KABLIS v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT
21
date. Secondly, its scope was limited to examining the lawfulness of the
proposal to change the event’s location, time or manner of conduct, and did
not include any assessment of its “necessity in a democratic society” and
“proportionality”.
68. The Court notes that, since the facts prompting the applications
joined in Lashmankin and Others arose, a new Code of Administrative
Procedure (“the CAP”) reforming the applicable judicial review procedures
entered into force on 15 September 2015. It provides, in particular, that
complaints against the authorities’ decisions concerning changes to a public
event’s purposes, location, type or the manner of conducting it are to be
examined by a district court, and if possible any appeal is also to be
examined, before the planned date of the event. If the court allows the
complaint, it requires the authority or official to remedy the breach of the
complainant’s rights – in particular by determining the specific steps which
need to be taken – and sets out a time-limit. The judicial decision is subject
to immediate enforcement (see a summary of the domestic law provisions in
Lashmankin and Others, cited above, §§ 289-94 and 297). The Court
considers that those developments in the domestic law have corrected the
first defect identified in Alekseyev (cited above) and Lashmankin and
Others, by henceforth allowing an enforceable judicial decision to be
obtained on the authorities’ refusal to approve a public event’s location,
time or the manner in which it is to be conducted before its planned date.
69. As regards the second defect, the Court notes that the CAP
reproduces in substance the legal provisions on the scope of judicial review
examined and found deficient in Lashmankin and Others. The CAP
provides that the lawfulness of the contested decision or act – understood in
the sense of compliance with the rules of competence, procedure and
contents – remains the sole relevant issue examined on judicial review (see
a summary of the domestic law provisions in Lashmankin and Others, cited
above, §§ 295-96). It follows that the second defect identified in
Lashmankin and Others has not been corrected by the CAP. Indeed, in the
present case the domestic courts did not strike a fair balance between private
and public interests, holding that the applicant had no right to choose the
location of a public event and that the proposal to change the location had
not therefore restricted his right to freedom of assembly. That finding is in
clear contradiction with the standards established by the Court under
Article 11 (see Lashmankin and Others, cited above, §§ 405-08).
70. The Court takes note of the Supreme Court’s Ruling of 26 June
2018, instructing the domestic courts that when examining under the CAP
complaints against the authorities’ decisions concerning changes to a public
event’s purposes, location, type or the manner in which it was to be
conducted, they had to assess whether the interference by a public authority
with the right to freedom of public assembly had been lawful, necessary and
proportionate to a legitimate aim, and in particular whether the reasons for