Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 84
March 2006
Lelièvre v. Belgium (dec.) - 11287/03
Decision 2.3.2006 [Section I]
Article 5
Article 5-3
Length of pre-trial detention
Excessive length of pre-trial detention: admissible
On 14 August 1996 the applicant was arrested in connection with proceedings concerning the abduction, illegal confinement and killing of a number of teenage girls. The case received wide media coverage and caused a public outcry in Belgium. Shortly after his arrest, the applicant confessed to having taken part in the abduction of some of the young girls. Several days later the bodies of three girls were found. In December 1996 the applicant was charged with six abductions, five of which concerned minors, with the aggravating circumstance that the offences had resulted in the death of four of the girls and the illegal confinement of three. In the following years the applicant was interviewed over a hundred times by the investigators and the investigating judge. In judgments of 22 October 2001 and 21 January 2002 the indictment division found that the conduct of the judicial investigation, in view of the complexity of the case, was not vitiated by any abnormal delay, and it took measures to ensure that the length of the applicant’s detention did not become unreasonable. Moreover, from March 2001 onwards, the applicant lodged a number of applications for release, relying on Article 5(3) of the Convention. The indictment division and the Court of Cassation dismissed all his applications on the ground that there was still serious evidence of his guilt, that it was in the interest of public safety to keep him in detention and that the length of the proceedings remained reasonable. On 30 March 2003 the indictment division committed him to stand trial in the assize court. The trial began on 1 March 2004. On 22 June 2004 the applicant was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment as the perpetrator or joint perpetrator of a number of offences, in particular the abduction and illegal confinement of three girls with aggravating circumstances. He did not appeal on points of law.
Admissible under Article 5(3): Under the Court’s case-law, the end of the period referred to in Article 5(3) was “the day on which the charge is determined, even if only by a court of first instance”. The applicant’s detention pending trial had therefore lasted from 14 August 1996, the day of his arrest, until 22 June 2004. The period to be taken into consideration was accordingly seven years, ten months and eight days.
Pre-trial detention was an exceptional measure and could only be used in cases where it proved strictly necessary. It fell in the first place to the national judicial authorities to ensure that the pre-trial detention of an accused person did not last for an unreasonable length of time. Moreover, the lawfulness of prolonging such detention had to be assessed in concreto, according to the specific features of the case. The persistence of reasonable suspicion that the person arrested had committed an offence was a condition sine qua non but after a certain lapse of time it no longer sufficed. In such cases the Court had to establish whether the other grounds given by the domestic authorities to justify the deprivation of liberty were “relevant” and “sufficient” and whether the authorities had displayed “special diligence” in the conduct of the proceedings. The complexity and particular characteristics of the investigation were important factors to be considered in this connection.
In the light of all the parties’ submissions, the Court considered that this complaint could not be declared manifestly ill-founded. No other ground for declaring it inadmissible was established.
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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