003-5103518-6291355

issued by the Registrar of the Court ECHR 188 (2015) 10.06.2015 Forthcoming Grand Chamber judgment in a case concerning complaints by Azerbaijani refugees, displaced during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict The European Court of Human Rights will be delivering a Grand Chamber judgment in the case of Chiragov and Others v. Armenia (application no. 13216/05) at a public hearing on 16 June 2015 at 4:00 p.m. in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg. The case concerns the complaints by Azerbaijani refugees that they have been unable to return to their homes and properties in the district of Lachin, from where they were forced to flee in 1992 during the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Principal facts and complaints The applicants Elkhan Chiragov, Adishirin Chiragov, Ramiz Gebrayilov, Akif Hasanof, Fekhreddin Pashayev and Qaraca Gabrayilov are all Azerbaijani nationals. Mr Qaraca Gabrayilov died in 2005; his son has pursued the application on his behalf. All but Mr Hasanof now live in Baku. The applicants submit that they are Azerbaijani Kurds who lived in the district of Lachin, in Azerbaijan. They state that they are unable to return to their homes and property there, after having been forced to leave in 1992 during the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. At the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast ("the NKAO") was an autonomous province landlocked within the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic ("the Azerbaijan SSR"). There was no common border between the NKAO and the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic ("the Armenian SSR"), which were separated by Azerbaijani territory, at the shortest distance by the district of Lachin, including a strip of land less than ten kilometres wide, referred to as the "Lachin corridor". In 1989 the NKAO had a population of approximately 77% ethnic Armenians and 22% ethnic Azeris. In the district of Lachin, the majority of the population were Kurds and Azeris; only 5-6% were Armenians. Armed hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh started in 1988. In September 1991 � shortly after Azerbaijan had declared its independence from the Soviet Union � the Regional Council of the NKAO announced the establishment of the "Nagorno-Karabakh Republic" ("NKR"), consisting of the territory of the NKAO and the Shahumyan district of Azerbaijan. Following a referendum in December 1991 � boycotted by the Azeri population � in which 99.9% of those participating voted in favour of the secession of the NKR from Azerbaijan, the "NKR" reaffirmed its independence from Azerbaijan in January 1992. After that, the conflict gradually escalated into full-scale war. By the end of 1993, ethnic Armenian forces had gained control over almost the entire territory of the former NKAO as well as seven adjacent Azerbaijani regions. The conflict resulted in hundreds of thousands of internally-displaced people and refugees on both sides. In May 1994 the parties to the conflict signed a cease-fire agreement, which holds to this day. Negotiations for a peaceful solution have been carried out under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). However, no final political settlement of the conflict has so far been reached. The self-proclaimed independence of the "NKR" has not been recognised by any state or international organisation. The applicants complain that the loss of all control over, and of all potential to use, sell, bequeath, mortgage, develop and enjoy their properties in Lachin amounts to a continuing violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) to the European Convention on Human Rights. They also complain that their inability to return to the district of Lachin constitutes a continuing violation of Article 8 (right to respect for home and private and family life) of the Convention. Furthermore, they complain that no effective remedies were available to them in respect of their complaints, in breach of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy). Finally, they submit that, in relation to the other complaints, they were discriminated against on the basis of their ethnic origin and religious affiliation, in violation of Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination). Procedure The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 6 April 2005. On 9 March 2010 the Chamber to which the case had been assigned relinquished jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber1. The Azerbaijani Government intervened as a third party. A first Grand Chamber hearing in the case was held on 15 September 2010. In a decision of 14 December 2011, the Court declared the complaints admissible. First, it held that the fact that negotiations within the OSCE about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict � concerning the resettlement of refugees and internally displaced persons as well as compensation issues � were ongoing did not prevent the Court from examining the applicants' complaints. It rejected the Armenian Government's objection that the application fell outside the Court's temporal jurisdiction, finding that the applicants' lack of access to their homes and properties had to be considered a continuing situation which the Court could examine as from 26 April 2002, the date on which Armenia had ratified the Convention. The Court also dismissed the Armenian Government's objection that the application had been submitted out of time. At the same time, the Court joined to the merits of the case the following questions: whether the Government of Armenia had effective control over the area concerned; whether the applicants had provided sufficient evidence of their identity and of their ownership of the property in question, and whether they could thus claim to be victims of the alleged violations of the Convention; and, whether effective remedies existed at national level which should have been used by the applicants. A second Grand Chamber hearing on the merits of the case was held on 22 January 2014. This press release is a document produced by the Registry. It does not bind the Court. Decisions, judgments and further information about the Court can be found on www.echr.coe.int. To receive the Court's press releases, please subscribe here: www.echr.coe.int/RSS/en or follow us on Twitter @ECHRpress. Press contacts [email protected] | tel: +33 3 90 21 42 08 Nina Salomon (tel: + 33 3 90 21 49 79) Tracey Turner-Tretz (tel: + 33 3 88 41 35 30) C�line Menu-Lange (tel: + 33 3 90 21 58 77) Denis Lambert (tel: + 33 3 90 21 41 09) The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. 1 Under Article 30 of the European Convention on Human Rights, "Where a case pending before a Chamber raises a serious question affecting the interpretation of the Convention or the Protocols thereto, or where the resolution of a question before the Chamber might have a result inconsistent with a judgment previously delivered by the Court, the Chamber may, at any time before it has rendered its judgment, relinquish jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber, unless one of the parties to the case objects". 2