Published on 2 March 2026
FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 20914/25
Marin Vasylyovych MATEY
against Ukraine
lodged on 12 June 2025
communicated on 13 February 2026
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the applicant’s compulsory psychiatric internment ordered in the framework of criminal proceedings in connection with a knife attack.
From 2016 onwards the applicant has been held in psychiatric internment (see other applications lodged by the same applicant, namely Matey v. Ukraine, nos. 33891/21 and 3 others, communicated on 13 January 2025).
On 20 May 2025, following an improvement in the applicant’s mental health, a psychiatric medical commission established that the applicant no longer required internment in a psychiatric hospital and on the same day the hospital applied to the Sarny District Court of the Rivne region (“the Sarny Court”) for his discharge for compulsory outpatient treatment. While the hospital’s request was pending, on 2 June 2025 the applicant’s lawyer lodged a request with the same court seeking the applicant’s immediate release.
As of 12 June 2025, both requests remained unexamined.
Relying on Article 5 § 4 of the Convention, the applicant complains that the review of his request for release did not comply with the requirement of speediness.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
Did the applicant have at his disposal an effective procedure by which he could challenge the lawfulness of his psychiatric internment, as required by Article 5 § 4 of the Convention? In particular, did the length of the proceedings, by which the applicant sought to challenge the lawfulness of his psychiatric internment in the present case, comply with the “speediness” requirement of Article 5 § 4 of the Convention?