Communicated on 15 September 2014
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 4731/10
Vakhtang MENABDE
against Georgia
lodged on 18 January 2010
STATEMENT OF FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr Vakhtang Menabde, is a Georgian national, who was born in 1987 and lives in Tbilisi. He is represented before the Court by Ms N. Katsitadze, a lawyer practising in Tbilisi.
2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
3. Between early April and late June 2009 thousands of opposition supporters held demonstrations in various parts of Tbilisi, as well as in a few other major cities of the country, on a daily basis, demanding resignation of President M. Saakashvili and his Government. In the light of those ongoing protests, which were often accompanied by violent confrontation between demonstrators and police forces, the Office of Public Defender of Georgia established a 24-hour monitoring group for the purposes of recording human right breaches. Members of that group wore special jackets allowing their identification with the Public Defender’s Office.
4. During the above-mentioned period of street protests, there were several incidents where the police used allegedly excessive force against demonstrators. The present application concerns one of such incidents, which occurred on 15 June 2009.
5. Notably, on that day approximately fifty members and supporters of a youth opposition group gathered outside the Tbilisi police headquarters to protest the arrest of opposition activists which had taken place a few days earlier. The applicant, who was the member of the above-mentioned monitoring group of the Public Defender’s Office, was instructed to attend the demonstration.
6. When the applicant arrived at the scene, in front of the Tbilisi police headquarters, he witnessed how a squad of police officers, some wearing uniforms and balaclavas and some dressed in plain clothes, were chasing demonstrators, beating them indiscriminately with rubber truncheons and baseball bats. Notwithstanding the fact that the applicant was wearing his special jacket of an agent of the Public Defender Office, a few police officers surrounded him, started verbally insulting him and then hit him with truncheons in the face and over his spine. The applicant fell down on the ground, with his nose bleeding. He was then dragged inside of the building of the police headquarters, where he saw how dozens of young men were lying on the floor, being kicked and hit with baseball bats and spat on by police officers. The applicant told the officers that he was an agent of the Public Defender’s Office, but his statement was left unnoticed. He was first placed in a cell together with other detained young people. Some fifteen minutes later, however, a police officer released him, explaining that he had been arrested by mistake.
7. The applicant immediately went to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with closed head injury, concussion, and was provided with the requisite necessary care. A doctor who examined him also noted in a medical record that the applicant had bruises on his limbs and face and that his nose was fractured.
8. On 23 June 2009 the Public Defender of Georgia applied to the Chief Public Prosecutor on behalf of the applicant, requesting the initiation of criminal proceedings for the fact of his ill-treatment and unlawful deprivation of liberty by officers of the Tbilisi police headquarters.
9. On 21 July 2009 the Public Defender again called upon the prosecution authority to investigate the abuses committed by the police on 15 June 2009 against the demonstrators, including the episode of ill‑treatment of the applicant.
10. On 17 August 2009 the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office replied to the Public Defender, noting than a criminal investigation into the incident of 15 June 2009 had been opened and that results of that investigation would be made public in due course.
11. On 21 October 2009 the Public Defender made yet another enquiry about a progress of the investigation, if any. The same enquiries were filed with the prosecution authority by the applicant’s lawyer on 20 November and 25 December 2009.
COMPLAINTS
12. The applicant complains under Article 3 of the Convention that he was ill-treated on 15 June 2009 and no effective investigation has been conducted in this respect.
13. Citing Articles 5 §§ 1, 2 and 5 of the Convention, the applicant complains that the police arrested him in the street and then remanded in the Tbilisi police headquarters without any lawful basis, without explaining him the reasons for his arrest and that he does not even have an enforceable right to request compensation for that unlawful detention.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Was the applicant subjected to ill-treatment, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention, during the dispersal of the demonstration by the police on 15 June 2009?
- Have the competent domestic authorities conducted an adequate investigation into the applicant’s above-mentioned allegation of ill‑treatment, as required by the procedural obligation under Article 3 of the Convention?
2. Having regard to the applicant’s arrest by the police in front of the Tbilisi police headquarters as well as his subsequent custody inside of the headquarters, was the applicant deprived of his liberty in breach of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention? For how long exactly was the applicant remanded in the Tbilisi police headquarters?
- Was the applicant informed of the reasons for his arrest, as required by Article 5 § 2 of the Convention?
- Does the applicant have an effective and enforceable right to compensation for his detention in alleged contravention of Article 5 §§ 1 and 2, as required by Article 5 § 5 of the Convention?
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