Communicated on 2 September 2014
FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 189/13
Yelena Nikolayevna LESKOVA and Anna Aleksandrovna KRIVULYA
against Ukraine
lodged on 12 December 2012
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The first applicant, Ms Yelena Nikolayevna Leskova, is a Ukrainian national, who was born in 1955 and lives in Gorlovka. The second applicant, Anna Aleksandrovna Krivulya, was born in 1975 and lives in the same town.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.
The first applicant and K., the first applicant’s husband and the father of the second applicant, lived in an apartment of a multi-storey apartment building. The municipal company S. was responsible for the building’s proper maintenance.
In February 2007 K. entered the communal hallway of the building, fell into an uncovered manhole and drowned in the flooded basement.
Civil proceedings
In 2007 the applicants instituted civil proceedings in an unspecified court seeking compensation for non-pecuniary damage caused to them by the death of K. In July 2010 the court terminated the proceedings in the case because the criminal case concerning the death of K. was submitted to the Tsentralnyy District Court of Gorlovka for trial (see below).
Criminal investigation into the death of K.
The first applicant sought to institute criminal investigation into the death of K., but the prosecutors refused to do so on several occasions. Eventually in July 2008 the prosecutors instituted proceedings against the director of company S. for her failure to ensure proper maintenance of the communal hallway which resulted in the death of K.
In July 2010 the criminal case was submitted to the Tsentralnyy District Court of Gorlovka for trial.
In August 2010 the applicants lodged a civil claim within the criminal proceedings seeking compensation for the death of K.
In a judgment of 15 June 2012 the Tsentralnyy District Court terminated the criminal proceedings against the director of company S. as time-barred and left the applicants’ civil claim without consideration. On 2 April 2013 the Donetsk Regional Court of Appeal quashed this judgment and remitted the case to the same court for a fresh consideration. The case remains pending before this court.
COMPLAINTS
The applicants complain, invoking Articles 2, 3, 6, 13 and 17 of the Convention, that the criminal investigation into the death of K. is too lengthy. They further complain about the excessive length of consideration of their civil claim lodged within the framework of the criminal proceedings.
QUESTIONS
1. Having regard to the procedural protection of the right to life (see Salman v. Turkey [GC], no. 21986/93, ECHR 2000-VII), was the investigation in the present case by the domestic authorities in breach of Article 2 of the Convention?
2. Does the length of the consideration of the applicants’ civil claim lodged within the framework of criminal proceedings satisfy the requirement of “reasonable time” under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?
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