Communicated on 26 November 2014
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 73025/13
Yelena Sergeyevna BOTYANOVSKAYA
against Russia
lodged on 18 November 2013
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Ms Yelena Sergeyevna Botyanovskaya, is a Russian national, who was born in 1978 and lives in the settlement of Vasyurinskaya, Krasnodar Region.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
On 31 December 2011 the applicant’s husband Ye. Botyanovskiy died after being hit by a lorry.
Within the framework of the ensuing inquiry, investigator K. questioned the applicant and M., the lorry driver, and on 30 January 2012 he refused to open a criminal investigation into the road accident for lack of corpus delicti in M.’s actions. On an unspecified date the investigator’s decision was quashed and the matter was remitted for further inquiry.
Subsequently, the investigator issued fifteen decisions refusing to open criminal investigation into the accident of 31 December 2011. Each time his decision was quashed by a supervising officer who considered the conducted inquiry incomplete and ordered the investigator to take further action.
On 7 June 2013 investigator K. again refused to open criminal investigation into the accident of 31 December 2011. According to his findings, M. could not prevent the collision of his lorry with the deceased. The investigator refused to take into account the report on the reconstruction of the accident prepared by the forensic expert retained by the applicant considering the expert’s findings to be inconclusive. It appears that no official forensic expert examination was commissioned by the investigator. In his findings, he relied on the statements made by M., another driver B. who followed M.’s lorry on the day of the accident, the applicant, her relatives and friends, police officers But. and S., who inspected the scene of the accident, and an autopsy report.
On 21 June 2013 the Dinskiy District Court of the Krasnodar Region dismissed the applicant’s complaint against the investigator’s decision of 7 June 2013. On 7 August 2013 the Krasnodar Regional Court upheld the decision of 21 June 2013 on appeal.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains that the authorities failed to protect Mr. Ye. Botyanovskiy’s life and that the ensuing investigation into his death was not effective. She refers to Articles 2, 6, 13 and 14 of the Convention.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Having regard to the procedural protection of the right to life (see Sabuktekin v. Turkey, no. 27243/95, § 98, ECHR 2002‑II (extracts)), was the investigation in the present case by the domestic authorities in breach of Article 2 of the Convention?
2. Did the applicants have at their disposal an effective domestic remedy for their complaint under Article 2, as required by Article 13 of the Convention?
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