FOURTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 5168/06
Vazha BAGHASHVILI
against Georgia
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 18 March 2014 as a Committee composed of:
Päivi Hirvelä, President,
Nona Tsotsoria,
Faris Vehabović, judges,
and Fatoş Aracı, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 1 February 2006,
Having regard to the formal declaration accepting a friendly settlement of the case,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
FACTS AND PROCEDURE
1. The applicant, Mr Vazha Baghashvili, is a Georgian national, who was born in 1949 and lives in the village of Bodbe, Georgia. He was represented before the Court by Mr L. Tchintcharauli and Ms T. Gabisonia, lawyers practising in Tbilisi. The Georgian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr L. Meskhoradze, of the Ministry of Justice.
2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
3. On 11 December 1999 the applicant’s son, Mr Zviad Baghashvili, was shot dead by a police officer, Mr N.A.-shvili, in a street. The incident occurred in the context of a police attempt to apprehend Mr Baghashvili who had been reported of having committed a breach of public order.
4. On the same day criminal proceedings were instituted by the Signaghi District public prosecutor’s office against police officer N.A. for an offence prosecuted under Article 187(3) of the Criminal Code – abuse/excessive use of official power entailing particularly grave consequences.
5. On 20 December 1999 the applicant was granted victim status in the proceedings. A number of investigative actions were subsequently conducted, which included the examination of an eyewitness who gave a statement that the police officer had fired a shot from his service pistol in the direction of the applicant’s son without any prior warning.
6. On 5 February 2001 the investigation was terminated, and the prosecutor transmitted the case file to a court for trial. However, on 6 July 2001 the Tbilisi Regional Court, referring to the insufficiency of evidence in the file, remitted the case to the prosecutor for additional investigation.
7. On 2 November 2002 the prosecutor in charge of the case, after having removed from the case file, for various procedural reasons, a number of items of evidence against the police officer, issued a resolution terminating the criminal proceedings for want of a criminal offence. That resolution then became a subject of judicial complaints by the applicant, followed by a series of remittals between various levels of jurisdiction, with the Tbilisi Regional Court finally upholding it on 2 August 2005.
COMPLAINTS
Citing Articles 2, 3, 6 and 13 of the Convention, the applicant complained that his son had been killed by the law-enforcement agents and that no effective investigation had been conducted.
THE LAW
8. On 4 April 2013 the Court gave notice of the application to the Government under Article 2 of the Convention.
9. On 25 October 2013 the Government informed the Court that they wished to effect a friendly settlement with the applicant, for the purposes of which they submitted a formal declaration couched in the following terms:
“Considering the factual and legal circumstances of the case, the Government wish to express their regretful acknowledgment of a violation of Article 2 of the Convention under its procedural limb;
Due to the failure to conduct effective investigation into the allegation of excessive use of force against the applicant’s son, the Government are prepared, within the scope of the present declaration:
- to conduct effective investigation with respect to the allegation of excessive use of force against Mr Zviad Baghashvili, as required by the procedural limb of Article 2,
- to pay 10,000 (ten thousand) Euros to the applicant to cover any pecuniary or non-pecuniary damages and costs of expenses, which will be free of any taxes that may be applicable to the applicant. This sum will be converted into the respondent State’s national currency at the rate applicable on the date of payment, and will be payable within three months from the date of notification of the decision taken by the Court. In the event of failure to pay this sum within the said three-month period, the Government undertake to pay simple interest on it, from the expiry of that period until settlement, at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points.
The fulfilment of the above-mentioned conditions will constitute the final resolution of the case.”
10. By a letter of 30 December 2013, the applicant informed the Court that he was prepared to accept the Government’s friendly-settlement declaration of 25 October 2013.
11. The Court thus takes note of the friendly settlement reached between the parties. In this connection, it reiterates that the fundamental character of Article 2 of the Convention always requires that there should be some form of effective official investigation when individuals have been killed as a result of the use of force by, inter alios, agents of the State (see, amongst many others, Enukidze and Girgvliani v. Georgia, no. 25091/07, §§ 241‑243, 26 April 2011). That being so, the Court attaches particular significance to the Government’s undertaking to conduct an effective investigation into the relevant life-taking incident.
12. The Court is satisfied that the settlement is based on respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols and finds no reasons to justify a continued examination of the application. In view of the above, it is appropriate to strike the case out of the list.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases in accordance with Article 39 of the Convention.
Fatoş AracıPäivi Hirvelä
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy