ECHR refuses to consider the case of a Russian LGBT foundation's liquidation to save resources
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has struck 879 individual applications from Russians, including a complaint about the illegality of the forced liquidation of the Sphere Charitable Foundation, from its list of cases. According to the published decision , further individual examination of these cases would require “significant judicial resources,” which would be to the detriment of the examination of applications against other states.
The decision affects complaints about violations that occurred before September 16, 2022 — the date Russia officially ceased to be a party to the European Convention on Human Rights. As the court in Strasbourg explained, the excluded applications, although potentially well-founded, do not raise new legal issues and are not suitable for the simplified procedure for repetitive cases. The main issues of applying the convention in Russia, according to the court, have already been considered earlier. The only exceptions were complaints related to armed conflicts involving the Russian Federation. At the same time, the ECHR reserved the right to reopen proceedings in individual cases if circumstances change, emphasizing that the refusal to consider does not mean exempting the state from responsibility.
The Sphere Charitable Foundation for Social and Legal Assistance was one of the oldest organizations in Russia supporting the LGBT community. It acted as a legal entity and financial operator for the human rights association Russian LGBT Network. In 2016, the Russian Ministry of Justice recognized the foundation as a “foreign agent,” and in April 2022, a St. Petersburg court liquidated the organization under the pretext of its activities not corresponding to “basic traditional family values.”
Earlier, Urania reported that in April 2026, the Russian LGBT Network itself was added to the register of extremists and terrorists , and the former Sphere team, along with other human rights defenders, recently appealed to the UN to extend the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Russia.
