FOURTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 4728/08
Ramin KIZIRIA
against Georgia
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 11 March 2014 as a Committee composed of:
Paul Mahoney, President,
Nona Tsotsoria,
Krzysztof Wojtyczek, judges,
and Fatoş Aracı, Deputy Section Reistrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 18 December 2007,
Having regard to the formal declaration accepting a friendly settlement of the case,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr Ramin Kiziria, is a Georgian national, who lives in Kutaisi. The Georgian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr Levan Meskhoradze, of the Ministry of Justice.
2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
3. On 23 February 2006, the applicant’s son, Mr Butkhuz Kiziria, born in 1980, and his two friends, whilst they were driving a car in the village of Vartsikhe, Baghdati Region, were shot dead by officers of the Imereti Regional Police Department of the Ministry of the Interior. The incident occurred in the context of a police operation to apprehend the passengers of the car who were considered to have been conveying firearms.
4. On 24 February 2006 the Imereti Regional Police Department of the Ministry of the Interior launched criminal proceedings against the applicant’s son and the two other late persons for illegal conveyance and use of firearms against the police. All preliminary investigative measures, including those directly relating to the examination of the scene of the shooting, were conducted in the context of that investigation by the above‑mentioned police department.
5. The results of the above-mentioned investigation, the collected evidence, were subsequently transmitted to the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The prosecution authority relied on that evidence in its own probe, initiated on 8 May 2006, into the lawfulness of the police actions during the incident of 23 February 2006. Notably, the authority opened a case against the relevant police officers for an offence prosecuted under Article 114 of the Criminal Code – killing as a result of the use of force beyond that which was required for arresting a wrongdoer. On 19 May 2006 the applicant was granted victim status in those proceedings.
6. On 31 December 2006 the public prosecutor in charge of the case issued a resolution discontinuing the proceedings against the police officers for want of a criminal offence. The applicant filed a judicial complaint against that resolution, which was rejected as manifestly ill-founded by the Kutaisi City Court and the Kutaisi Court of Appeals on 28 March and 29 June 2007 respectively.
COMPLAINTS
7. The applicant complained under Article 2 of the Convention that his son had been killed by law-enforcement agents and that no effective investigation had been conducted.
THE LAW
8. On 4 April 2013 the Court gave notice of the application to the Government under Article 2 of the Convention.
9. On 25 October 2013 the Government informed the Court that they wished to effect a friendly settlement with the applicant, for the purposes of which they submitted a formal declaration couched in the following terms:
“Considering the factual and legal circumstances of the case, the Government wish to express their regretful acknowledgment of a violation of Article 2 of the Convention under its procedural limb.
Due to the failure to conduct effective investigation into the allegation of the excessive use of force against the applicant’s son, the Government are prepared, within the scope of the present declaration, to:
- conduct effective investigation with respect to the allegation of the excessive use of force against Mr Butkhuz Kiziria, as required by the procedural limb of Article 2,
- pay 10,000 (ten thousand) Euros to the applicant to cover any pecuniary or non-pecuniary damages and costs of expenses, which will be free of any taxes that may be applicable to the applicant. This sum will be converted into the respondent State’s national currency at the rate applicable on the date of payment, and will be payable within three months from the date of notification of the decision taken by the Court. In the event of failure to pay this sum within the said three-month period, the Government undertake to pay simple interest on it, from the expiry of that period until settlement, at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points.
The fulfilment of the above-mentioned conditions will constitute the final resolution of the case.”
10. By a letter of 8 January 2014 the applicant informed the Court that he was prepared to accept the Government’s friendly-settlement declaration of 25 October 2013.
11. The Court takes note of the friendly settlement reached between the parties. In this connection, it reiterates that the fundamental character of Article 2 of the Convention always requires that there should be some form of effective official investigation when individuals have been killed as a result of the use of force by, inter alios, agents of the State (see, amongst many others, Enukidze and Girgvliani v. Georgia, no. 25091/07, §§ 241‑243, 26 April 2011). That being so, the Court attaches particular significance to the Government’s undertaking to conduct an effective investigation into the relevant life-taking incident.
12. The Court is thus satisfied that the settlement is based on respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols and finds no reasons to justify a continued examination of the application. In view of the above, it is appropriate to strike the case out of the list.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases in accordance with Article 39 of the Convention.
Fatoş AracıPaul Mahoney
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy