Case Summary and Outcome

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) held that Russia violated the right to freedom of expression by obstructing or denying access to historical archives on gross human rights violations. The five applicants—researchers, a descendant of a victim of Soviet state-sanctioned atrocities, and an NGO founded to document political repression—complained that in their attempts to access records about past human rights violations, they faced restrictions (a ban on making copies or taking photographs of the documents, for example), or the information was outright denied by Russian authorities. Russian courts even found one of the applicants guilty of unlawfully obtaining “personal and family secrets” while gathering information on past human rights violations. The ECtHR held that the pursuit of historical truth was integral to freedom of expression and that the applicants’ research constituted a matter of public interest in contemporary Russia. The Court concluded that Russian authorities had neither pursued any “pressing social need” nor presented “relevant and sufficient” reasons to restrict the applicants’ right to receive information. Additionally, the Court argued that the authorities’ restrictions on access to the historical records about the victims and perpetrators of Soviet political repression undermined a socially significant public discussion. 

Facts

Suprun

In 2007, Mikhail Suprun, a history scholar based in Arkhangelsk, Russia, signed a contract to analyze thousands of archival records and publish a book titled “Ethnic Russian Germans, Victims of Repression in the 1940s.” The contract restricted the use of the archival data to “humanitarian and academic purposes” only: its scope included “up to 40,000 records from Russian archives relating to victims of internment, repression and deportation who were civilian German subjects, former USSR citizens of German ethnic origin, German Wehrmacht officers, German civil servants, and ethnic Germans with nationality of other Eastern European states.” [para. 5-6] Having processed over 8,000 documents, Suprun worked on a memorial book in 2007-08. 

In September 2009, based on an inquiry by the Federal Security Service (FSB), a regional Investigations Committee opened a criminal case against Suprun. The scholar faced accusations of selling the personal data of USSR citizens without their consent. In December 2011, a District Court held that the documents in question included “personal and family secrets.” [para. 11] It found Suprun guilty of unlawfully obtaining such secrets and sending them abroad without the affected parties’ consent. Nevertheless, the court exempted him from criminal responsibility due to the expired statute of limitations. Suprun appealed the decision. In February 2012, the Arkhangelsk Regional Court rejected the appeal. 

Dupuy

Marie Dupuy is the great-niece of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. Wallenberg is internationally known for saving the lives of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during World War II. Soviet military counterintelligence detained Wallengerg in January 1945 and brought him to Moscow for interrogation. The Soviet authorities kept denying Wallengerg had ever been in their custody until 1957, when they eventually released a statement that said Wallengerg had died due to a heart attack in the Lubyanka Prison in Moscow on July 17, 1947. 

Thanks to an investigation by a joint Russian-Swedish Working Group that took almost a decade, Wallengerg’s detention in two Moscow prisons in 1945-47 was confirmed in 2001—with evidence that he had likely died a violent death in a state security prison. In 2009, with Dupuy’s authorization, independent researchers filed a list of questions to the FSB’s Central Archive regarding the Lubyanka Prison, which unearthed records contradicting the previously stated date of Wallenberg’s death. The FSB refused to provide a copy of Wallenberg’s interrogation on July 23, 1947, without stating the reason for its denial. In March 2017, Dupuy submitted three requests to the FSB’s Central Archive requiring unredacted copies of archival records. In April 2017, Dupuy received a response. According to the FSB, access could not be granted because the records had “already been made available to independent researchers.” [para. 20]

In July 2017, Dupuy challenged the rejection before a district court in Moscow. It dismissed her claim arguing that the records Dupuy had requested also concerned other individuals, unrelated to her or Wallenberg. Dupuy appealed. In February 2018, the Moscow City Court refused to consider the appeal. In November 2018, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dismissed the case. 

Kulakova, Startseva, and Kondrakhina

Yevgenia Kulakova, Olga Startseva, and Yelena Kondrakhina worked with the Iofe Foundation, a research center, contributing to its online archive of historical materials on Soviet repression. Said materials were otherwise only available in person at the FSB archives. In March and April 2019, Kulakova, Startseva, and Kondrakhina reviewed files at the FSB’s archives center in St. Petersburg. With only two hours allocated per review session and a prohibition on photographing or copying the materials, their task was impossible to complete. 

The researchers challenged the FSB’s copying and photographing restrictions before the Dzerzhinskiy District Court of St. Petersburg. In September 2019, the Court denied the claim, citing the Rehabilitation Act, which stated that “the procedure for obtaining copies from archival criminal cases did not extend this right to individuals other than the rehabilitated and their relatives.” [para. 29] The researchers’ appeal was dismissed by the St. Petersburg City Court in January 2020.

Prudovskiy

Sergey Prudovskiy, a historian and author, worked on a book about “ethnic operations”—targeted persecutions against foreigners, certain ethnic groups, and Russians abroad—undertaken by the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), the Soviet Union’s Ministry of Interior. Prudovskiy specifically focused on the “Harbin Operation,” a campaign that targeted former Chinese Eastern Railway workers and ended with more than 19,000 death sentences. 

• Accessing the identities of NKVD officers

In 2018, Prudovskiy requested access to the file of Tatyana Kulik, who was arrested in 1937, sentenced to death, and executed. Moscow’s FSB granted him access to the copies of original documents. Names, positions, and signatures of the NKVD officers and prosecutors were redacted. The FSB justified the redactions “referring to an unpublished 2014 conclusion by the Interdepartmental Commission on the Protection of State Secrets, which extended the confidentiality period of certain information from 1917-1991 by thirty years, until 2044.” [para. 34]

Prudovskiy challenged the classification of the information before a court. In June 2020, the Moscow City Court rejected Prudovskiy’s claim, finding that the requested information disclosed the “identities of counterintelligence personnel and their methods,” [para. 36] protected under the List of Information Classified as State Secrets. Prudovskiy appealed. In October 2020, the First Appellate Court affirmed the lower court’s decision. In April 2021, the Second Court of Cassation dismissed the case. In July 2021, the Supreme Court dismissed it too.

• Acquiring copies of archival documents

In 2019, Prudovskiy requested copies of prisoners’ transfer records and execution reports—in color, to be used as illustrations in his book—or to be allowed to take photos of the documents. The FSB’s Central Archive permitted only viewing the documents. 

Before the Khoroshevsky District Court in Moscow, Prudovskiy argued that his right to access information had been violated. In June 2020, the court dismissed the claim. To it, only relatives of the rehabilitated persons could access the copies, while no law provided for “the right to independently copy archival documents.” [para. 38] In September 2020, the Moscow City Court upheld the lower court’s ruling. Prudovskiy’s subsequent appeals— to the Second Cassation Court and the Supreme Court—were dismissed in December 2020 and June 2021 respectively. 

• Access to information about a non-rehabilitated NKVD officer

In December 2019, Prudovskiy requested access to the files of several NKVD officers, including a non-rehabilitated one. The FSB’s Central Archive denied the request, citing the Joint Order by the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the FSB, no. 375/584/352 of 25 July 2006.

Before the Khoroshevsky District Court in Moscow, Prudovskiy argued the cited order did not apply. In July 2020, the court sided with the FSB. Prudovskiy’s subsequent appeals were dismissed by the Moscow City Court in December 2020, the Second Cassation Court in June 2021, and the Supreme Court in September 2021. 

International Memorial

International Memorial is an NGO founded in the last years of the Soviet Union to document political repression. In October 2022, the organization was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. 

• Acquiring copies of the NKVD troika protocols

One of International Memorial’s projects consisted of documenting the 1937-38 Great Terror in the Republic of Karelia. The researchers planned to create a website that would display records of the repression, including copies of protocols compiled by NKVD troikas—groups of three officials who indicted and sentenced people to execution or imprisonment without trial. NKVD troikas were part of the Great Terror targeting “anti-Soviet elements” in 1937-38. In 2019, International Memorial requested access to those protocols and permission to photograph the documents or make copies. The FSB allowed review-only access to the documents, arguing that the right to obtain copies was reserved 1) for the rehabilitated persons and their families and 2) “for purposes associated with the social protection.” [para. 45] 

International Memorial filed a complaint with the Petrozavodsk City Court of Karelia. In June 2020, the court sided with the FSB. The organization appealed to the Supreme Court of Karelia, which “recognised International Memorial’s right to access documents relating to political repression but held that this right did not include the making of copies.” [para. 47] The Third Cassation Court and the Supreme Court of Russia dismissed further appeals in April 2021 and November 2021 respectively. 

• Information on prosecutors who participated in NKVD troikas

In 1989, the Presidium of the USSR’s Supreme Soviet declared the decisions of NKVD troikas during the 1937-38 Great Terror unconstitutional. After that, International Memorial began putting together a directory of all troika officers. In July 2019, International Memorial, in cooperation with other organizations, filed a request to the General Prosecutor’s Office to obtain details—names, dates of birth, education, etc.—about eleven former prosecutors and troika members. Citing the Personal Data Act—and the prohibition on revealing personal data without consent—the Prosecutor’s Office rejected the request. 

International Memorial challenged the rejection before the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow. In July 2020, the court dismissed the complaint, referring to the protection of private information, and refused to recognize the public interest aspect “in disclosing information about the prosecutors because their membership in an illegal extrajudicial body, which issued verdicts including death sentences, was not conclusive evidence of crimes against justice.” [para. 52] The Moscow City Court upheld the decision in March 2021. The Second Cassation Court dismissed an appeal in August 2021. The Supreme Court of Russia did the same in February 2022.

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All the individuals mentioned above and International Memorial submitted applications before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), arguing that their right to receive information had been breached. The Court examined the applications jointly and determined that, despite Russia’s withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) on September 16, 2022, it had jurisdiction to decide on the matter because the facts took place before the withdrawal date.

Decision Overview

The European Court of Human Rights issued a decision on the matter on 18 June 2024. It had to analyze whether Russia violated the applicants’ right to freedom of expression by denying or obstructing access to information regarding gross human rights violations that took place in the Soviet Union. 

Applicants’ arguments

Suprun argued that his conviction had no sufficient legal basis because Russian law failed to define “private and family secrets.” Additionally, he submitted that the information he gathered did not expose the private lives of the individuals in question; rather, it concerned their experiences with public authorities and political repression, and thus it related to a matter of general public interest. Suprun stressed he had been prosecuted for his academic work and that “exerted a chilling effect on other researchers.” [para. 79]

Dupuy argued there was a strong indication Wallenberg had died due to the direct involvement of Soviet authorities—something she intended to clarify by accessing the archival documents. Dupuy also argued, emphasizing the right to historical truth, that Wallenberg’s relatives and the international community “had a justified interest in the full discourse of events leading to his death in Soviet custody.” [para. 80]

Kulakova, Startseva, and Kondrakhina said that the FSB’s restrictions on copying archival documents were unnecessary and hindered their work significantly. They also contended that the FSB failed to justify the imposed restrictions which showed “an intent to diminish trust in the public archive and restrict public discussion on significant social issues.” [para. 81]

Prudovskiy and International Memorial argued that Russia’s domestic laws, including the Personal Data Act and the State Secrets Act, did not justify denying the information requests to the FSB. To them, 1) the requested employment data about Soviet prosecutors did not constitute personal secrets, and 2) Russian law prohibited the classification of information about historical violations of rights. They emphasized that their historical research suffered significantly due to the restrictions, “especially in a context where State authorities were seeking to discredit and suppress dissenting historical narratives about the Soviet past.” [para. 82] 

Government Submission

The government’s submission only referred to the case of Suprun. It argued that the “private life” term was too broad to be defined exhaustively and that only the individuals in question could decide which aspects of their private lives needed confidentiality. Russia also argued that the authorities had acted to stop Suprun’s unlawful publication of information, considering he did not receive consent from the individuals’ heirs.

Interventions

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDN) and ARTICLE 19 submitted interventions referring to the “right to truth” in international law and the States’ ensuing obligation to provide access to records of past human rights violations. FIDN argued that Russian authorities had embarked on the glorification of some Soviet narratives while obscuring the crimes of the Soviet regime. ARTICLE 19 emphasized that the right to truth, initially defined in the context of “forced disappearances, torture, and extrajudicial killings,” [para. 85] fell within the scope of freedom of expression because the right to receive information was at its core. Moreover, it highlighted that by disseminating historical facts to the public and analyzing past events, researchers preserved memory and prevented the recurrence of atrocities.

***

The Court began its analysis by reiterating that Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights does not automatically grant individuals the right to receive information held by public authorities. Citing Magyar Helsinki Bizottság v. Hungary, the Court stressed, however, that this right—and the public authorities’ obligation to impart information—“may emerge in instances where access to information is instrumental for an individual’s exercise of their right to freedom of expression.” [para. 71] To determine whether Article 10 could be applied, the Court outlined the following criteria for consideration as per the case cited above: “(a) the purpose of the information request; (b) the nature of the information being sought; (c) the role of the applicant; and (d) the readiness and availability of the information in question.” [para. 72] 

Addressing each point, the ECtHR held that a) by researching and disseminating facts about past political repression, the applicants contributed to “an essential component of public debate;” [para. 73] b) the nature of the information sought by the applicants served to increase transparency about human rights violations at a controversial time in history—the case of Wallenberg in particular demonstrated the presence of a strong public interest; and c) the role of each applicant was “motivated by legitimate, scholarly, and public interest reasons:” [para. 75] International Memorial functioned as a “social watchdog;” Suprun and Prudovskiy worked as professional historians; Kulakova, Startseva, and Kondrakhina worked as research associates; and Dupuy was a relative of a historical figure allegedly subjected to an extrajudicial execution. Citing Animal Defenders International v. United Kingdom, the ECtHR reiterated the high level of protection granted to NGOs fulfilling a public watchdog role. The Court also mentioned Šeks v. Croatia, to underscore the role of scholars and authors whose work addresses a public concern. Regarding the fourth criterion, the ECtHR held that d) the information sought by the applicants was “ready and available.” [para. 76]

In light of this, the Court found that Article 10 of the Convention was applicable. 

Referring to Yuriy Chumak v. Ukraine and Šeks, the Court held that the authorities’ decision to deny access to the archival records interfered with the applicants’ right to receive information, as enshrined in the ECHR. Moreover, quoting Karastelev and Others v. Russia, the Court stressed that such interference was not limited to the decisions that denied access to the information. In Suprun’s case, for example, the ECtHR considered that the criminal proceedings against him had prevented him from publishing a book about victims of political repression.

Citing Kenedi v. Hungary, the Court also found an interference in the case of a historian whose unrestricted access to documents was arbitrarily denied and who could not publish anything labeled as a State secret. On this point, the ECtHR argued that “the exercise of the right to freedom of expression [was] impossible without the ability to impart information accurately and comprehensively.” [para. 90] Following this reasoning, it held that the researchers’ requests to copy or photograph documents, if granted, would have increased accuracy, transparency, and reliability in the dissemination of historical records. Hence, the Court said that the prohibition on copying and photographing archival records was an interference with the applicants’ right to receive information.

Subsequently, the ECtHR stressed that the pursuit of historical truth was “an integral part of freedom of expression.” [para. 91] Since the Soviet regime remained the subject of academic and public debates, the Court held it was a matter of public interest in contemporary Russia and still shaped people’s opinions about the past. To underscore this point the ECtHR referred to Perinçek v. Switzerland and Chauvy and Others v. France. Citing Ungváry v. Hungary, the Court emphasized that those matters merited “the high level of protection guaranteed to political speech.” [para. 92]

The ECtHR did not deem it necessary to analyze Russia’s domestic legal framework in detail and just assumed that the interference had the “legitimate aims of protecting national security and the reputation of rights of others.” [para. 92] The Court noted that the legal reasons for the restrictions on access to information differed in the applicants’ cases. Despite that, it considered “that at the heart of the applicants’ complaint is the characterisation of the information they requested from the authorities as [personal data or official secrets].”

Regarding the first characterization, the Court contrasted the current case with Társaság a Szabadságjogokért v. Hungary, Centre for Democracy and the Rule of Law, and Saure v. Germany (no. 2), noting the main distinction: the cited cases concerned living individuals. The passage of time in the current case, however, allowed the ECtHR to assume the individuals in question were no longer alive. Considering this, it opined that “the private life of a deceased person [did] not continue after death,” [para. 96],  and that the rights outlined in Article 8 of the ECHR (privacy) were personal and non-transferable (Jäggi v. Switzerland and Dzhugashvili v. Russia). Thus, the Court stated that access to information about NKVD officers and state prosecutors, professionally active in the 1930-40s, did not violate their privacy. 

Regarding Article 8’s protection of the heirs’ feelings, the Court compared the present case with Éditions Plon v. France, M.L. v. Slovakia, Hachette Filipacchi Associés v. France, and Putistin v. Ukraine. In doing so, it found that the information requested by the applicants did not seek to expose any intimate aspects of the victims’ and perpetrators’ lives; rather, it concerned their public or professional lives: “The information collected by Mr Suprun (see paragraph 5 above) and requested by Mr Prudovskiy and International Memorial (see paragraphs 34, 40 and 49 above) included the basic biographical elements, employment records, and details of extrajudicial proceedings.” [para. 99] Referring again to Magyar Helsinki Bizottság, the Court emphasized that “the former officials’ professional activities cannot be considered to be a private matter.” [para. 99] Furthermore, in Suprun’s case, the ECtHR highlighted that the heirs of the victims in question stated that the historian’s work had not affected the reputation of their ancestors—a fact that the domestic courts ignored. Hence, the Court concluded that Article 8 of the ECHR did not apply to the case.

About the second characterization (that the information requested constituted state secrets), the ECtHR noted that the NKVD troika members had not conducted any counterintelligence or operational searches. To the Court, they were prosecutors involved in fabricating criminal cases more than 80 years ago. Thus, it held that it was “implausible” that the disclosure of their basic details—name, rank, etc.—“could undermine present-day national security.”  [para. 101] The ECtHR underscored that the NKVD troikas’ extrajudicial operations had been declared unconstitutional in the 1980s, which, in this case, nullified the “pressing social need” to preserve secrecy around the perpetrators in present-day Russia. 

The Court also considered that the search for historical truth warranted “a high level of protection”, and that “[i]nterference with historical research into this subject [State-sanctioned human rights violations] inevitably convey[ed] the impression that the aim was to provide immunity to those responsible.” [para. 102] Comparing the present case to Magyar Helsinki Bizottság and Saure, the ECtHR stressed that, instead of limiting their analysis to applicable domestic legal provisions, domestic courts should have carried out a thorough examination of the matter following the ECtHR’s case law. 

The Court concluded that by interfering with the applicants’ right to receive information, Russian authorities had neither pursued any “pressing social need” nor presented any “relevant and sufficient” reasons that justified the interference. 

Finally, the Court considered the prohibition on obtaining copies of archival documents imposed on Prudovskiy, Kulakova, and others. The ECtHR referred to the domestic courts’ reliance on a Russian law that did not explicitly allow anyone other than rehabilitated persons, or their relatives, to copy documents. Citing Társaság a Szabadságjogokért, the Court argued that “the law cannot permit arbitrary restrictions which may become a form of indirect censorship.” [para. 105] While it acknowledged that certain circumstances can lead to the denial of copies of archival materials, as per the Tromsø Convention, the Court held that “a mere reference to a legislative gap [was] insufficient to justify interference with the right to freedom of expression.” [para. 105] 

The Court could not identify any “pressing social need” that could have justified the aforementioned restriction. It also reiterated that the archival records were “ready and available,” and that the authorities’ permission to a view-only access undermined the reliability and accessibility of the researchers’ work. Consequently, the ECtHR concluded that the interference impeded a public discussion on an issue of social significance.

In light of the arguments presented above, the Court held that Russia violated the applicants’ right to freedom of expression as outlined by Article 10 of the ECHR. The ECtHR awarded Suprun, Prudovskiy, and International Memorial EUR 7,500 in non-pecuniary damages. The other applicants submitted they would be satisfied with the recognition of a violation. Thus, the Court did not award any damages to them.