THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF RUSSIA AND OTHERS v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT
1
In the case of the Communist Party of Russia and Others v. Russia,
The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting as a
Chamber composed of:
Nina Vajić, President,
Anatoly Kovler,
Elisabeth Steiner,
Khanlar Hajiyev,
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska,
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos,
Erik Møse, judges,
and Søren Nielsen, Section Registrar,
Having deliberated in private on 29 May 2012,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
PROCEDURE
1. The case originated in application no. 29400/05 against the Russian
Federation lodged with the Court on 1 August 2005 under Article 34 of the
Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
(“the Convention”) by eight applicants: two political parties registred under
the Russian law - the “Communist Party of the Russian Federation”
(hereinafter referred to as “the Communist Party” or “the first applicant”)
and the “Russian Democratic Party “Yabloko” (hereinafter referred to as
“the Yabloko party”, “Yabloko” or “the second applicant”), and six Russian
nationals: Mr Sergey Viktorovich Ivanenko, born in 1959 (“the third
applicant”), Mr Yevgeniy Alekseyevich Kiselyev, born in 1956 (“the fourth
applicant”), Mr Dmitriy Andreyevich Muratov, born in 1961 (“the fifth
applicant”), Mr Vladimir Aleksandrovich Ryzhkov, born in 1966 (“the sixth
applicant”), Mr Vadim Georgiyevich Solovyev, born in 1958 (“the seventh
applicant”), and Ms Irina Mutsuovna Khakamada, born in 1955 (“the eighth
applicant”). The individual applicants were represented before the Court by
Mr Garry Kasparov, a politician and a former world chess champion.
2. The Russian Government (“the Government”) were represented by
Mr G. Matyushkin, the Representative of the Russian Federation at the
European Court of Human Rights.
3. The applicants alleged, in particular, that their right to free elections
guaranteed by Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention had been
breached on account of the biased media coverage of the 2003
parliamentary elections campaign by the major TV stations. The applicants
also complained that, as opposition candidates, they had been discriminated
against and did not have effective remedies, in breach of Articles 13 and 14
of the Convention. They complained, lastly, that their complaints had been