Published on 15 December 2025
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 59943/19
Ali KARIMLI
against Azerbaijan
lodged on 24 October 2019
communicated on 25 November 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The applicant is a well-known politician and the leader of a political party. On 28 June 2019 he was attending a charity event held on private premises when the police entered the premises and took him to a police station.
According to the material available in the case file, the police arrived in response to neighbours’ complaints about “unlawfully parked vehicles” around the building where the event was taking place. The applicant was released from the police station after two hours, following a conversation with a prosecutor and high-ranking police officers.
The applicant lodged a complaint with the Binagadi District Court, complaining, inter alia, about his allegedly unlawful and arbitrary deprivation of liberty during the time period when he had been held at the police station. By a judgment dated 31 July 2019, the court dismissed the claim, relying on statements of several police and prosecution officers and citing a number of provisions of domestic law. It held that the applicant had not been deprived of his liberty, as there had been no “arrest” or “detention”; he had left the police station after having been merely “warned” about the “unlawful parking situation”. The court held that the police had not breached the law when they had taken the applicant to the police station. The judgment was upheld by a final decision of the Baku Court of Appeal on 9 August 2019.
Relying on Articles 5, 11 and 13 of the Convention, the applicant complains about his allegedly unlawful, arbitrary and unrecorded detention as well as a breach of his right to freedom of assembly. He also complains about the alleged lack of an effective remedy in respect of the complaints regarding his detention.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Was the applicant deprived of his liberty in breach of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, did the deprivation of liberty fall within any of the paragraphs of this provision (see Emin Huseynov v. Azerbaijan, no. 59135/09, §§ 81-88, 7 May 2015)?
2. Has there been an interference with the applicant’s freedom of peaceful assembly within the meaning of Article 11 § 1 of the Convention? If so, was that interference prescribed by law and necessary in terms of Article 11 § 2 (see Emin Huseynov, cited above, §§ 89-102, 7 May 2015)?
3. Did the applicant have at his disposal an effective domestic remedy for his complaints under Article 5 of the Convention concerning his deprivation of liberty by the police, as required by Article 13 of the Convention?