Information Note on the Court’s case-law 190
November 2015
Sakit Zahidov v. Azerbaijan - 51164/07
Judgment 12.11.2015 [Section I]
Article 6
Criminal proceedings
Article 6-1
Fair hearing
Domestic courts’ failure to address legitimate concerns about possible “planting” of evidence: violation
Facts – The applicant was arrested and taken to local police premises where a search was conducted and drugs were found in one of his pockets. He was later convicted of illegal possession of drugs. Before the domestic courts, the applicant claimed that the drugs had been planted on him by the police officers. His complaints concerning the conditions in which the search was carried out and the admissibility of the evidence were not addressed by the domestic courts.
Law – Article 6: The applicant’s conviction had been based solely on the physical evidence, namely narcotic substances found on his person during a search.
The Court noted a number of concerns regarding the circumstances in which the physical evidence had been obtained. Firstly, the search of the applicant was not carried out immediately following the arrest, but twenty minutes later, nowhere near the place of arrest. The time lapse between the arrest and search raised legitimate concerns about possible “planting” of evidence, because the applicant was completely under the police’s control during that time. There was nothing to suggest that there were any special circumstances that had made it impossible to carry out a search immediately after the arrest. Secondly, the domestic courts had declined to examine a copy of the video-recording of the search and the Government had failed to provide a copy of the recording to the Court when specifically requested to do so. Thirdly, the applicant’s arrest was not immediately documented by the police and the applicant was not represented by a lawyer during his arrest or the search. Overall, therefore, the quality of the physical evidence on which the domestic courts’ guilty verdict was based was questionable because the manner in which it had been obtained cast doubt on its reliability.
The Court further found that the domestic courts had not properly considered the questions of the authenticity of the physical evidence and its use against the applicant. They had, in particular, failed to examine why his search had not been immediately conducted at the place of arrest and whether the proper procedure had been followed.
These two factors – the manner in which the physical evidence had been obtained and the domestic courts’ failure to address the applicant’s arguments regarding its authenticity and use against him – had thus rendered the proceedings as a whole unfair.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41: EUR 9,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
(See also Layijov v. Azerbaijan, 22062/07, 10 April 2014)
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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