Eviction of a former military service member and alleged violations of fair trial and family rights in Kazakhstan

Facts

The author is a Kazakh national and former military serviceman who was provided with a state-owned service apartment in 2004 after being discharged due to illness. In 2006, he sued the Ministry of Defence for compensation equivalent to the apartment’s value and was awarded 325,920 tenge, but he later returned the funds as they were insufficient to buy a home. In 2013, the Ministry sought to terminate his lease without offering alternative housing, arguing that the lease was indefinite and compensation had been provided. Despite his legal challenge, the courts ruled against him, leading to his eviction in 2014. A year later, authorities offered him temporary housing in a structurally unsafe building slated for demolition, where he and his family were forced to move due to a lack of options.

The author claims that his eviction from state-provided housing violated his rights under article 17 of the Covenant and argues that Kazakh law provides specific grounds for terminating service housing leases, which were disregarded by the courts in favour of general civil law provisions allowing unilateral termination. The author alleges a violation of article 14 (1), claiming that the courts failed to provide an independent and impartial hearing by omitting key legal arguments in their decisions, and a violation of article 6, arguing that his forced relocation to unsafe housing slated for demolition endangered his life and that of his family.

Admissibility

The Committee found the claim under article 6 to be inadmissible, as the author never complained about the State of the housing to the national courts and therefore failed to exhaust local remedies. Additionally, the Committee held that the claims under article 14 (1) and 17 were insufficiently substantiated and, therefore, inadmissible. The Committee emphasised that it does not reassess domestic legal findings unless they are clearly arbitrary, manifestly erroneous, or amount to a denial of justice. While the author argued that the courts wrongly applied general civil law instead of specific housing regulations governing service housing leases and omitted key legal arguments, the Committee found no sufficient evidence to support his claims and justify a reassessment by the Committee.