Introduction
In the early hours of 5 April, Georgia, acting in collaboration with Azerbaijan, violated an interim measure issued by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in a case pending against Georgia. Despite the interim measures requiring it not to do so, Georgia removed the Azerbaijani journalist Afgan Sadigov to Azerbaijan, thus exposing him to real and irreversible risks of ill-treatment. In doing so, Georgia and Azerbaijan opted for a fraudulent strategy: the appearance of compliance through procedural maneuvering. Specifically, Azerbaijan suspended the criminal proceedings against Sadigov that had triggered the interim measures, while Georgia subsequently removed him under the guise of an administrative sanction unrelated, on paper, to extradition. Although Sadigov has not yet faced criminal charges upon return, the risk of ill‑treatment remains real.
This form of state conduct exemplifies what András Sajó has described as “ruling by cheating”, i.e. ‘pretending to observe a rule in order to depart from it’. More specifically, it reflects a tactic of circumvention—devising a workaround to pretend compliance.
This blog argues that, for the purposes of Convention law, this transnational action amounts not only to a violation of Article 34 ECHR—prohibiting states from hindering the effective exercise of the right of individual application—but also engages Article 18 ECHR (see a similar argument for a non-formalistic interpretation of Article 18 ECHR here). Article 18 prohibits restriction of Convention rights pursued for ulterior purposes without being confined to rights subject to express limitation clauses such as those in Articles 8-11, leaving room for its application in conjunction with the Article 34 right of individual application.
At the very least, a fraudulent violation of interim measures, as in Sadigov’s case, should serve as powerful contextual evidence when assessing an Article 18 complaint in the same case. However, a violation of Article 18 specifically in conjunction with Article 34 ECHR more accurately captures both the form and purpose of state conduct, namely, procedural maneuvering to circumvent ECtHR interim measures, thereby hindering the right to individual application.
Transnational Repression under International Legal Pressure
Sadigov’s persecution is not an isolated case of transnational repression in Georgia. Georgia has a documented practice of cooperating with foreign governments in actions targeting political dissidents on its territory, most recently noted by Freedom House in its 2025 report. What distinguishes Sadigov’s case, however, is the qualitative shift from conditional cooperation—still constrained by international scrutiny—to deliberate circumvention of binding decisions based on international human rights instruments.
The earlier cases of the Azerbaijani journalist Mukhtarli and the Turkish schoolteacher Çabuk in 2017 illustrate cooperation in transnational repression, albeit without breaching any pre‑existing binding decision of an international human rights body.
In 2017, Azerbaijani journalist Afgan Mukhtarli was abducted in Tbilisi and forcibly transferred to Azerbaijan, allegedly with the involvement of individuals wearing Georgian police uniforms. Without a pre-existing case before the ECtHR, no interim measure had been issued. However, in the case initiated by Mukhtarli after the abduction, the Court eventually found serious procedural violations of the right to liberty (Article 5) and prohibition of ill-treatment (Article 3) by Georgia. The Court cited poor handling of the CCTV evidence and the lack of genuine effort to verify the Azerbaijani Government’s account, leaving little room for a good‑faith explanation of Georgia’s conduct.
Georgia also cooperated with Turkey in repression, when in 2017, Georgian authorities detained Mustafa Emre Çabuk, a Turkish national working at a Gülen‑linked private school, one day before the visit of Turkey’s Prime Minister. To avoid extradition, Çabuk applied for asylum during the extradition proceedings, which the Georgian courts denied together with extending his pre-extradition detention. However, following intervention by the UN Committee Against Torture in February 2018, Georgia ultimately refrained from extraditing Çabuk, demonstrating that international legal pressure could still alter Georgia’s course of action until then.
Until Sadigov’s case, even in domestically sensitive disputes, such as the Rustavi 2 media ownership case, the Georgian government opted to challenge ECtHR interim measures through formal legal avenues rather than disregard them altogether. Against this backdrop, Sadigov’s case represents a rupture: a move toward open defiance even if masked by procedural formalism.
Post-Sadigov Transnational Repression: Circumvention of ECtHR Interim Measures
Sadigov’s case marks Georgia’s shift to transnational repression through deliberate circumvention of binding decisions issued by international human rights bodies.
Afgan Sadigov, an Azerbaijani journalist living in exile in Georgia was initially detained in Georgia for extradition proceedings on 4 August 2024, and was released in May 2025, several months after the ECtHR’s interim orders of January and February 2025. These interim measures instructed that Sadigov “should not be removed to Azerbaijan” pending the Court’s examination of his case. This open-ended formulation of the interim measure was legally significant, capturing any form of removal including expulsion as entailing an imminent risk of irreparable harm under Rule 39.
Since his release in May 2025, Sadigov became a visible participant in sustained protests against the Georgian Dream government and faced persecution for protest-related conduct. He was repeatedly convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for alleged traffic disruption under the administrative offence code. This piece of legislation has undergone multiple amendments since November 2024 to repress protests against the government’s decision to halt EU accession negotiations.
On 4 April 2026, around 22:20, the Georgian police detained Sadigov at home on charges of insulting the police in a Facebook post. Within hours, at around 04:00, the Tbilisi City Court ordered his expulsion to Azerbaijan – a sanction recently introduced for protest-related administrative offences. The Georgian court made this decision despite the ECtHR’s two 2025 interim measures prohibiting his removal to Azerbaijan. The haste of the proceedings became intelligible only in light of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s scheduled visit to Georgia the following day.
The expedited, late-night proceedings and immediate expulsion for an administrative offence followed Azerbaijan’s suspension of the criminal proceedings that had triggered the ECtHR’s interim measures. The timing and sequence of events cannot reasonably be seen as anything other than a tactical maneuver by two states to circumvent the binding force of the interim measures (for an analogous approach to unreasonable timing of procedures as evidence of an Article 18 ECHR violation, see Kavala v. Turkey, §228).
The open-ended formulation of interim orders effectively captured this form of legal cheating. Yet, the Court’s response to breach of interim measures has been confined to findings under Article 34 ECHR alone, without addressing the deeper problem of fraudulent abuse of power by also engaging Article 18 ECHR. Neither does the Court use a breach of interim measures as additional evidence for establishing bad faith restriction of applicant’s other rights.
To the Court’s credit, its recent jurisprudence signals a movement away from rigid formalism under Article 18 ECHR. In Sytnyk v. Ukraine, the Court acknowledged that implicit restrictions on fair‑trial guarantees such as presumption of innocence under Article 6 ECHR may engage Article 18 ECHR, thus refusing to confine bad faith analysis to classic qualified rights with explicit limitation clauses. Together with the pending Kavala v. Türkiye (No. 2) case, Sadigov’s case presents an opportunity to affirm that Article 18 ECHR is fundamentally concerned with state motives, especially fraudulent ones, regardless of rigid distinctions between rights with express and implicit restrictions.
Conclusion: Towards Scrutiny of Bad‑Faith Circumvention of ECtHR Interim Measures
Sadigov’s case marks the culmination of Georgia’s evolution from conditional cooperation with autocratic states, to deliberate bad-faith participation in transnational repression despite international legal pressure. By re‑characterising a prohibited removal as an administrative sanction, and suspending initial criminal proceedings, Georgia and Azerbaijan attempted to circumvent the binding ECtHR interim measures while achieving the same substantive outcome of exposing the applicant to the risks of ill-treatment.
As a matter of Convention law, this conduct should amount not only to a violation of the right of individual application under Article 34 but also engage Article 18’s prohibition of the state’s pursuit of ulterior, impermissible motives. Bad‑faith state action should not escape Article 18 scrutiny merely because the right undermined—here, the right of individual petition— lacks an express limitation clause like those under Articles 8–11. The Court’s recent move towards opening up the scope of Article 18 rightly reflects the intuition that Article 18 is fundamentally concerned with the abuse of power regardless of the type of rights affected. At a minimum, a fraudulent violation of interim measures must serve as contextual evidence when deciding on Article 18 in the same case.
Ultimately, the Sadigov case is another stress test for the European human rights system’s capacity to confront bad faith where states pretend to comply while hollowing out protection in substance. A failure to name such conduct for what it is under Article 18 risks eroding not only the authority of interim measures, but the integrity of the Convention itself.
