FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 57404/08
Evgueni LAVRECHOV against the Czech Republic
lodged on 18 November 2008
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Evgueni Lavrechov, is a Russian national who was born in 1952 and lives in Udomlja, Russia. He is represented before the Court by Mr R. Rozmánek, a lawyer practising in Olomouc.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
The applicant was a representative of the Russian company T. that bought a share of the Czech company S. As a result the applicant was a member of the Board of Directors of company S. since 8 August 1995 and its chair since 27 February 1996. He could not, however, exercise his powers between 24 September 1996 and 3 December 1996 when he was illegally dismissed from the Board of Directors by its Czech members. Company S. went later bankrupt.
On an unspecified date the applicant was charged with misuse of information in business relations and fraud in that he had allegedly concluded contracts disadvantageous for company S. He was taken into pre-trial detention where he spent nine months.
On 22 February 2002 he was released on bail of 10,000,000 Czech korunas (EUR 400,000). The applicant, with the court’s consent, travelled back to Russia. He has, however, never returned to the Czech Republic and was tried in absentia.
In a judgment of 23 October 2006 the Ostrava Regional Court fully acquitted the applicant holding that he had not committed any criminal offence but had been conducting standard and transparent business activities.
On 28 June 2007 the Olomouc High Court upheld this judgment.
On 1 November 2007 the Regional Court ruled that the bail should be returned to the applicant as he had not been duly informed about the consequences of not complying with the conditions of the bail. Moreover, none of the situation envisaged by Article 73a § 3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for forfeiting the bail was applicable.
On 5 December 2007 the High Court quashed that decision and ruled that the bail was forfeited. It held that the applicant had known about the possibility of forfeiture of the bail even though he had not been formally informed about it. It also held that it was true that for some time the applicant could not come to the Czech Republic because he had lost his passport and the Czech authorities had taken time in issuing him a new visa. However, the applicant failed to collect correspondence in one of his addresses in Russia, which he had indicated to the prosecuting authorities, as required by Article 73a § 3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and, thus letters from the court could not have been delivered to him in time. The proceedings had therefore been held in absentia.
The applicant lodged a constitutional appeal against that decision arguing that it was unjust that such a high bail had been forfeited even though he had not committed any crime. He also disputed the correctness of the findings of the High Court.
On 3 June 2008 the Constitutional Court dismissed the appeal as manifestly ill-founded.
B. Relevant domestic law
Article 73a §§ 1 and 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that persons in pre-trial detention may be released on bail with a minimum security of CZK 10,000, the actual amount being determined by the court depending on the particular circumstances of the accused and the case.
Under § 3 of that provision the bail will be forfeited, inter alia, if the accused absconds, is hiding or does not inform the relevant authorities of a change of the place of residence and thus frustrates a delivery of an official letter. Under § 6 the accused must be informed in advance of the conditions under which a bail may be forfeited.
COMPLAINTS
Under Article 6 of the Convention the applicant disagrees with the domestic decisions about the bail and complains that they were insufficiently reasoned
Further, relying on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, the applicant complains that the forfeiture of his bail in such an amount was disproportionate given that he had not committed any offence.
QUESTION
Has the forfeiture of the applicant’s bail constituted a breach of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1? In particular did it impose an excessive individual burden on the applicant (see Immobiliare Saffi v. Italy, [GC], no. 22774/93, § 59, ECHR 1999-V)?
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