Published on 25 August 2025
FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 11831/20
Vitaliy Mykolayovych USTYMENKO
against Ukraine
lodged on 20 February 2020
communicated on 8 August 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns an alleged ineffective investigation into the applicant’s ill-treatment inflicted by private individuals.
On 15 February 2018 at around 3.30 p.m. the applicant, a civil activist, attended a court hearing in the premises of the Solomyanskyi District Court of Kyiv held in the case against a mayor of Odesa. Following the pronouncement of a court decision, the applicant shouted his disagreement with it. A few minutes later, several men dressed in black, pushed the applicant out of the court hearing room into the corridor, where another group of men, dressed in black and wearing balaclavas punched him in different parts of his body aiming to push him out of the court premises. A police officer, who was inside the court premises and observed the event, did not intervene. When the applicant was outside the court, a group of men wearing National Guard of Ukraine uniforms observed and verbally supported the attack, and one of them kicked the applicant. The whole event was widely reported in media.
On 16 February 2018 the applicant complained to the police who, however, refused to open a criminal case.
On 12 March 2018 the local prosecutor’s office, having detected a video footage with the applicant’s attack in press, opened a criminal case into infliction of minor bodily injuries under Article 125 § 1 of the Criminal Code.
Between October 2018 and September 2019, the police took a number of procedural actions, including a questioning of the applicant and possible witnesses, listed names of 36 persons who had been present in the court building on the day of the event, added a video footage relating to the event as evidence to the criminal case. However, since September 2019, no further procedural actions have taken place.
Relying on Articles 3 and 13 of the Convention, the applicant complains that the police officers failed to protect him from the assault in the court premises and that the investigation into his ill-treatment has been ineffective.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has the applicant been subjected to ill-treatment, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention (see Bouyid v. Belgium [GC], no. 23380/09, §§ 81-82, and 88, ECHR 2015)?
2. Having regard to the procedural protection from ill-treatment (see Labita v. Italy [GC], no. 26772/95, § 131, ECHR 2000-IV), was the investigation in the present case by the domestic authorities in breach of Article 3 of the Convention?