The decision by the European Court was handed down by a Chamber formed by Paul Lemmens acting as President, and judges Georges Ravarani, María Elósegui, Darian Pavli, Anja Seibert-Fohr, and Peeter Roosma (judge Dmitry Dedov issued a dissenting opinion). For the majority of the Court, the core of the matter had to do with whether the conviction questioned by the plaintiffs amounted to an undue interference with the applicants’ right to freedom of expression. In order to assess that question, the Court analyzed whether the conviction was prescribed by law, pursued a legitimate aim and was “necessary in a democratic society” [para. 25].

The Court recalled that in previous cases—-such as e.g. Hashman v. the United Kingdom—-the Court found that disruptive protests, involving some sort of breach of the public order, were found to constitute expressions of opinion protected under Article 10 [para. 26]. Therefore, the Court considered that there was indeed an interference with their right to freedom of expression.
On the first step of the three-prong test used by the European Court to assess the legitimacy of said interference, the judges considered that the arrest and subsequent conviction was indeed prescribed by law “in particular, by Article 91 of the Code of Criminal Procedure … and Articles 213 and 167 of the Criminal Code” [para. 29]. Regarding the need for the interference to pursue one or more legitimate aims, the judges found that the procedure against the applicants “pursued the legitimate aims of preventing disorder and protecting the rights of others” [para. 30].

In particular, the Court found that the police were acting within their bounds when it arrested and removed protestors from the government building. But the Court also recalled that in order to assess whether a criminal conviction was indeed “necessary in a democratic society”, the reasons offered by national courts to sustain the conviction must be “relevant and sufficient” to justify such a strong interference. And the Court considered that the Russian courts had failed to meet said standard. Indeed, the European judges held that the District Court failed to distinguish the specific acts that each individual committed during the protest [para. 33]. It also found that the District Court had also considered the content and form of the anti-government message conveyed by the protestors, and that—-thus—-it had penalised them for that specific political message. For the Court, the District Court “showed a degree of animus towards the applicants’ political views that is difficult to reconcile with the Article 10 duty on national authorities to remain neutral with respect to legitimate political viewpoints and not to dissuade others from criticising government policies altogether” [para. 34].

For that reason, the Court considered that the reasons offered by the State to sustain the applicant’s conviction were not “relevant and sufficient”, and thus judged that the rights protected by Article 10 had been violated.