THIRD SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 28361/14
Vladimir Mikhaylovich NAUMOV
against Russia
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 12 June 2018 as a Committee composed of:
Helen Keller, President,
Pere Pastor Vilanova,
María Elósegui, judges,
and Fatoş Aracı, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 7 June 2014,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant, Mr Vladimir Mikhaylovich Naumov, is a Russian national, who was born in 1973 and is serving a life sentence in Sol-Isetsk, Orenburg region. He was represented before the Court by Ms N. Radnayeva, a lawyer practising in Moscow.
The Russian Government (“the Government”) were represented initially by Mr G. Matyushkin, former Representative of the Russian Federation to the European Court of Human Rights, and then by his successor in that office, Mr M. Galperin.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
1. Criminal proceedings in the applicant’s case
(a) Arrest and detention in police custody
On 19 March 2007 M., a five-year old girl, was reported missing. The applicant, a prior sex offender, was repeatedly questioned by police in this connection.
On 24 March 2008 at 8.30 p.m. the applicant was taken by two police officers to a local police station. According to the applicant, some ten to twelve police officers questioned him urging to confess that he had raped and killed M. They took away his mobile phone and other personal effects and handcuffed him. They yelled at him and threatened to put him in a cell where other inmates would beat and rape him. The police officers kicked and punched him in the belly, liver and kidneys. For fear of being exposed to the threatened treatment, the applicant made a confessions statement.
On the same date at approximately 11 p.m. investigator B. questioned the applicant in the presence of Mazh., court-appointed counsel. The applicant confessed to the crimes he was suspected of.
After the questioning, the applicant was taken to a temporary detention centre and placed in cell no. 27. According to the applicant, Z., an inmate who was also being held in the same cell, advised him not to retract his confession. He claimed to be a police informant and relayed to the applicant the policemen’s threats that, should he claim to be innocent, he would be tortured with electric shocks.
On 28 March 2008 the applicant underwent a forensic medical examination. When asked by the forensic expert, the applicant denied that he had been subjected to ill-treatment. The expert documented the following injuries: a healed scar on the right cheek, and two scars on the left knee and the chin (the injury had probably been caused some one to one and a half months prior to the examination). The expert considered that the injuries might have been caused by the impact of an unidentified blunt object.
(b) Transfer to a remand prison and suicide attempt
On 4 April 2008 the applicant was transferred to a remand prison. In August 2008 he was held in cell no. 116 with K., Mal. and F.
According to the applicant, on 12 August 2008 Mal. and F. beat him to make him provide further detail as regards the crimes he was charged with. F. injured the applicant’s right kidney and Mal. broke one of his left ribs.
On 13 August 2008 the applicant tried to commit suicide. He locked himself up in the bathroom and slashed the veins on his legs, his right arm and his neck. He lost consciousness and subsequently regained it in the medical ward. He received the necessary treatment for his injuries. Then he was questioned again by police officers and put in a cell with two other inmates who allegedly beat him again for fifteen minutes. After that police officers questioned the applicant again. According to the applicant, they threatened to rape his wife. The applicant promised to comply.
On 14 August 2008 the applicant attended a court hearing where the judged extended his pre-trial detention. The applicant told the judge that he had sustained injuries as a result of a fall from the bunk bed.
(c) Investigation of the applicant’s suicide attempt
On an unspecified date in August 2008 the Department for Investigation of Particularly Serious Crimes conducted an investigation into the applicant’s suicide attempt.
An investigator questioned the applicant, B (a police investigator), the police officers who had arrested and questioned the applicant at the police station, and inmates K., Mal., and F. All of them denied the applicant’s allegations.
On 15 August 2008 it was decided not to open a criminal investigation into the matter. It appears that the said decision was quashed on 30 September 2008 and a new inquiry was ordered.
The parties did not inform of the outcome of the proceedings.
(d) Trial
On an unspecified date the investigation in the applicant’s case was completed and it was transferred to the Krasnoyarsk Regional Court for trial.
On 24 May 2010 the jury delivered a guilty verdict in the applicant’s case. The applicant was sentenced to life imprisonment. On an unspecified date the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld the verdict on appeal.
2. The applicant’s allegations of ill-treatment and ensuing investigation
On 4 May 2009 the applicant lodged a complaint about his ill-treatment in police custody and in the remand prison.
It appears that the investigating authorities repeatedly dismissed the applicant’s complaint refusing to open criminal investigation into his allegations. The latest relevant decision was issued by investigator on 8 September 2009. The applicant did not appeal.
On 14 March 2011 the applicant lodged a new complaint about ill‑treatment in custody. The authorities did not respond.
On 18 June 2013 the applicant lodged an appeal against the decision of 8 September 2009.
On 19 July 2013 the Krasnoyarsk Tsentralnyy District Court dismissed the applicant’s complaint noting that investigator Mukh. had taken all necessary measures to verify the applicant’s allegations.
On 23 January 2014 the Regional Court upheld the decision of 19 July 2013 on appeal.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complained under Articles 3 and 13 of the Convention that he had been subjected to ill-treatment in police custody and in detention pending trial and that the ensuing investigation had not been effective.
THE LAW
The applicant complained about ill-treatment in custody and the ensuing investigation. He relied on Articles 3 and 13 of the Convention which read as follows:
Article 3
“No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Article 13
“Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in [the] Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.”
The Government submitted that the applicant had failed to comply with the six months’ rule when lodging his application before the Court in 2014. The applicant had complained about the events which had occurred in 2008. In the Government’s view, he should have become aware of ineffectiveness of the proceedings instituted by the authorities in response to his complaint about ill-treatment in custody long before 7 June 2014 when he had introduced his complaint before the Court.
The applicant maintained his complaint.
As to the Government’s objection, the Court reiterates that the purpose of the six-month rule is to promote legal certainty and to ensure that cases raising issues under the Convention are dealt with within a reasonable period of time. Furthermore, it is also meant to protect the authorities and other parties concerned from being left in a state of uncertainty for a prolonged period of time (see Bayram and Yıldırım v. Turkey (dec.), no. 38587/97, ECHR 2002‑III, and Bulut and Yavuz v. Turkey (dec.), no. 73065/01, 28 May 2002).
Where no remedies are available or are judged to be ineffective, the six‑month time-limit in principle runs from the date of the act complained of (see Hazar and Others v. Turkey (dec.), no. 62566/00, 10 January 2002). However, special considerations may apply in exceptional cases in which an applicant avails himself of, or relies on, an apparently existing remedy and only subsequently becomes aware of circumstances which render such a remedy ineffective; in such a case it is appropriate to take the start of the six-month period as the date on which he or she first became aware or ought to have become aware of those circumstances rendering the remedy ineffective (see Paul and Audrey Edwards v. the United Kingdom (dec.), no. 46477/99, 7 June 2001). In this connection, the Court reiterates that, when time is of the essence in resolving the issues in a case, there is a burden on the applicant to raise his or her claims before the Court with the necessary expedition to ensure that they may be properly, and fairly, resolved (see, mutatis mutandis, Varnava and Others v. Turkey [GC], nos. 16064/90 and 8 others, § 160, ECHR 2009). Where the lack of progress or ineffectiveness of an investigation was readily apparent, the requirements of expedition might require an applicant to bring such a case before the Court within a matter of months, or at most, depending on the circumstances, very few years after the events in question (ibid., § 162).
In the present case, the Court notes that the applicant’s complaints about ill-treatment in custody, which allegedly occurred in 2008, were repeatedly dismissed in 2009 and no criminal case was opened. Some two years later, in 2011, the applicant re-introduced his complaint to no avail. No response from the authorities followed. It was only in 2013 that the applicant brought his grievances to the attention of the national courts which upheld the investigator’s findings that there had been no case to answer against the alleged perpetrators.
Having examined the facts of the case, the Court considers that in 2011 the applicant knew that no investigating activities had been carried out by the authorities since 2009. His complaint lodged in 2011 remained without response. In the Court’s view, at least in 2012 the applicant should have become aware of the ineffectiveness of the domestic investigation. The absence of any activity in the investigation of such a serious crime for such a lengthy period of time should have prompted him to draw appropriate conclusions and to introduce the complaint before the Court. The applicant did not provide any information that would justify his inactivity in that respect. Nor did he explain why he chose to appeal against the investigator’s decision of 8 September 2009 in 2013 instead of applying directly to the Court. Accordingly, the Court finds that, in the circumstances of the case, the applicant ought to have concluded long before – and certainly more than six months before – the introduction of the present application that this investigation was not effective.
Accordingly, the Court finds that the complaint must be rejected for the applicant’s failure to comply with the six-month time-limit set out in Article 35 §§ 1 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 5 July 2018.
Fatoş AracıHelen Keller
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy