Communicated on 15 December 2014
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 5609/08
Revaz BULIA and Iakob KVINIKADZE
against Georgia
lodged on 20 November 2007
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicants, Mr Revaz Bulia and Mr Iakob Kvinikadze, are Georgian nationals, who were born in 1953 and 1975 respectively. The applicants are represented before the Court by Mr Onise Mebonia and Ms L. Koiava, lawyers practising in Tbilisi.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.
On 6 September 2006 the applicants were arrested and charged with high treason. On 8 and 15 September 2006, respectively, the Tbilisi City Court remanded the applicants in pre-trial detention for two months pending the investigation and then the Tbilisi Court of Appeal, at final instance, upheld their detention.
Subsequently the applicants’ pre-trial detention pending investigation was extended twice, each time for one month, with the end date set at 6 January 2007.
On 28 December 2006, upon the completion of the investigation, the applicants’ case was sent to the Tbilisi City Court for the trial. The applicants continued to remain in detention.
On 22 June 2007, before the expiry of a standard maximum statutory time-limit of six months for the detention pending the trial, at the motion of the presiding judge of the Tbilisi City Court, the President of the Tbilisi Court of Appeal, under her discretionary power, extended the applicants’ detention for another three months. In her decision, adopted in camera without the presence of either the applicants or their lawyers, the President of the Tbilisi Court of Appeal reasoned that due to the big volume of the case file the trial court needed more time; thus the exceptional extension of the detention pending the trial for the maximum allowed period of time ‑ until 29 September 2007 – was justified. This decision was not subject to further appeal.
On 24 August 2007 the Tbilisi City Court convicted the applicants as charged and sentenced each of them to four years and six months in prison.
COMPLAINT
Relying on Article 5 § 3 of the Convention, the applicants complain that the President of the Tbilisi Court of Appeal acted arbitrarily when extending their detention pending trial. In particular, the applicants claim that their continued detention was excessive and was not based on relevant and sufficient reasons.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Was the applicants’ continued detention on remand in conformity with the requirements of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention? In particular, were the grounds given in the detention order of 22 June 2007 of the President of the Tbilisi Court of Appeal “relevant” and “sufficient” to justify the deprivation of liberty?
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