Housing problem raised before the UN

Lawyer Aleksey Laptev appealed to the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) in order to defend the rights of Lidia Kazorina from Murmansk, who lost her only home. Mr. Laptev does not agree with the legal right of the state to deprive citizens of their only housing and is sure that this area of ​​Russian legislation is contrary to international standards. After Russia’s withdrawal from the Council of Europe and the refusal to enforce the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), human rights activists are looking for other international ways to protect the rights and freedoms of Russians. However, experts are not sure that the UNHRC can become a worthy alternative to the ECtHR.

The confidant of the lawyer Alexei Laptev is trying to defend the right to the only housing seized for debts. In 2015, a 55-year-old resident of Murmansk, Lidia Kazorina, entered into a loan agreement with a certain Mrs. Plugina in the amount of 350 thousand rubles through an intermediary. at 72% per annum. The mortgage was the only – mortgage – apartment of Mrs. Kazorina, in which her son and husband also lived. According to Alexei Laptev, his trustee never received the promised money. The woman decided that in this case the contract was invalid, and therefore did not go to court. But in September 2019, Mrs. Plugina filed a lawsuit for more than 7 million rubles. At the trial, Lidia Kazorina explained that she had not received the money; the lender failed to provide a receipt for the transfer of funds. The court sided with Mrs. Kazorina. However, in March 2020, the Murmansk Regional Court partially granted the appeal and recovered from the defendant a debt in the amount of 2 million 106 thousand rubles. The only apartment of Mrs. Kazorina was put up for auction. “In the absence of direct evidence of receipt of funds under a loan agreement, the court arbitrarily deprived her of her property and housing,” comments Alexei Laptev.

Russian legislation protects the right of ownership to the only housing of Russians. It is impossible to seize for debts a dwelling that is the only one suitable for permanent residence of the debtor and his family. However, the exception is mortgage housing, including the only one. It can be put up for auction not only in connection with the delay in payment of a mortgage loan, but also for any other loan taken on the security of mortgaged property.

The pensioner could not challenge this decision either in the regional or in the court of cassation. The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation left the complaint without consideration due to the expiration of the appeal period. The ECtHR declared the complaint inadmissible also for formal reasons.

In June 2022, the court granted the request of the prosecutor’s office to evict Mrs. Kazorina and her son from the apartment sold at auction. Her husband was able to keep his residence permit, since he did not participate in the privatization of the apartment. However, in May 2023, the court decided to evict Ms. Kazorina’s husband as well. After that, Aleksey Laptev turned to the UN HRC. The lawyer demands that the eviction of the Kazorins be recognized as illegal and contrary to international law. “UN human rights bodies have repeatedly recognized eviction without the provision of alternative housing as a violation of Art. 17 (right to respect for the home) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Art. 11 (right to adequate housing) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,” he explained.

Mr. Laptev asks the HRC to apply provisional measures in the case in the form of a ban on the applicants’ eviction. Otherwise, a 63-year-old disabled woman and a retired husband may end up on the street, he points out. Their son owns a one-room apartment of 30 sq. m. “Most likely, the trustee and her husband will not stay on the street: the three of them will live in a odnushka,” Alexei Laptev explained.

“Between the right to housing and the right to property, the law often gives priority to the right to property as a material good that stimulates economic development,” Mr. Laptev argues. “However, international law prohibits eviction that leads to homelessness.” He points out that in 2022, more than 25,000 eviction lawsuits were filed in the courts. “In what cases we are talking about the only housing, it is difficult to say. It could be thousands of citizens,” the lawyer believes. “Unfortunately, it is not necessary to expect improvements in this area without making changes to the current legislation.”

If the HRC satisfies the complaint and recognizes the eviction from the only housing as illegal, Lidia Kazorina will have a chance to get a review of the case under new circumstances: in 2012, the Constitutional Court considered the decisions of the UN committees an acceptable circumstance for reviewing the case. According to Tatyana Glushkova, a lawyer at the Memorial Human Rights Center (established by members of the foreign agent NGO, which was previously liquidated by a court decision), UN bodies are now the only international “quasi-judicial” bodies to which complaints against Russia can be filed. However, the lawyer emphasizes, these bodies can hardly be considered an alternative to the ECtHR: “When Russia was a member of the Council of Europe, the decision of the ECtHR, which found a violation of the European Convention, was the basis for revision. With regard to the decisions of the UN committees, there are no such indications in the procedural codes.” In addition, the UN committees, she recalls, do not award specific amounts, they can only indicate that the state should pay the victim some kind of “compensation corresponding to the violation”.

Emilia Gabdullina