On 9 June 2022, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) published a judgment in the case of A.A.A. and others v. Hungary, concerning an Iraqi family of six that was confined between March and August 2017 at the Hungarian transit zone of Tompa, at the border with Serbia. The family members requested asylum, but the applications were rejected. These decisions were appealed and subsequently rejected again. During their confinement in the Tompa transit zone, the applicants stayed in a container in the family section. The mother suffered from mental health and medical problems, and the father was allegedly a torture survivor who required (but did not receive) psychiatric or psychological treatment in the transit zone. They complained there had been a violation of Article 3, Article 8 and Article 5(1) and (4) of the Convention, as well as a breach of Article 13. The Court found that Article 3 had been violated due to the conditions to which the four children were subjected. In contrast, the Court ruled that the conditions did not meet the severity threshold required for Article 3 regarding the adult applicants. Moreover, the complaint about inadequate medical attention in the transit zone for the mother and the lack of psychological support for the father was found unsubstantiated. Concerning the deprivation of liberty, the Court found a violation of Articles 5(1) and (4) of the Convention by comparing the confinement of the family in the transit zone to R.R. and Others and acknowledging that the case facts were similar enough to consider the applicants’ detention was not lawful in the case at hand either. For these violations, the Court awarded the applicant family a compensation of 12,500 EUR for non-pecuniary damages.

On 14 June 2022, the ECtHR published a judgment in the case of L.B. v. Lithuania, concerning a Russian national of Chechen origin who had come to Lithuania in 2001 and was granted subsidiary protection on several occasions between 2004 and 2008, given the ongoing war and widespread human rights violations in the Chechen Republic. He renewed his temporary residence permit during five years and in 2008 he obtained a permanent residence permit. Earlier, in 2004, he was also issued an alien’s passport. Each time this expired he was issued with a new one until 2018. The Lithuanian authorities then rejected his requests for issuing such a passport finding that he had not met one of the three conditions under the relevant law: that he had been unable, for objective reasons, to obtain a valid passport or equivalent travel document from the authorities of his country of origin. The applicant unsuccessfully challenged this decision before the domestic courts and subsequently complained before the Court. The Court acknowledged that the applicant’s right to leave Lithuania under Article 2 of Prot. 4 to the ECHR would not be practical and effective without him obtaining some type of travel document. The national authorities had previously accepted that the applicant could not safely return to his country of origin and the Court found that a foreign national who has been granted subsidiary protection and who states that they are afraid to contact the authorities of their country of origin as a beneficiary of subsidiary protection should be considered to have an objective reason for not being able to obtain a travel document from those authorities. The Court considered that the refusal to issue the applicant with an alien’s passport had not been justified nor proportionate, as it was based on formalistic grounds without an adequate examination of the situation in his country of origin and without a proper assessment of the accessibility for the applicant to obtain a Russian passport. The Court found a violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR.

On 12 July 2022, in a chamber judgment in the case of Kotlyar v. Russia, the ECtHR found a violation of Art. 7(1) for the retroactive application of criminal law for deliberate false registration of immigrants at applicant’s property. The applicant is a Russian national and a human-rights defender who provides legal advice and social assistance to migrants from other republics of the former Soviet Union. The case concerns the applicant’s prosecution under a law introduced in January 2014 for having falsely registered her flat as the place of residence of hundreds of foreign nationals – who were not actually living there – so that they could apply for Russian citizenship. The applicant complained that she was tried for acts that did not constitute a criminal offence at the time at which they had been committed. She argued that her actions were a form of civil disobedience to raise awareness about the urgent problem of housing people who resettled in Russia. She was convicted twice, while another set of proceedings against her were discontinued.