CASE OF SPRŪDS AND OTHERS v. LATVIA

FIFTH SECTION

CASE OF SPRŪDS AND OTHERS v. LATVIA

(Applications nos. 66499/17 and 2 others)

JUDGMENT
 

STRASBOURG

24 October 2024

This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.

In the case of Sprūds and Others v. Latvia,

The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:

 Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström, President,
 María Elósegui,
 Artūrs Kučs, judges,
and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the applications against the Republic of Latvia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by the applicants listed in the appended table (“the applicants”), on the various dates indicated therein;

the decision to give notice of the complaints under Article 5 § 4 of the Convention, concerning the refusals to grant access to the documents upon which the applicants’ pre-trial detention was based, to the Latvian Government (“the Government”) represented by their Agents Ms K. Līce and subsequently by Ms E. L. Vītola, and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the applications;

the parties’ observations;

the decision to reject the Government’s objection to the examination of the applications by a Committee;

Having deliberated in private on 3 October 2024,

Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

1.  The three applications concern the refusals to grant access to the documents on which the applicants’ pre-trial detention was based, and their consequent inability to challenge effectively the lawfulness of their pre-trial detention. The applicants complain of a violation of Article 5 § 4 of the Convention on that account.

2.  The applicants were arrested on suspicion of having committed various crimes. Their requests to be granted access to the documents which had served as the basis for the applications for their pre-trial detention were rejected by police investigators.

3.  In each instance the respective investigating judges ordered that the applicants be placed in pre-trial detention, but the applicants were not provided with the documents from the case file referred to in the detention orders. The investigating judges informed the applicants that they did not have competence to review the investigators’ previous rejections of the requests for access to the documents.

4.  The applicants lodged appeals against the decisions to place them in pre-trial detention, but the investigating judges’ orders were upheld by the Riga Regional Court.

5.  The complete list of applicants and the relevant details of the applications are set out in the appended table.

RELEVANT DOMESTIC LAW

6.  Section 602(3)(1) of the Criminal Procedure Law (Kriminālprocsa likums), as in force at the material time, provided that detainees, suspects and accused persons who had been subjected to deprivation of their liberty as a preventative measure had the right to access the case-file material used to justify the application for their deprivation of liberty, provided that this access did not infringe the fundamental rights of other persons, damage public interests, or hinder the progress of criminal proceedings.

7.  Under section 375(1), during criminal proceedings the case-file material is classified as an “investigation secret” (izmeklēšanas noslēpums). Only officials conducting criminal proceedings may familiarise themselves with it, as may persons to whom that material is presented by those officials in accordance with the Law.

THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT

8.  Having regard to the similar subject matter of the applications, the Court finds it appropriate to examine them jointly in a single judgment.

9.  The applicants relied on Article 5 § 4 of the Convention. They complained that the proceedings concerning the imposition of their pre-trial detention had not complied with the principle of equality of arms, in that they had been denied access to documents which were essential in order to challenge the domestic authorities’ findings, in particular the evidence relied on in deciding to impose detention.

10.  The Government contested those complaints.

11.  The Court notes that the complaints are neither manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention nor inadmissible on any other grounds. They must therefore be declared admissible.

12.  Article 5 § 4 of the Convention has been consistently interpreted by the Court as providing certain minimal procedural guarantees to a detainee while the court decides on whether a preventive detention should be imposed, extended or cancelled (see Khodorkovskiy v. Russia, no. 5829/04, § 219, 31 May 2011).

13.  The Court reiterates that in view of the dramatic impact of deprivation of liberty on the fundamental rights of the person concerned, proceedings conducted under Article 5 § 4 of the Convention should in principle also meet, to the largest extent possible under the circumstances of an ongoing investigation, the basic requirements of a fair trial as guaranteed under Article 6 of the Convention (see, inter alia, Schöps v. Germany, no. 25116/94, § 44, ECHR 2001-I; Garcia Alva v. Germany, no. 23541/94, § 39, 13 February 2001; and Albrechtas v. Lithuania, no. 1886/06, § 73, 19 January 2016).

14.  Equality of arms is not ensured if counsel is denied access to those documents in the case file which are essential in order effectively to challenge the lawfulness of their client’s detention (see Lamy v. Belgium, 30 March 1989, § 29, Series A no. 151; Nikolova v. Bulgaria [GC], no. 31195/96, § 58, ECHR 1999-II; and Piruzyan v. Armenia, no. 33376/07, § 116, 26 June 2012).

15.  The Government argued that the obligations under Article 5 § 4 of the Convention concerning access to a criminal case file were primarily of a procedural nature, and that the standards and principles derived from the Court’s case-law required the existence of effective procedural safeguards in terms of the defence’s access to the case file. They maintained that the legal framework applicable to the applicants’ complaints was provided in section 602 of the Criminal Procedure Law (see paragraph 6 above), and that the investigating judge was responsible for ensuring that fundamental rights were respected during the pre-trial proceedings. The task of the investigating judge when reviewing compliance with fundamental rights during criminal proceedings, in so far as this concerned access to the case file, was to strike a balance between the competing interests of the defence and the investigation by examining the arguments raised by them. They noted that although the investigating judge could not request the investigation to disclose additional case-file material to the defence, should he or she find that the interests of the investigation and the defence had not been properly balanced, to the latter’s detriment, such a conclusion could nevertheless have an impact on the outcome of pre-trial detention proceedings. In the Government’s view, the balancing exercise carried out by the domestic authorities in the present case had fully satisfied the requirements of Article 5 § 4 of the Convention.

16.  The applicants disagreed and argued that neither the investigating judges nor the Riga Regional Court had ensured that the rules of fair procedure were complied with in imposing pre-trial detention. In the applicants’ view, no substantive analysis had been conducted in order to balance the risk of hindering the investigation against the applicants’ ability to defend themselves against the pre-trial detention orders. As they had been unable to familiarise themselves with any of the documents or evidence supporting the applications for their detention, fair procedure had not been ensured, contrary to the requirements of Article 5 § 4 of the Convention.

17.  The Court acknowledges the need for criminal investigations to be conducted efficiently, which may imply that part of the information collected during them is to be kept secret in order to prevent suspects from tampering with evidence and undermining the course of justice. However, this legitimate goal cannot be pursued at the expense of substantial restrictions on the rights of the defence. Therefore, information which is essential for the assessment of the lawfulness of a detention should be made available in an appropriate manner to the suspect’s lawyer (see Mooren v.  Germany [GC], no. 11364/03, § 124, 9 July 2009, and Emilian-George Igna v. Romania, no. 21249/05, § 27, 26 November 2013).

18.  The Court notes that the applicants were informed in general terms of the grounds for suspecting them. Before their detention hearings the applicants were presented with the respective investigators’ applications to impose pre-trial detention. Having examined those documents, the Court accepts that they provided a general outline of how the alleged offences had been perpetrated. In the Court’s opinion, it was hardly possible for the applicants to challenge the reliability of such accounts properly without being informed of the evidence on which they had been based.

19.  The Court observes that prior to the pre-trial detention hearings before the investigating judges, the investigators dismissed requests by the applicants’ lawyers to consult the case files and, in particular, the evidence in support of the applications for pre-trial detention. For their part, however, the investigating judges and the Riga Regional Court reached their conclusions that there were grounds for suspecting that the applicants had committed the offences in question on the basis of the contents of these same files, referring directly to materials that had not been made available to the defence (see the appendix for further details).

20.  The contents of the case files thus appear to have played a key role in the decisions by the investigating judges and the Riga Regional Court to detain the applicants pending trial. However, while the investigator, the investigating judges and Riga Regional Court were familiar with the contents of the case files, their precise content had not been transmitted to the applicants or their lawyers at that stage of the proceedings. Thus, neither the applicants nor their lawyers had adequate opportunity to challenge the domestic authorities’ findings, and in particular the evidence they had relied upon.

21.  In those circumstances, and given the importance that the investigating judges and the Riga Regional Court attached to the contents of the files - which the applicants were unable to challenge effectively since that information had not been communicated to them, it cannot be considered that the principle of “equality of arms” was respected. Consequently, the proceedings before the investigating judges and Riga Regional Court did not comply with the guarantees afforded by Article 5 § 4 (see Lamy, § 29, and Garcia Alva, §§ 40-43, both cited above).

22.  There has accordingly been a violation of Article 5 § 4 of the Convention.

APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION

23.  The applicants claimed 20,000 euros (EUR), EUR 10,000 and EUR 10,000 respectively in respect of non-pecuniary damage.

24.  The Government maintained that the finding of a violation would, in itself, constitute sufficient just satisfaction.

25.  The Court considers that it is impossible to determine, and thus it cannot speculate, whether or not the applicants’ pre-trial detention would have been authorised by the investigating judges had there been no violation of Article 5 § 4. As to the alleged frustration suffered by the applicants on account of the absence of adequate procedural guarantees in relation to the decision to place them in pre-trial detention, the Court finds that in the particular circumstances of this case, the finding of a violation is sufficient (see Albrechtas, cited above, § 89).

26.  The applicants made no claim in respect of costs and expenses. Accordingly, the Court considers that there is no call to award them any sum on that account.

FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT, UNANIMOUSLY,

Done in English, and notified in writing on 24 October 2024, pursuant to Rule 77 §§ 2 and 3 of the Rules of Court.

 Martina Keller Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström
 Deputy Registrar President

APPENDIX

List of cases:

No.

Application no.

Lodged on

Applicant
Year of Birth
Place of Residence
Nationality

Represented by

Background to the case and domestic proceedings

1.

66499/17

05/09/2017

Māris SPRŪDS
1980
Rīga
Latvian

Jeļena KVJATKOVSKA

On 7 June 2017 the first applicant was arrested on suspicion of extortion and money laundering. On the following day he was declared a suspect.

On 9 June 2017 the investigating judge held a detention hearing, during which the applicant’s lawyer informed the investigating judge that the police investigator had orally rejected his written request to consult the case-file material which had been used to support the application for pre-trial detention. He alleged that equality of arms could not be ensured if the defence was denied access to those documents. The investigating judge decided to order pre-trial detention and stated that she was not authorised to review the investigator’s decision regarding access to the case material used to support the application for pre-trial detention. With regard to the suspicion that the applicant had committed the offences in question, the investigating judge reasoned as follows: “Having familiarised myself with the materials in case no. ..., I conclude that during the pre-trial investigation, information giving grounds for suspicion that [the applicant] committed the offences ... was gathered and procedurally recorded ... This conclusion can be drawn from the witness statements and other procedural documents, the enumeration and analysis of which are not permitted in this decision; in accordance with section 375(1) of the Criminal Procedure Law, during criminal proceedings, the case-file material is classified as an “investigation secret” and only those officials conducting the criminal proceedings, and persons to whom the officials present those materials in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Law, may familiarise themselves with that material.”

On 10 June 2017 the applicant’s lawyer lodged an appeal with the Riga Regional Court, asking that it quash the detention order. His request referred, inter alia, to the lack of access to the case material, and he alleged that without such access the applicant was not able effectively to challenge his detention.

On 21 June 2017 the Riga Regional Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the original ruling. The judge reasoned that the material issued to the defence was sufficient to enable the applicant to exercise his right of defence at that stage of the proceedings. That decision was not subject to appeal.

On 10 August 2017 the applicant’s pre-trial detention was reviewed and extended. The judge referred to the evidence, the enumeration and analysis of which were not permitted in that decision as it constituted an “investigation secret” under section 375(1) of the Criminal Procedure Law. With regard to the lawyer’s request to be granted access to the case material, the investigating judge reasoned that the Criminal Procedure Law did not grant her the authorisation to review and overrule previous rejections of that request. For these reasons, the lawyer’s request was rejected as unfounded. The judge reasoned that the material issued to the defence was sufficient to enable the applicant to exercise his right of defence at that stage of the proceedings.

The documents from the criminal case file that were made available to the first applicant and his defence counsel were: (1) two decisions declaring the first applicant a suspect; (2) the arrest report; (3) the application to detain him pending trial, as a preventative measure; (4) four decisions authorising a search, and the search reports; (5) the search report for the bag seized by the authorities; (6) ten decisions authorising the seizure of the first applicant’s property.

2.

80430/17

22/11/2017

Nauris DUREVSKIS
1981
Rīga
Latvian

Jeļena KVJATKOVSKA

On 7 June 2017 the second applicant was arrested on suspicion of attempted aggravated bribery. On 8 June 2017 he was declared a suspect; on the same day his lawyer made a written request to the police investigator responsible, asking for access to the case-file material which would form the basis of the application for pre-trial detention.

In a decision of 9 June 2017 the investigating judge ordered pre-trial detention. During the hearing, the investigator orally rejected the request to allow access to the case material and later repeated that refusal in writing. The investigating judge rejected the lawyer’s request to be granted access to the case material, indicating that this question was not within her competence. With regard to the suspicion that the applicant had committed the offences in question, the judge based her conclusions on “the witness statements and other procedural documents, the enumeration and analysis of which are not permitted in this decision under sections 375(1) and 396(1) of the Criminal Procedure Law [...]”.

On 13 June 2017 the applicant’s lawyer lodged an appeal with the Riga Regional Court, asking that it quash the detention order. His request referred, inter alia, to lack of access to the case materials and he alleged that without such access the applicant was not able effectively to challenge his detention.

In a decision of 21 June 2017 the Riga Regional Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the original ruling. The judge reasoned that the defence’s right to consult the case material had been ensured in accordance with section 602(3)(1) of the Criminal Procedure Law, that the defence had had access to a sufficient amount of case-file materials, and that the mere fact that not all case materials were made available to the defence could not be considered as a breach of the rights of the defence. The judge established that the defence had been issued with: (1) the decision declaring the second applicant a suspect; (2) the application to detain him pending trial, as a preventative measure; (3) the decisions authorising a search; and (4) the search reports.

On 10 August 2017 the pre-trial detention was reviewed and extended. With regard to the lawyer’s request to be granted access to the case materials upon which the applicant’s pre-trial detention had been based, the investigating judge took into account the fact that this request had been previously rejected during the proceedings, and reasoned that the Criminal Procedure Law did not grant her competence to review and overturn those previous rejection decisions. The investigating judge rejected the lawyer’s request as unfounded, and reasoned that the previously granted access had been sufficient to enable the applicant to exercise his rights at that stage of the proceedings.

On 5 October 2017 the applicant was formally charged. On 11 October 2017 the investigating judge reviewed the detention order and decided that it could be replaced by bail in the amount of EUR 25,000. On 12 October 2017 the applicant was released on bail.

3.

11223/18

28/02/2018

Rolands STRAUTS
1975
Jūrmala
Latvian

Diana STRAUTA

On 9 August 2017 the third applicant was arrested on suspicion of breaching the regulations on payroll records. On 10 August 2017 the applicant’s lawyer made a written request to the police investigator, asking for access to the case-file materials which had served as the basis for the investigator’s application to the investigating judge for the applicant to be placed in pre-trial detention.

On 11 August 2017 the applicant was declared a suspect and on the same day the investigator made an application for pre-trial detention, which was handed to both the applicant and his lawyer during the detention hearing held by the investigating judge.

In a decision on 11 August 2017 the investigating judge ordered pre-trial detention. During the hearing, the applicant’s lawyer requested the investigating judge to allow access to the criminal case file material used to support the application for pre-trial detention. Regarding the access to the case material, the investigating judge reasoned that the Criminal Procedure Law did not grant her the competence to review the investigator’s decision to reject the request for access. The investigating judge reasoned that the case material that had been made available to the defence was sufficient to enable the applicant to exercise his right of defence at that stage of the proceedings, and rejected as unfounded the degree of access requested. With regard to the suspicion that the applicant had committed the offences in question, the investigating judge based her conclusions on “the witness statements and other procedural documents, the enumeration and analysis of which are not permitted in this decision ... In accordance with Section 375(1) of the Criminal Procedure Law, during criminal proceedings, the criminal case material is classified as an “investigation secret”, and only those officials conducting the criminal proceedings, and persons to whom the officials present that material in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Law, may familiarise themselves with it.”

At the time of pre-trial detention hearing, the defence was issued with: (1) the arrest report; (2) the decision declaring the third applicant a suspect (issued only to the third applicant only, without his lawyer’s presence, at the time of the first detention hearing); (3) the application to detain him pending trial, as a preventative measure; (4) the decisions to conduct a search; and (5) the search reports.

On 29 August 2017 the Riga Regional Court dismissed the lawyer’s appeal against the investigating judge’s decision and upheld the original ruling. The judge noted that “from the information in the case file, witness statements, identification reports (atpazīšanas protokoli) and other evidence, it seems likely that [the applicant] committed the offence of which he is suspected”. That decision was not subject to appeal.