Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 152
May 2012
Kaverzin v. Ukraine - 23893/03
Judgment 15.5.2012 [Section V]
Article 46
Article 46-2
Execution of judgment
Measures of a general character
Respondent State required to effect urgent reforms to eradicate ill-treatment by police and ensure effective investigations into allegations of police brutality
Facts – The applicant was given a life sentence in 2003 for aggravated murder and is held in a high-security prison. In his application to the European Court, he complained that he had been subjected to ill-treatment at the hands of the police both during and after his arrest. A hospital specialist had examined him the day after his arrest and found bruising to the chest, lower back, kidneys, face and back of the head. A week later a further medical examination had noted bleeding in the eyeball, and bruising and scratches to the chest, arms and legs, some of which were three to four days old. The applicant further complained of the lack of an effective investigation into his allegations of torture by the police, of the lack of medical care for his eye injury that had resulted in his losing his sight and that for five years, despite being blind and in need of daily care, he had been systematically handcuffed with his hands behind his back whenever he left his prison cell.
Article 3
(a) Torture – On the basis of the medical and other available evidence, the Court found that the police were entirely responsible for the applicant’s injuries. Given the gravity of the injuries and the fact that they had been inflicted deliberately, the ill-treatment to which the applicant had been subjected in police custody had to be classified as torture.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
(b) Investigation into the allegations of torture – Although the prosecutor completed an investigation into the applicant’s injuries within a relatively short period, his findings were vague and confusing and he had made no attempt to look into the lawfulness or proportionality of the use of force during the arrest or the allegations of torture after arrest. Instead he had simply relied on the applicant’s initial statement denying ill-treatment, ignoring his more recent submissions to the contrary. The courts which heard the applicant’s criminal case had not examined in any way his allegation that his confession had been made under duress. The Ukrainian authorities had thus failed adequately to investigate the applicant’s complaints of torture.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
(c) Medical care – Although the injury that had resulted in the applicant losing his eyesight was sustained in January 2001 he received no treatment for it until September 2001. The authorities had therefore failed to provide him with adequate medical care throughout that period. The medical care had been adequate thereafter.
Conclusion: violation for period to September 2001 (unanimously).
(d) Handcuffing – While the applicant’s criminal record and classification as exceptionally dangerous may have required his being held in the highest level of security, there was nothing to suggest that he had tried to escape or been violent during his pre-trial detention or subsequently. His handcuffing, particularly with his hands behind his back, despite his being completely blind and requiring assistance, must, therefore, have caused him suffering and humiliation beyond that inevitably connected with a particular form of legitimate punishment and constituted inhuman and degrading treatment.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 46: The applicant’s ill-treatment in police custody reflected a recurring problem in Ukraine. The Court had already found the Ukrainian authorities responsible for the ill-treatment of people in police custody and for failing to conduct an effective investigation into allegations of ill-treatment in some forty cases and over a hundred more were pending.
Criminal suspects appeared to be one of the groups most vulnerable to ill-treatment by the police. Such ill-treatment often occurred in the first days of detention when they had no access to a lawyer, and their injuries were not properly recorded. Although not a factor in every case, a link between the victims’ ill-treatment and the authorities’ goal of collecting incriminatory evidence could not be ruled out. Evaluating police work on the basis of the number of crimes solved appeared to be a further contributory factor, as was the reluctance of prosecutors to take all reasonable and expeditious steps to establish the facts and secure relevant evidence. In their inquiries, prosecutors rarely went beyond obtaining explanations from police officers which they made no effort to verify. Such reluctance on the part of the prosecutors could be explained to some extent by their conflicting tasks in criminal proceedings – prosecution on behalf of the State and supervision of the lawfulness of pre-trial investigations. Appeals to courts against prosecutors’ refusals to investigate had not resulted in the required improvement in the prosecutors’ inquiry. Trial judges rarely gave an independent assessment of the reliability of evidence allegedly obtained under duress if such allegations had been rejected by the prosecutors. Like previous cases against Ukraine in which the Court had found a procedural breach of Article 3, the applicant’s case also demonstrated that State agents responsible for ill-treatment commonly went unpunished, thus perpetuating a climate of virtually total impunity.
This situation had resulted from systemic problems that called for the prompt implementation of comprehensive and complex measures. While the task of determining the general and individual measures Ukraine needed to implement fell to the Committee of Ministers, the Court considered it necessary to stress that Ukraine must urgently reform its legal system to ensure that ill-treatment in custody is eradicated, effective investigations are conducted in accordance with Article 3 in every case where an arguable complaint of ill-treatment is raised and any shortcomings in the investigation are effectively remedied at the domestic level. In so doing, the Ukrainian authorities must have due regard to the instant judgment, and to the Court’s case-law and the Committee of Ministers’ recommendations, resolutions and decisions on the subject.
Article 41: EUR 40,000 in respect of non pecuniary damage.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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