Grimkovskaya v. Ukraine. Pays/Territoire Union européenne Type de cour Cour internationale Date Jul 21, 2011 Source UNEP, InforMEA Nom du tribunal European Court of Human Rights Siège de la cour Strasbourg Juge Nußberger, A.Spielmann, D.Fura, E.Zupančič, B.M.Berro-Lefèvre, I.Power, A.Yudkivska, G. Numéro de référence No. 38182/03 Langue Anglais Sujet Questions juridiques, Air et atmosphère, Environnement gén. Mot clé Normes sur l'émission Qualité de l'air/pollution de l'air Pollution sonore (de l'environnement) Normes de qualité de l'eau Normes environnementales Normes Normes acoustiques Droits de l'homme Normes relatives aux rejets d'effluents Bruit des véhicules Émission sonore Bruit des transports aériens Résumé The present case concerned the complaint that a motorway rerouted right next to the applicant's house generated pollution which seriously disturbed her family life. The applicant is an Ukrainian national who was born in 1966 and lives in Krasnodon (Ukraine). She lives in a house on K. Street with her parents and son, born in 1994. According to her, in 1998, the authorities routed a motorway M04 through her street which had only been constructed as a residential street, had no drainage system, pavements or proper surfacing able to withstand high volumes of heavy goods traffic. As a result, she claimed that her house became unusable, as the people living in it suffered from the constant vibrations provoked by the traffic, and from the consequent noise and pollution. In addition, the potholes which appeared were occasionally filled up by the road authorities with cheap materials including waste from coal-mines which were high in heavy-metal content. On 16 June 2002, K. Street was blocked to prevent all passage of cars. The authorities examined the stuation on several occasions. They noted that there was an urgent need to build alternative routes around populated areas, but that there was no money available. In November 2010, Ms Grimkovskaya informed the Court that the authorities had reopened K. Street for motorway traffic without any in-depth repairs having been carried out. Ms Grimkovskaya's mother brought civil proceedings in 2001 asking the Krasnodon City Council to resettle the family and to pay them compensation for the damage to their health, which she claimed was the result of the operation of the M04 motorway. Her claim was rejected, the courts having provided little reasoning and concluding that the City Council was not responsible for K. Street maintenance and repair. Relying on Article 8, Ms Grimkovskaya complained about the authorities' failure to monitor and manage properly the environment around the road, in breach of her family rights. The Court noted that the noise levels and their effects on Ms Grimkovskaya's family life had never been measured. There had been no confirmation by an independent expert that the damage to the house had been caused by the vibrations provoked by the heavy traffic. While medical records had identified a number of illnesses from which Ms Grimkovskaya's parents and young son suffered, it had not been possible to determine to what extent those illnesses had been caused or aggravated by the operation of the motorway. Further, the doctors had suggested that her son had been suffering from immunodefficiency before the M04 motorway was opened, and that the boy had been living in a polluted area since his birth. As there had been no evidence, other than Ms Grimkovskaya's assertions, that the traffic via K. Street had restarted, the Court examined the situation assuming that the traffic had indeed been stopped in June 2002. However, the Court found that the cumulative effect of the noise, vibration and air and soil pollution on K. Street had negatively affected Ms Grimkovskaya's family life. The Court then observed that handling infrastructural issues was a difficult task requiring considerable time and resources from States. It also noted that Governments could not be held responsible for merely allowing heavy traffic to pass through populated residential town areas. Notwithstanding the above, the Ukrainian Government had not carried out an environmental feasibility study before turning K. Street into a motorway, nor had they made sufficient efforts to mitigate the motorway's harmful effects. In addition, Ms Grimkovskaya had not had any meaningful opportunity to challenge in court the State's policy concerning that motorway, as her civil claim had been dismissed with scant reasoning, the courts not having engaged with her arguments. Therefore, the Court concluded that there had been a violation of Article 8 and held that Ukraine was to pay Ms Grimkovskaya 10,000 euros (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage. Texte intégral COU-159754.pdf