Title	CASE OF N.M. v. RUSSIA (Application no. 29343/18)
Publisher	Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights
Publication Date	3 December 2019
Country	Kazakhstan | Russian Federation | Uzbekistan
Topics	Freedom from torture, inhuman and degrading treatment
Citation / Document Symbol	ECLI:CE:ECHR:2019:1203JUD002934318
Cite as	CASE OF N.M. v. RUSSIA (Application no. 29343/18), ECLI:CE:ECHR:2019:1203JUD002934318, Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights, 3 December 2019, available at: https://www.refworld.org/cases,ECHR,5dea66ec4.html [accessed 3 October 2022]
Comments	The Court applied the relevant general principles established in its jurisprudence in the case of F.G. v. Sweden (no. 43611/11) and in the context of removals from Russia to Central Asian States in Mamazhonov v. Russia (no. 17239/13): a) When examining the existence of substantial grounds for believing that the applicant faces a real risk of ill-treatment, the Court recalled that individuals whose extradition was sought by the Uzbek authorities on charges of religiously or politically motivated crimes constituted vulnerable groups facing a real risk of treatment contrary to Article 3 of the Convention in the event of their removal to Uzbekistan. The Court found that the applicant was accused of religiously motivated crimes on the basis of documents from the Uzbek authorities. It further considered that the Russian authorities had at their disposal sufficiently substantiated complaints pointing to a real risk of ill-treatment (§15-18). b) With respect to the duty to assess claims of a real risk of ill-treatment through reliance on sufficient relevant material, the Court concluded that the Russian authorities failed to assess the applicant’s claim adequately. The Court paid particular attention to the fact that domestic authorities did not carry out a rigorous scrutiny of the applicant’s and to the national courts’ simplistic rejections of the applicant’s claims (§19-21). c) On the existence of a real risk of ill-treatment or danger to life in their countries of origin, the Court reiterated that it has consistently concluded that the removal of an applicant charged with religiously motivated crimes in Uzbekistan exposes that applicant to a real risk of ill-treatment there (see for example: T.M. and Others v. Russia, no. 31189/15) (§22-23).
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