OOO FLAVUS AND OTHERS v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT (f) Conclusion 44. Having regard to the above analysis, the Court concludes that the interference resulting from the application of the procedure under section 15.3 of the Information Act had excessive and arbitrary effects and that the Russian legislation did not afford the applicants the degree of protection from abuse to which they were entitled by the rule of law in a democratic society. In so far as the blocking measures targeted the entire online media beyond the content originally identified as unlawful, the interference had no justification under paragraph 2 of Article 10. It did not pursue any legitimate aim and was not necessary in a democratic society. 45. There has accordingly been a violation of Article 10 of the Convention. III. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 13 OF THE CONVENTION TAKEN IN CONJUNCTION WITH ARTICLE 10 46. The Court considers that the issue of whether the applicants had an effective domestic remedy for their grievances relating to the blocking of access to their websites should be examined under Article 13 of the Convention, taken in conjunction with Article 10. Article 13 reads as follows: “Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in [the] Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.” A. Admissibility 47. The Court considers that this complaint is neither manifestly ill-founded nor inadmissible on any other grounds listed in Article 35 of the Convention. It must therefore be declared admissible. B. Merits 48. The Government submitted that the applicants did have domestic remedies at their disposal, such as a cassation appeal, but had not used them. 49. The applicants submitted that the Russian legislation did not require the Prosecutor General to assess the impact of his blocking requests on the rights of the parties involved. Neither the website owners nor a court were involved at any stage of the blocking procedure, and there was no assessment of the various interests involved or the risks of blocking access to legitimate content. In their ex post facto review of the blocking measure, the Russian courts had limited the scope of their inquiry to verifying whether Roskomnadzor had formally complied with the procedure for issuing blocking orders. They had not assessed the need for having the 16