THIRD SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 31478/17
Ivan Vladimirovich PROKOPYEV
against Russia
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 20 March 2018 as a Committee composed of:
Branko Lubarda, President,
Pere Pastor Vilanova,
Georgios A. Serghides, judges,
and Fatoş Aracı, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 5 April 2017,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant, Mr Ivan Vladimirovich Prokopyev, is a Russian national, who was born in 1986 and is detained in the Nizhniy Novgorod Region.
The Russian Government (“the Government”) were represented by Mr M. Galperin, the Representative of the Russian Federation to the European Court of Human Rights.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
At the material time the applicant was in pre-trial detention. On 12 July 2016 the District Court held a preliminary hearing in which it rejected the applicant’s application for release and held that the custodial measure “should remain unchanged”. It did not fix any time-limit for its application.
Counsel for the applicant complained to the appeal court that the District Court did not specify the authorised period for the applicant’s detention. On 3 August 2016 the Omsk Regional Court rejected the appeal, without giving a specific reply to the counsel’s argument or fixing a time-limit for the applicant’s detention.
On 31 October 2016 the applicant was convicted at first instance.
COMPLAINT
The applicant complained under Article 5 of the Convention that the courts had not set a time-limit for his detention.
THE LAW
The Government submitted that the application was belated because the final domestic decision had been given by the Omsk Regional Court on 3 August 2016, that is to say more than six months before the date of introduction of the application.
The Court reiterates that, where the applicant’s detention consisted of several discrete periods, it is appropriate to calculate the six-month time‑limit in respect of each period separately. The starting point for the calculation is the date of the relevant appeal decision or, if the detention was not covered by any judicial order, the date on which the alleged continuous violation of the right to liberty ceased to exist (see Strelets v. Russia, no. 28018/05, § 67, 6 November 2012; Kozhayev v. Russia, no. 60045/10, § 102, 5 June 2012; Bakhmutskiy v. Russia, no. 36932/02, § 107, 25 June 2009; Belov v. Russia, no. 22053/02, § 73, 3 July 2008; and Ignatov v. Russia, no. 27193/02, § 71, 24 May 2007).
The applicant complained about a defect in the detention order of 12 July 2016 which was upheld on appeal on 3 August 2016. The application was lodged only on 5 April 2017, that is more than six months later. Accordingly, it has been introduced out of time and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 12 April 2018.
Fatoş AracıBranko Lubarda
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy