etic relay and wires that had been used by illegal armed groups for production of home-made explosive devices. The Government further submitted that the investigators were working on the hypothesis of spontaneous or deliberate detonation of a home-made explosive device placed by members of illegal armed groups or of an erroneous use of weapons by the federal troops.
79. In the Government's view any conclusions as to the identification of those responsible for the explosions would be premature because the investigation was still pending.
2. The Court's assessment
(a) General principles
80. The Court reiterates that Article 2, which safeguards the right to life and sets out the circumstances where deprivation of life may be justified, ranks as one of the most fundamental provisions in the Convention, to which in peacetime no derogation is permitted under Article 15. The situations where deprivation of life may be justified are exhaustive and must be narrowly interpreted. The use of force which may result in the deprivation of life must be no more than "absolutely necessary" for the achievement of one of the purposes set out in Article 2 § 2 (a), (b) and (c). This term indicates that a stricter and more compelling test of necessity must be employed than that normally applicable when determining whether State action is "necessary in a democratic society" under paragraphs 2 of Articles 8 to 11 of the Convention. Consequently, the force used must be strictly proportionate to the achievement of the permitted aims. In the light of the importance of the protection afforded by Article 2, the Court must subject deprivations of life to the most careful scrutiny, particularly where deliberate lethal force is used, taking into consideration not only the actions of State agents who actually administer the force but also all the surrounding circumstances including such matters as the planning and control of the actions under examination (see McCann and Others v. the United Kingdom, 27 September 1995, §§ 146 - 50, Series A No. 324, and Andronicou and Constantinou v. Cyprus, 9 October 1997, § 171, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997-V).
(b) Establishment of the facts
81. The Court observes that it has developed a number of general principles relating to the establishment of the facts in dispute, in particular when faced with allegations of disappearance under Article 2 of the Convention (for a summary of these, see Bazorkina v. Russia, No. 69481/01, §§ 103 - 09, 27 July 2006). The Court also notes that the conduct of the parties when evidence is being obtained has to be taken into account (see Ireland v. the United Kingdom, 18 January 1978, § 161, Series A No. 25).
82. The applicants maintained that it was beyond reasonable doubt that Kazbek Taysumov, Zulpat Eskirkhanova and Ayshat Eskirkhanova had died as a result of the shelling carried out by the Russian military on 7 September 2002. They argued that only the federal troops could have organised the massive bombardment of a village and that the domestic investigators had established the military implication in the artillery attack.
83. The Government insisted that the applicants' relatives' deaths had been caused by an explosion of self-made bombs installed by insurgents and thus were not imputable to the State.
84. The Court notes at the outset that in order to be able to assess the merits of the applicants' complaints and in view of the nature of the allegations, the Court requested the Government to submit a copy of the complete criminal investigation file in the present case. The Government submitted 65 pages of copies of documents, mostly decisions to suspend and resume the investigation and records of several interviews with the victims and witnesses. No outline of the investigation or list of documents included in the case file was attached. It fo
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