FIFTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 10749/16
Yuriy Gennadiyovych NOVIKOV
against Ukraine
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 12 February 2026 as a Committee composed of:
Andreas Zünd, President,
Mykola Gnatovskyy,
Vahe Grigoryan, judges,
and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 10749/16) against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 16 February 2016 by a Russian national, Mr Yuriy Gennadiyovych Novikov (“the applicant”), who was born in 1988 and lives in Petropalivka, and was represented by Ms G.V. Ovdiyenko, a lawyer practising in Kharkiv;
the decision to give notice of the complaints under Article 5 §§ 3 and 5 of the Convention concerning the alleged unlawfulness of the applicant’s detention and lack of the remedies therefor to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, M I. Lishchyna, from the Ministry of Justice, and to declare the remainder of the application inadmissible;
the observations submitted by the Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant;
the comments submitted by the Russian Government, which had been granted leave to intervene by the President of the Section;
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. On 8 April 2014 the applicant was apprehended by the police on suspicion of repeatedly committing robberies and burglaries as a part of a group.
2. On 11 April 2014 the Bryankivskyi Local Court (“the Local Court”) ordered the applicant’s pre-trial detention, taking into account the applicant’s character, the gravity of the offence he was suspected of and the risk of his reoffending, given that the applicant had been convicted of several robberies before and was also on trial in the same court for another offence.
3. On 2 June 2014 a bill of indictment was filed with the Local Court.
4. On 6 June and 24 July 2014 the Local Court extended the applicant’s detention.
5. Owing to a loss of control of the territory in which the Local Court was located, the criminal case against the applicant was transferred to the Lysychansk Town Court (“the Town Court”) in September 2014[1]. However, the case file was incomplete, as some of the material remained in the territory outside the government’s control.
6. On 20 November 2014 the Town Court extended the applicant’s pre-trial detention until 21 January 2015. The reasons for the extension were the risk of his absconding due to the seriousness of the offence he was suspected of, lack of strong social bonds, a risk of his reoffending given his previous convictions and a risk of his interfering with witnesses.
7. On 16 January, 20 March, 19 May, 17 July, 7 September and 6 November 2015 the Town Court extended the applicant’s pre-trial detention, referring to the same grounds as those in the above-mentioned decision of 20 November 2014.
8. On 8 December 2015 the Town Court replaced the applicant’s detention with a personal undertaking to appear before the court and freed the applicant in the court room. The court considered that the grounds for the applicant’s detention that had been advanced by the investigator were no longer relevant, considering the time already served.
9. Following his release, the applicant failed to appear before the court on several occasions and was placed on the list of wanted persons in October 2017. He was also convicted of three other unrelated offences in different sets of criminal proceedings.
10. The applicant was apprehended again within the context of the criminal proceedings related to the present case on 4 June 2018.
THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT
11. The Court notes that the present application concerns the period of the applicant’s detention between 2 September 2014 and 8 December 2015. In respect of that period the applicant alleged that the only reason for extending his detention had been the necessity of restoring the material in the case file, even though domestic law did not provide for such possibility at the trial stage (Article 524 of the Code of Criminal Procedure) and the reasoning for extending his detention was always the same, in violation of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention. He further complained under Article 5 § 5 of the Convention that he did not have the right to compensation for the alleged violation of Article 5 § 3.
12. The Government submitted that the applicant’s behaviour prior to the period in question had given sufficient reason to believe that the applicant might commit further offences and/or abscond. His behaviour after his release in December 2015 proved that the reasons advanced by the authorities had been valid. They also disagreed that the reason for the applicant’s detention had been the restoration of the material in the case file.
13. The Court reiterates that the question whether a period of time spent in pre-trial detention was reasonable cannot be assessed in the abstract. Whether it was reasonable for an accused to remain in detention must be assessed on the facts of each case and according to its specific features. Continued detention can be justified in a given case only if there are actual indications of a genuine requirement of public interest which, notwithstanding the presumption of innocence, outweighs the rule of respect for individual liberty laid down in Article 5 of the Convention (see, among other authorities, Kudła v. Poland [GC], no. 30210/96, §§ 110 et seq., ECHR 2000‑XI, and Idalov v. Russia [GC], no. 5826/03, § 139, 22 May 2012).
14. The persistence of a reasonable suspicion that the detainee has committed an offence is a sine qua non for the validity of his or her continued detention. But when the national judicial authorities first examine, “promptly” after the arrest, whether to place the arrestee in pre‑trial detention, that suspicion no longer suffices, and the authorities must also give other relevant and sufficient grounds to justify the detention. Those other grounds may be a risk of flight, a risk of pressure being brought to bear on witnesses or of evidence being tampered with, a risk of collusion, a risk of reoffending, or a risk of public disorder and the related need to protect the detainee (see Buzadji v. the Republic of Moldova [GC], no. 23755/07, §§ 87‑88 and 101‑02, 5 July 2016, with further references). Those risks must be duly substantiated and the authorities’ reasoning on those points cannot be abstract, general or stereotyped (see Merabishvili v. Georgia [GC], no. 72508/13, § 222, 28 November 2017, with further references).
15. The Court notes that the period under consideration lasted for more than 15 months, which is not short in absolute terms. It further notes that the criminal proceedings against the applicant were indeed delayed owing to loss of control of the territory in which the proceedings had been initiated and the resulting transfer of the case to the other court (see paragraph 5 above). It does not see, however, any confirmation of the applicant’s allegations that the only reason for his detention had been to give the authorities time to restore the material in the case file. The domestic courts continued the examination of the criminal case against the applicant and examined the grounds for his further detention within reasonable intervals. The Court observes that a number of valid reasons, described above (see paragraphs 6 and 14 above), were advanced in the judicial orders on the applicant’s detention. Furthermore, the risk of his reoffending was confirmed by the applicant’s previous behaviour. The domestic authorities explicitly relied on these grounds throughout the applicant’s pre-trial detention and ordered the applicant’s release once they considered that those reasons were no longer relevant. The Court considers that, with regard to the seriousness of those grounds and the period of the applicant’s pre-trial detention, the present case does not disclose any appearance of a violation of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention (see, mutatis mutandis, Titarenko v. Ukraine, no. 31720/02, §§ 73 and 74, 20 September 2012).
This part of the application is therefore manifestly ill-founded in accordance with Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention.
16. As to the right to compensation, paragraph 5 of Article 5 presupposes that a violation of one of the other paragraphs of that provision has been established, either by a domestic authority or by the Convention institutions (see Ławniczak v. Poland (dec.), no. 22857/07, § 76, 23 October 2012). Accordingly, the Court cannot consider the applicant’s claim under this provision, as no breach of paragraphs 1 through 4 of Article 5 has been found in the circumstances of the present case. Therefore, this part of the application is likewise manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention.
17. It follows that the application must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 12 March 2026.
Martina Keller Andreas Zünd
Deputy Registrar President
[1] Upon Order no. 2710/38-14 of the Higher Specialised Court of Ukraine for Civil and Criminal Cases “on establishing territorial jurisdiction of the courts’ cases” of 2 September 2014