THIRD SECTION
DECISION
Application no 67024/09
Sergey Aleksandrovich SVIRIDOVSKIY
against Russia
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 17 November 2015 as a Committee composed of:
Helena Jäderblom, President,
Dmitry Dedov,
Branko Lubarda, judges,
and Marialena Tsirli, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 1 December 2009,
Having regard to the comments submitted by the respondent Government and the comments in reply submitted by the applicant,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr Sergey Aleksandrovich Sviridovskiy, is a Russian national, who was born in 1967 and lives in Maykop, the Republic of Adygeya. He was represented before the Court by Mr R. Karpinskiy, a lawyer practising in Moscow.
2. The Russian Government (“the Government”) were represented by Mr G. Matyushkin, Representative of the Russian Federation at the European Court of Human Rights.
3. On 27 March 2009 the Adlerskiy District Court of Sochi convicted the applicant under Article 286 § 3 of the Russian Criminal Code of abuse of office and sentenced him to three years six months’ imprisonment with a three-year ban on holding office in a law enforcement agency. The court relied, among other evidence, on the statements of a victim, G., obtained at the stage of the pre-trial investigation. The applicant was not afforded an opportunity to question G. at either stage of the proceedings.
4. While in pre-trial detention the applicant shared a cell for two weeks with a person who had a number of previous convictions.
5. In April 2009 the applicant was transferred from a remand prison in Adler to the correctional colony IK-3 in the Ryazan Region to serve his prison sentence. The travel took several days: between 8 April and 9 April 2009 the applicant was transported from Adler to Armavir, and on the subsequent days further to Ryazan, with stops in Krasnodar, Volgograd and Rostov. According to the applicant, the conditions of his transport between Adler and Armavir were characterised by overcrowding and restricted access to natural light and air.
6. On 3 June 2009 the Krasnodar Regional Court upheld the judgment of 27 March 2009 on appeal.
COMPLAINTS
7. The applicant complained under Article 3 of the Convention about the conditions of his transfer from Adler to Armavir.
8. He complained under the same head that, while in the remand prison, he had been held in a cell with a person who had a number of previous convictions.
9. The applicant further complained under Article 6 § 3 (d) of the Convention that at no stage of the criminal proceedings against him had he been afforded an opportunity to question the victim, G.
10. Lastly, he complained under Article 13 of the Convention about the absence of effective domestic remedies for the above grievances.
THE LAW
11. The applicant complained that the conditions of his transport from Adler to Armavir had been in breach of Article 3 of the Convention, which reads as follows:
“No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
He also alleged that he did not have an effective remedy for this complaint, contrary to the requirements of Article 13 of the Convention, reading as follows:
“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.”
12. The Government submitted that the applicant had failed to comply with the requirements set out in Article 35 § 1 of the Convention. In particular, they argued that the applicant had not brought the complaint about allegedly inadequate conditions of his transport between Adler and Armavir before the domestic authorities. They referred in this connection to the possibility for the applicant to have pursued a civil claim for compensation under Article 1069 of the Russian Civil Code, as well as the possibility for him to have addressed prison authorities and prosecutor’s office. In the alternative, the Government argued that if the applicant had assumed that there had been no effective domestic remedy to pursue, he should have lodged his complaint before the Court within six months of the end of the situation he complained about, that is, the period of his transport between Adler and Armavir.
13. The applicant maintained his complaints.
14. The Court reiterates that the six-month period normally runs from the final decision in the process of exhaustion of domestic remedies. Where it is clear from the outset however that no effective remedy is available to the applicant, the period runs from the date of the acts or measures complained of (see Artyomov v. Russia, no. 14146/02, § 108, 27 May 2010, with further references).
15. The Court further recalls its position that, given the present state of Russian law, none of the remedies referred to by the Government, can be considered an effective remedy vis-à-vis inadequate conditions of transport (see M.S. v. Russia, no. 8589/08, §§ 80-86, 10 July 2014, and Guliyev v. Russia, no. 24650/02, §§ 54‑56, 19 June 2008).
16. The Court’s case-law on the absence of an effective remedy for complaints concerning inadequate conditions of transport being sufficiently established, the applicant had at his disposal a period of six months following his transfer between Adler and Armavir between 8 April and 9 April 2009, during which he should have ascertained the conditions on the admissibility of an application to the Court and, if necessary, obtained appropriate legal advice. Therefore, the complaint to the Court should have been introduced no later than 9 October 2009, whereas it was actually lodged on 1 December 2009 (compare to Markov and Belentsov (dec.), nos. 47696/09 and 79806/12, 10 December 2013).
17. It follows that the applicant’s complaint about allegedly inadequate conditions of transport is inadmissible for non-compliance with the six‑month rule set out in Article 35 § 1 of the Convention, and must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 § 4.
18. As regards the complaint under Article 13 about the absence of an effective remedy against inadequate conditions of prison transport, the Court reiterates that Article 13 has been interpreted as requiring a remedy in domestic law only in respect of grievances which can be regarded as “arguable” in terms of the Convention. In view of its finding above with regard to the applicant’s complaint under Article 3, the Court considers that the applicant has no “arguable claim” of a breach of a violation of the Convention or its Protocols which would have warranted a remedy under Article 13.
19. Accordingly, this complaint is incompatible ratione materiae with the provisions of the Convention within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) and must be rejected, pursuant to Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.
20. The applicant also raised additional complaints about having been held in the remand prison in the same cell as someone with a previous criminal record, about having been denied the opportunity to question the victim in the criminal proceedings against him and the absence of effective remedies against the above complaints. The Court has given careful consideration to these grievances in the light of all the material in its possession and considers that, in so far as the matters complained of are within its competence, that they do not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms set out in the Convention or its Protocols. It follows that this part of the application must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 10 December 2015.
Marialena TsirliHelena Jäderblom
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy