Information Note on the Court’s case-law 256
November 2021
Kovrov and Others v. Russia - 42296/09, 71805/11, 75089/13 et al.
Judgment 16.11.2021 [Section III]
Article 46
Article 46-2
Execution of judgment
General measures
Respondent State required to continue to adopt measures to address structural problem relating to unjustified length of pre-trial detention and house arrest
Facts – The applicants were arrested on suspicion of various crimes and were placed under house arrest. Some of them were remanded in custody and then the preventive measure was changed to house arrest. The domestic courts extended the applicants’ pre-trial detention and house arrest by using formulaic reasoning and listing the grounds provided for by the Code of Criminal Procedure (such as the gravity of the offence, the possibility of the applicant absconding, putting pressure on witnesses, interfering with the investigation or reoffending), without linking them to the circumstances of the applicants’ cases or verifying whether these grounds remained valid at the advanced stages of the proceedings. The appellate courts reproduced the wording of the first-instance courts’ decisions and dismissed the applicants’ appeals against the detention and house arrest orders.
Law – Article 5 § 3: The periods of pre-trial detention and house arrest to be taken into consideration had ranged from one year and one month to four years and 10 months. When examining the applicants’ complaints about their pre-trial detention and house arrest, the Court applied the same criteria for the evaluation of deprivation of liberty, irrespective of the place where the applicants had been detained. By failing to address specific facts underpinning the existence of such risks or properly consider alternative preventive measures, and by relying essentially on the gravity of the charges, the courts had extended the applicants’ detention and house arrest on grounds which could not be regarded as sufficient to justify the length.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously)
The Court also found, unanimously, a violation of Article 5 § 5 in the case of Mr Kovrov, given that the latter did not have an enforceable right to compensation for his detention, which had been in breach of Article 5 § 3.
Article 41: awards in respect of non-pecuniary damage ranging from EUR 1,000 to 2,700. Claim in respect of pecuniary damage submitted by one of the applicants dismissed.
Article 46: Russia’s highest courts – the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court – had directed their attention to the issue of the unjustified pre-trial detention and house arrest, providing specific explanations on how to secure the rights of detained persons within the framework of the existing legislation and how to comply with the requirements of Article 5 § 3. In line with the above indications relating to alternative preventive measures, in the recent years the domestic courts had increasingly applied house arrest instead of pre-trial detention.
Therefore, the Court acknowledged that the respondent State had already taken important steps to remedy the problems related to unjustified deprivation of liberty. The Court welcomed the efforts made by the Russian authorities aimed at bringing Russian legislation and practice in compliance with the Convention requirements and the statistics demonstrating a reduction in the excessive use of detention as a preventive measure. At the same time, the Court considered that consistent and long‑term efforts had to continue in order to achieve compliance with Articles 5 §§ 3 and 5, in particular, as regards reasoning of detention and house arrest orders and in strengthening the judicial control over the extension of such deprivation of liberty, where the rate of judicial approval remained very high, as well as establishing framework relating to compensation for unjustified deprivation of liberty.
In the Zherebin judgment the Court had held that the existing situation relating to detention called for the adoption of general measures by the respondent State. The above findings were relevant in the present case as well. In particular, the Court reiterated the standards established in Resolution no. 2077 (2015) of the Parliamentary Assembly and the importance of ensuring that decisions on deprivation of liberty contained relevant and sufficient reasons with due consideration of the detainee’s particular situation and linked grounds for deprivation of liberty with concrete circumstances of the case; encouraging further application of more lenient preventive measures such as bail; establishing a clearer framework for compensations for unjustified preventive measures, including house arrest; and taking other measures to remedy the issues raised in the present case. It was for the Committee of Ministers then to assess the effectiveness of the measures proposed by the Russian Government and to follow up on their subsequent implementation in line with the Convention requirements.
(See also Zherebin v. Russia, no. 51445/09, 24 March 2016, Legal Summary)
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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