CATAN AND OTHERS v. MOLDOVA AND RUSSIA JUDGMENT
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159. As with Article 8, the Russian Government declined to comment on
the issues under Article 14.
160. In the light of its conclusions under Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 to
the Convention, the Court does not consider it necessary separately to
examine the complaint under Article 14.
V. APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION
161. Article 41 of the Convention provides:
“If the Court finds that there has been a violation of the Convention or the Protocols
thereto, and if the internal law of the High Contracting Party concerned allows only
partial reparation to be made, the Court shall, if necessary, afford just satisfaction to
the injured party.”
162. The applicants claimed damages for non-pecuniary harm and legal
costs and expenses.
A. Damage
163. The applicants sought compensation for the depression, anxiety,
humiliation and post-traumatic stress disorder they had suffered as a direct
result of the violation of their Convention rights. They submitted that such
non-pecuniary harm could not be compensated solely by the finding of a
violation. In Sampanis and Others v. Greece, no. 32526/05, 5 June 2008 the
Court awarded EUR 6,000 to each applicant who had experienced anxiety,
humiliation and depression as a result of his or her child being denied
enrolment in school on ethnic grounds. The applicants submitted that, on
this basis, they were each entitled to EUR 6,000 as a minimum in respect of
the harm they had suffered as a direct result of the denial of an effective
education due to their ethnicity and language. In addition, the applicants
submitted that, when considering applications for damages from large
umbers of victims, the Court should adopt an approach similar to that of the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which used an approximate
estimation of damage suffered based on the particular combinations of facts
for each class of claimant (see, for example, González et al (the “Cotton
fields case”) v. Mexico, judgment of 16 November 2009). Thus, the
applicants claimed that each applicant who was a minor at the time of the
violations was entitled to an additional EUR 3,000 in respect of
non-pecuniary damage. The applicant parents who were arrested,
intimidated, threatened with dismissal from their jobs and deprivation of
parental rights each claimed an additional EUR 5,000. All the applicants
who scored over the diagnostic threshold in the Hopkins Symptom
Checklist-25 for severe depression and anxiety claimed an additional
EUR 5,000 each.