32. The applicants alleged that there had been no effective remedies in respect of the above violations of their rights, contrary to Article 13 of the Convention, which provides as follows:
"Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in [the] Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity."
133. The applicants insisted that they had no effective remedies at their disposal as the investigation into the killing of their relatives had been pending for several years without producing any tangible result and, in the absence of any findings of the domestic investigation, the effectiveness of any other remedy had been undermined.
134. The Government argued that the applicants had had effective domestic remedies, as required by Article 13 of the Convention, but had been unwilling to make use of them. They submitted that the first and seventh applicants had been granted victim status and therefore had been afforded procedural rights in the criminal proceedings and, in particular, the right to give oral and other evidence, to submit requests, to receive copies of procedural decisions, and to access the case file and make copies of the materials of the file on completion of the investigation. The Government further argued that the applicants could have appealed in court against actions or omissions of the investigation authorities in accordance with Article 125 of the Russian Code of Criminal Procedure, but had failed to do so. Also, in the Government's view, if the applicants had considered that any action or omission on the part of public officials had caused them damage, they could have sought compensation for that damage in court by virtue of the relevant provisions of the Russian Civil Code, but they had never attempted to avail themselves of that opportunity. In support of this argument, the Government referred to a letter of the Supreme Court of Russia dated 3 August 2007 which stated that the applicants had not complained to the courts in the Chechen Republic of the unlawful detention of their relatives, about the actions of any law-enforcement officials, or of any shortcomings in the investigation into the disappearance of Ilyas and Isa Yansuyev. The Government did not submit the letter to which they referred.
135. The Court reiterates that Article 13 of the Convention guarantees the availability at the national level of a remedy to enforce the substance of the Convention rights and freedoms in whatever form they might happen to be secured in the domestic legal order. The effect of Article 13 is thus to require the provision of a domestic remedy to deal with the substance of an "arguable complaint" under the Convention and to grant appropriate relief, although Contracting States are afforded some discretion as to the manner in which they comply with their Convention obligations under this provision. The scope of the obligation under Article 13 varies depending on the nature of the applicant's complaint under the Convention. Nevertheless, the remedy required by Article 13 must be "effective" in practice as well as in law, in particular in the sense that its exercise must not be unjustifiably hindered by acts or omissions by the authorities of the respondent State (see Aksoy v. Turkey, 18 December 1996, § 95, Reports 1996-VI).
136. Given the fundamental importance of the right to protection of life, Article 13 requires, in addition to the payment of compensation where appropriate, a thorough and effective investigation capable of leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible for the deprivation of life, including effective access for the complainant to the investigation procedure leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible (see Anguelova v. Bulgaria, No. 38361/97, §§ 161 - 162, ECHR 2002-IV; Asse
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