European Court finds application "Umaeva versus Russia" eligible

On December 11, 2007, the European Court for Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg recognized the complaint of the resident of Chechnya "Umaeva versus Russia" to be eligible.

Lipatu Umaeva, a resident of the Staropromyslovskiy District of Grozny, applied to the European court in 2003. Her interests were represented by the lawyers of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" and the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC, London).

In 2003, Lipatu Umaeva addressed the European Court for Human Rights on violation of her right to life, right not to be exposed to inhuman and degrading treatment and right to have access to efficient legal defence, and also on violation of her right to have her dwelling and property respected and the right to fair trial.

The European Court has recognized the applicant's complaint to be eligible in relation to a threat to her life at shelling a peaceful march column and lack of effective investigation of this crime.

At the same time, the ECtHR has found the complaint non-eligible in relation to her destroyed dwelling and proceeding on compensation of the harm from destruction, since the applicant has not exhausted all domestic accessible means of legal defence. The Court believes that she had an opportunity to sue the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Defence of Russia at the location of the respondents, like she had been advised by the Leninskiy District Court of the Chechen Republic.