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issued by the Registrar of the Court ECHR 259 (2015) 25.08.2015 Forthcoming judgments and decisions The European Court of Human Rights will be notifying in writing two judgments on Tuesday 1 September 2015 and 28 judgments and / or decisions on Thursday 3 September 2015. Press releases and texts of the judgments and decisions will be available at 10 a.m. (local time) on the Court's Internet site (www.echr.coe.int) Tuesday 1 September 2015 Khlaifia and Others v. Italy (application no. 16483/12) The case concerns the detention in a reception centre in Lampedusa and then on ships anchored in Palermo harbour, and the subsequent repatriation to Tunisia, of irregular migrants who had landed on the Italian coast in 2011 in the context of the events surrounding the "Arab Spring". The applicants, Saber Ben Mohamed Ben Ali Khlaifia, Fakhreddine Ben Brahim Ben Mustapha Tabal and Mohamed Ben Habib Ben Jaber Sfar, are Tunisian nationals, who were born in 1983, 1987 and 1988 respectively. Mr Khlaifia lives in Om Laarass (Tunisia), Mr Tabal and Mr Sfar live in El Mahdia (Tunisia). On 16 and 17 September 2011 they left Tunisia by sea. Their boats were subsequently intercepted by the Italian authorities. The applicants were then escorted to the island of Lampedusa, where they were transferred to a reception centre (Centro di Soccorso e Prima Accoglienza � CSPA) in Contrada Imbriacola. The applicants complain that the centre was overcrowded and unhygienic. On 20 September the CSPA burnt down following a revolt by the migrants. The applicants were taken to a sports ground for the night, from which they managed to escape by eluding the vigilance of the security forces and to reach the village of Lampedusa where they began a protest demonstration with some 1,800 other migrants. The applicants were arrested by the police and finally transferred by plane to Palermo, before being put on two ships anchored in the harbor there where they remained for four days. They were finally deported to Tunisia on 27 and 29 September 2011. Relying on Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights, the applicants complain of their conditions of detention in the reception centre and on the ships. They also allege that their detention was contrary to Articles 5 � 1 (right to liberty and security), 5 � 2 (right to be informed promptly of the reasons for deprivation of liberty) and 5 � 4 (right to a review of the lawfulness of detention). Relying on Article 13 (right to an effective remedy), they also claim that they had no effective domestic remedy by which to complain of a violation of their rights. Lastly, the applicants argue that they were the subject of a collective expulsion, prohibited by Article 4 of Protocol No. 4 (prohibition of collective expulsion of aliens) to the Convention. The Court will give its ruling in writing on the following case, which concerns issues which have already been submitted to the Court. This ruling can be consulted from the day of its delivery on the Court's online database HUDOC. It will not appear in the press release issued on that day. Da v. Turkey (no. 11368/04) Thursday 3 September 2015 M. and M. v. Croatia (no. 10161/13) The applicants, M. and M., a mother and her daughter, are Croatian nationals who were born in 1976 and 2001, respectively, and live in Zadar (Croatia). The case concerns a custody dispute, including allegations of child abuse. M., the mother, married I.M. in 2001 and they had their daughter, M., in the same year. They were granted a divorce in August 2007: the father was awarded custody of their daughter and the mother granted contact rights and ordered to pay maintenance. Following the deterioration in the couple's relationship, a series of inter-connected proceedings ensued involving the family, before the criminal courts, the civil courts (to decide on custody) and the social welfare authorities. In March 2011 the father was indicted by the State Attorney on the charge of bodily injury following an incident of alleged abuse of their daughter on 1 February 2011: the child claims in particular that her father had hit her in the face, squeezed her throat and verbally abused her. These proceedings are currently still pending as the courts in Zadar are waiting to obtain a video-link device with which to hear the child. In April 2011 the mother also filed a criminal complaint against the father accusing him of child abuse, citing the incident on 1 February 2011 as well as the allegation by their daughter that that abuse was not an isolated incident. That criminal complaint was dismissed in January 2012 because no elements of abuse were found. In the meantime, in March 2011 the mother instituted proceedings to reverse the custody order of August 2007, also requesting to be awarded temporary custody of her daughter. The request for temporary custody was refused two months later due to lack of proof that the abuse had taken place. These custody proceedings are currently still pending at first-instance. In the proceedings before the social welfare authorities two child protection measures were ordered � from November 2006 to August 2008 and from September 2011 to March 2014 � so as to monitor the situation in the family and improve communication between the parents, thus preventing the daughter from being drawn into the parents' conflict. Notably, in May 2011 the local social welfare centre submitted a recommendation, stating that the child's situation was complex but that there was nothing to suggest that it was life-threatening. Most recently, in March 2014 a supervising welfare officer corroborated that recommendation, stating that the main problem was unresolved parental conflict and the parents' disregard of their child's needs. During all of the above proceedings the child M. was examined by a series of psychiatrists and psychologists, at the instigation of both the mother as well as the father and by court order in the custody proceedings: they all concluded that the child was traumatised. In particular, the experts appointed in the custody proceedings submitted their combined opinion on the family to the courts in December 2011, finding that both parents had limited parenting capacities and suffered from personality disorders. In their opinion, the child was emotionally traumatised by her parents' separation and conflict but did not find any danger in the child continuing to live with the father. The mother and daughter allege that the Croatian authorities refused to prosecute the child's father for child abuse, thus failing to protect her from further violence by removing her from his home. They rely on Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment) and Article 8 (right to private and family life). S�ro v. Estonia (no. 22588/08) The applicant, Mihhail S�ro, is an Estonian national who was born in 1948 and lives in Tartu (Estonia). The case concerns his complaint about the public disclosure of his past employment, from 1980 to 1991, as a driver for the Estonian branch of the Committee for State Security of the USSR (the KGB). In February 2004 the Estonian Internal Security Service presented Mr S�ro with a notice according to which he had been registered under the national legislation on "Disclosure of Persons who Have Served in or Co-operated with Security Organisations or Intelligence or Counterintelligence Organisations of Armed Forces of States which Have Occupied Estonia" ("the Disclosure Act"). Under the Disclosure Act, which had entered into force in 1995, the persons concerned were to be registered and information about their service or cooperation with the security or intelligence organisations was to be made public unless they had made a confession about it to the Estonian Internal Security Service within a year from the Act's entry into force. The notice received by Mr S�ro stated that an announcement about his past employment would be published in an appendix to the State Gazette. It stated that the person concerned had the right to have access to the documents proving his or her links to the security or intelligence organisations and to contest that information before the Estonian Internal Security Service or the courts. According to Mr S�ro, his request to be shown the material gathered in respect of him was not met. The Estonian Government contested that allegation. In June 2004 the announcement that Mr S�ro had worked for the Committee for State Security as a driver was published in the appendix to the State Gazette, both in its printed version and on the Internet. He subsequently complained about the publication. In particular, in a complaint lodged with the administrative court, he asked for the text published in the Gazette to be declared unlawful. He noted that he had never been accused of or provided with any evidence showing that he had participated in the forceful occupation of the Estonian territory. Moreover, he asserted that he had only worked for the Committee for State Security as a driver and did not know anything about gathering information. He stated that as a result of the publication of the announcement he had lost his work and he had been a victim of groundless accusations by other people. The administrative court dismissed his complaint, noting in particular that he had failed to contest the notice with which he had been presented. That decision was upheld by the appeal court and, in February 2008, the Supreme Court declined to hear Mr S�ro's appeal. Mr S�ro complains that the publication of information about his employment as a driver of the KGB breached his rights under Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life). Berland v. France (no. 42875/10) The applicant, Daniel Berland, is a French national who was born in 1987. He is currently in Sevrey psychiatric hospital. The case concerns the imposition of preventive measures (instituted by a Law of 25 February 2008) in respect of Mr Berland, who had been found to lack criminal responsibility, for murder committed before that law had entered into force. On 12 September 2007 Mr Berland went to his ex-girlfriend's place of work, where he stabbed her and two other people to death. Two days later he was charged on several counts of murder and assault and placed in pre-trial detention. In November 2008 the Investigation Division was requested to give a ruling on whether Mr Berland could be deemed to lack criminal responsibility on grounds of a mental disorder, in accordance with the new procedure instituted by the Law of 25 February 2008. Formerly, the court would make a decision discontinuing the proceedings or acquitting the person on grounds of lack of criminal responsibility. Since the Law of 25 February 2008, however, the court rules as to whether the offence has been made out, declares that the person concerned lacks criminal responsibility and, where appropriate, makes a compulsory hospital order and/or imposes preventive measures. The Investigation Division found that Mr Berland lacked criminal responsibility on the ground that he was suffering from a mental disorder that deprived him of his powers of discernment and control of his actions. It ordered his compulsory admission to hospital and also imposed a twenty-year prohibition on his entering into contact with the civil parties and possessing or carrying a weapon. The applicant appealed to the Court of Cassation on the grounds that the immediate application of the Law of 25 February 2008 had had the effect of imposing a punishment on him to which, on grounds of his mental state, he had not been exposed under the former Law applicable at the time of the commission of the offence. His appeal was dismissed. Relying on Article 7 � 1 (no punishment without law), the applicant complains of the retrospective application of the Law of 25 February 2008. Bekerman v. Liechtenstein (no. 34459/10) The applicant, Michael Bekerman, is a German national who was born in 1955 and lives in Berlin. The case concerns a dispute between Mr Bekerman and his sisters over property rights to more than 14 milllion Swiss francs (the equivalent of approximately 13.2 million euros). The proceedings at issue in this case are part of a large number of proceedings which have been brought before the Liechtenstein courts since 2001 in which Mr Bekerman's sisters claimed that their brother had not been the owner of the assets he had invested in five different foundations, but that the assets had partly belonged to their parents. Notably, in September 2001 the sisters brought an action for payment of 3.3 million euros against one of the foundations and their brother. Following repeated remittals of the case and a stay in the proceedings from October 2009 pending applications brought by Mr Bekerman before the Constitutional Court as well as the European Court of Human Rights, the proceedings were terminated at second instance in April 2014 when an out-ofcourt settlement was reached by the parties. Relying on Article 6 � 1 (right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time), Mr Bekerman complains about the excessive length of the proceedings. S�rvulo & Associados - Sociedade de Advogados, RL v. Portugal (no. 27013/10) The applicants are a firm of lawyers, S�rvulo & Associados � Sociedade de Advogados RL, whose registered office is in Lisbon, and four Portuguese nationals, Teresa Serra, Jos� Lobo Moutinho, Ricardo Guimaraes and Pedro Duro, who are lawyers and a partner in the firm respectively and were born in 1948, 1963, 1975 and 1974 respectively and live in Lisbon (Portugal). The case concerns the search and seizure of IT documents and email messages at a law firm in the context of an investigation into suspected corruption, acquisition of prohibited interest and money laundering on the purchase by the Portuguese Government of two submarines from a German consortium. At the request of the Central Department for Investigations and Prosecutions (DCIAP), the judge on the Central Criminal Investigations Court (TCIC) issued two warrants to search, among other places, the business premises of the lawyers' firm S�rvulo & Associados and to seize any document relevant for the investigation. Prior to the searches, the applicants appealed against them before the President of the Court of Appeal. The TCIC investigating judge allowed the appeal and, without consultation, ordered all the seized documents to be placed under seal and sent to the President of the Court of Appeal for a ruling on the validity of the submission invoking professional secrecy. The Vice-President dismissed the applicants' claim, however, and ordered the documents to be sent to the investigating judge. When viewing the computer records, the TCIC investigating judge ordered the deletion of 850 records containing personal data or data covered by professional secrecy, in accordance with domestic law. The DCIAP subsequently dropped the investigation. Relying on Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life), the applicants complain of the search and seizure of documents and computer records in their business premises. The Court will give its rulings in writing on the following cases, some of which concern issues which have already been submitted to the Court, including excessive length of proceedings. These rulings can be consulted from the day of their delivery on the Court's online database HUDOC. They will not appear in the press release issued on that day. Baracskai v. Hungary (no. 60658/11) Bauko v. Hungary (no. 35440/11) Bogatine Laszlo v. Hungary (no. 27617/10) Bruzsa v. Hungary (no. 1725/11) Dot-Ing Kft v. Hungary (no. 1925/11) Falco-2000 Kft v. Hungary (no. 23143/11) Fodor v. Hungary (no. 132/11) Gubasne Janossy v. Hungary (no. 3594/11) Horvath v. Hungary (no. 22286/11) Jakus v. Hungary (no. 70701/11) Ern Katona v. Hungary (no. 31620/11) Istv�n Katona and Ildik� Katon�n� Pint�r v. Hungary (no. 40997/11) Kecskes and Others v. Hungary (no. 45543/11) Paricsi v. Hungary (no. 49561/11) Rekvenyi v. Hungary (no. 40857/11) Samu v. Hungary (no. 34918/11) Sipocz v. Hungary (no. 58893/13) Szalay v. Hungary (no. 46746/11) Takacs v. Hungary (no. 63676/11) Tarnok v. Hungary (no. 28975/11) Toth v. Hungary (no. 40882/11) Vari v. Hungary (no. 73510/11) Kaya v. Turkey (no. 35266/08) 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 Tracey Turner-Tretz (tel: + 33 3 88 41 35 30) C�line Menu-Lange (tel: + 33 3 90 21 58 77) Nina Salomon (tel: + 33 3 90 21 49 79) 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. 5