Communicated on 6 October 2015
FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 64932/12
Lilya Nikolayevna AZOVTSEVA
against Ukraine
lodged on 7 April 2013
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Ms Lilya Nikolayevna Azovtseva, is a Ukrainian national, who was born in 1952 and currently lives in Kharkiv.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
On 2 November 2007 the applicant’s husband was hit by a car in a street in the town of Stakhanov, Lugansk Region. He died from the injuries sustained at the scene of the accident.
On 12 November 2007 the Lugansk Regional Police Department opened a criminal investigation into reckless driving causing death.
On five occasions between 2007 and 2012 the investigation was closed for lack of corpus delicti. The investigators concluded that the driver could not avoid hitting the pedestrian who behaved carelessly in the street. These decisions were quashed by the supervising authorities as unfounded and further investigations were ordered. In particular, on 21 May 2013 the Leninskyy District Court of Lugansk quashed the decision of 17 July 2012 by which the investigation was closed after finding that the applicant’s version of the accident had not been properly analysed; that additional expert examinations had to be carried out in order to verify the speed of the car and the other circumstances.
On 29 May 2014 the investigator informed the applicant that the case had been sent to the forensic expertise bureau located in Lugansk for additional expert examination.
On 5 January 2015 the Ukrainian police authorities informed the applicant that the case was still in the Lugansk bureau of forensic expertise which was temporarily outside the Ukrainian authorities’ control and for that reason no further decision could be taken in the criminal case.
On 2 March 2015 the applicant was informed that since October 2014 Ukrainian authorities could not get access to the files located in Lugansk bureau of forensic expertise.
COMPLAINT
The applicant complains that there has been no effective investigation into the traffic accident resulting in death of her husband.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Having regard to the procedural protection of the right to life, were the domestic proceedings in the present case in breach of Article 2 of the Convention?
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