Information Note on the Court’s case-law 184
April 2015
Buzadji v. the Republic of Moldova (referral) - 23755/07
Judgment 16.12.2014 [Section III]
Article 5
Article 5-3
Reasonableness of pre-trial detention
Pre-trial detention for two-and-a-half months followed by house arrest for seven-and-a-half months: case referred to the Grand Chamber
The applicant, a businessman, was arrested in May 2007 and formally charged with defrauding a State company of which he was the director. He was placed in detention pending trial given the gravity of the charges against him, the complexity of the case and the risk of collusion. This detention was then extended on a number of occasions, for essentially the same reasons, until July 2007 when the national courts accepted the applicant’s request to be placed under house arrest. He remained under house arrest until March 2008 when he was released on bail, the courts finding that he had been in detention and under house arrest for over ten months in total without breaching any of the restrictions imposed on him.
In a Chamber judgment of 16 December 2014, the Court held, by four votes to three, that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention because the domestic courts had failed to give sufficient reasons for extending the applicant’s detention pending trial and subsequently ordering his house arrest.
On 20 April 2015 the case was referred to the Grand Chamber at the request of the Moldovan Government.
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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