Transcript European Court of Human Rights Case Rantsev v. Cyprus and

European Court of Human Rights
Case Rantsev v. Cyprus and Russia
By Azuolas Bagdonas
1. Who?
• Mr. Nikolay Rantsev, is a Russian
national who was born in 1938
and lives in Svetlogorsk, Russia
• He is the father of Ms Oxana
Rantseva, also a Russian national,
born in 1980, who died in strange
and unestablished circumstances
having fallen from a window of a
private home in Cyprus in March
2001
2. What happened?
• In March 2001, Oxana Rantseva started working as an
artiste in a cabaret in Cyprus
• She stopped working 3 days later and said she was going
back to Russia
• the cabaret manager found her and took her to a room on
the sixth floor of an apartment block in the evening
• In the morning Ms Rantseva was found dead in the street
below the apartment
• The Cypriot police investigated
• The Cypriot court decided that Ms Rantseva died in strange
circumstances resembling an accident, in an attempt to
escape from the apartment in which she was a guest  no
evidence that there was a crime
3. Which violation claimed?
• Mr Rantsev complained against Cyprus:
– about the investigation into the circumstances of the death of his
daughter
– about the failure of the Cypriot police to take measures to protect her
while she was still alive
– about the failure of the Cypriot authorities to take steps to punish
those responsible for her death and ill-treatment
– About failure of the Russian authorities to prevent human trafficking
• Rantsev claimed that there had been a violation of the following
articles:
– Articles 2 + 3 = right to life + prohibition of torture and inhuman and
degrading treatment
– Articles 4, 5 and 8  Prohibition of slavery and forced labor + Right to
liberty and security + Right to respect for private and family life
4. What did the national court say?
• The Cypriot authorities made a unilateral
declaration acknowledging that they had
violated Articles 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the
Convention, offering to pay pecuniary and
non-pecuniary damages to the applicant
• Russian authorities said that they had no
responsibility for events taking place in Cyprus
5. What was the judgment of the
ECHR?
• Russia violated Article 4 (prohibition of slavery)  The
ECHR said that trafficking started in Russia and that Russia
failed to investigate it (e.g. who recruited Rantseva and
what methods were used)
• Cyprus violated article 2 (right to life) because it did not
investigate the death
• Cyprus violated article 4 (prohibition of slavery) because
the laws are inadequate to prevent trafficking and because
police did not protect Rantseva against trafficking
• Cyprus violated article 5 (right to liberty) because detention
in the apartment had been arbitrary and unlawful
5. What was the judgment of the
ECHR?
• Court ordered Russia to pay Rantseva’s father
a moral compensation of EUR 2,000
• Court ordered Cyprus to pay a moral
compensation of EUR 40,000 and to cover the
expenses of EUR 3,150