could be heard coming from the basement and police vehicle engines
were left running.

The applicant decided to sell his flat, and moved out in early May 2008. In the meantime, in 2007 the
project and budget for the construction of a new police station had been approved. However, no
other information has been submitted to the European Court concerning the progress of the project
or the relocation of the police station.

The applicant alleged in particular that the noise and other nuisances from the police station for
more than 13 years had interfered with his right to respect for private life and home, in breach of
Article 8 of the Convention.

THE DECISION OF THE COURT…

The Court notes that the day-to-day activities of the police station in the present case directly interfered with the applicant’s rights under Article 8 of the Convention and that interference therefore had to be justified in accordance with paragraph 2 of this provision. The State authorities enjoyed a wide margin of appreciation in determining the steps to be taken to solve this problem and to strike the required balance between the competing interests of the public and the applicant and, in any case, they were better placed than an international court to evaluate local needs and conditions . However, the Court considers that the measures ordered by the domestic authorities in the present case were either insufficient, not having been applied in a timely and effective manner, or not taken at all.

In particular, as far back as 1996 the applicant had alerted the authorities to the problems in his residential building caused by the activities of the police station. However, even though the head of the local police department admitted in his reply to the applicant that the police station was housed in a building “not designated for such purpose”, no further action in this connection was taken, the applicant having been informed that the relocation of the police station was not in fact possible. Furthermore, it appears that the authorities failed to react in any way to a collective complaint brought by the applicant and his neighbours in May 2000 .

The Court further refers to the judgment of 20 September 2000, in which the domestic court acknowledged a violation of the applicant’s right to peaceful rest owing to the presence of the police station in his residential building. However, the Court considers that the State authorities took a formalistic approach to interpreting the operative part of that judgment, thereby causing significant delays in the enforcement proceedings, which only prolonged the applicant’s suffering from the noise and other nuisances. In this regard, the Court is mindful of the difficulties and time delays which are typically encountered by the authorities in finding and allocating relevant resources and securing the necessary funding for public projects such as the one in the present case. However, in the applicant’s case it took the authorities almost seven years from the day on which the judgment in the applicant’s favour was issued merely to approve the project and the corresponding budget for the construction of a new police station. The Court has not received any information on the reasons for that delay, on whether any inter-agency work and negotiations were carried out in this respect in the meantime or whether any temporary solution (that is to say the temporary relocation of the police station or temporary municipal housing for the applicant) could have been proposed pending the final resolution of the problem. In the Court’s view, and in the absence of a reasonable explanation from the Government, that process took an unconscionably long time, which rendered the measures taken by the State authorities ineffective and incapable of effectively protecting the applicant’s rights.

Lastly, it appears that a police station was not designated among “institutions of public interest” that could be located in residential buildings. Even if the Government are correct in stating that the placement of the police station in the basement of the applicant’s residential building was lawful at the time of its construction (pursuant to the building regulations of 1971), and assuming that that arrangement was indeed in accordance with the applicable regulations, in 2006 the State authorities were made aware by one of their own organs (regional consumer protection agency) that they were in violation of the sanitary norms and regulations applicable at the time ; yet no real action was taken in order to reduce the nuisances from which the applicant suffered, and the process of relocation of the police station mandated by the Kostomuksha City Court of the Republic of Kareliya as a solution was unduly protracted until 2008. This situation continued for thirteen years in respect of the applicant and resulted in the applicant’s having considered himself obliged to sell his flat in 2008 and move to another flat which he had bought with his own finances.

In these circumstances, the Court considers that the State did not succeed in striking a fair balance between the interest of the local community in benefiting from the protection of public peace and security and the effective implementation of laws by the police force, and the applicant’s effective enjoyment of his right to respect for his private life and his home. There has accordingly been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention.

 


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