On March 12, 2014, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) awarded [3] between 29,400 and 72,770 Euros to each applicant for the breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) that it had previously found [4] in Kurić v Slovenia. According to the press release [5], the applicants, former citizens of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, “belong to a group of persons known as the ‘erased’, who on 26 February 1992 lost their status as permanent residents following Slovenia’s declaration of independence in 1991.” The applicants requested just satisfaction for these violations of Article 8 (right to respect for private or family life) of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) and Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the ECHR.

The Court found it “clear that the loss of legal status . . . resulting from the ‘erasure’ entailed significant material consequences for all the applicants, including the loss of access to a wide range of social and political rights and legal benefits, such as identity documents, driving licences, health insurance and education, as well as the loss of job and other opportunities, until they were granted permanent residence permits.”