Communicated on 19 October 2017
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 45148/15
Svetlana Vasilyevna VETLITSKAYA
against Russia
lodged on 28 January 2016
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The applicant was convicted of libel (introduced as Article 298.1 of the Criminal Code since August 2012) for her Internet posts concerning the President of a District Court in March, April and October 2012. She appealed. The appeal court stated that the defamatory statements had remained visible and accessible until November 2012 when they had been discovered by the victim. In view of this fact and taking the events in March, April and October 2012 as one single criminal event, on 25 February 2015 the appeal court dismissed the argument that two of three impugned statements had not been punishable by criminal law when they had been made. The appeal court also refused to apply the 2013 Amnesty Act in respect of the libel conviction because section 10 of the Act prohibited amnesty for certain offences, for instance under Article 159 of the Criminal Code of which the applicant had indeed been convicted in 2009.
The applicant was given a copy of the appeal decision on 1 August 2015.
QUESTIONS tO THE PARTIES
1. Has the applicant complied with the six-month rule under Article 35 § 1 of the Convention? What is the relevant date to be taken into account? In particular:
- Did Russian law provide at the time for a right to be served ex officio (by an appeal or first-instance court) with an appeal decision in the criminal case? If not, did the applicable regulations make it clear when the full text of an appeal decision was to be finalised and made available to the defence (see Order no. 161 of 15 December 2004 by the Judicial Office of the Supreme Court of Russia)?
- Was the appeal decision read out in full on 25 February 2015 in the presence of the defence? When was the text of the appeal decision finalised and made available to the defence in the present case?
2. Were there violations of Article 7 of the Convention in the present case? In particular:
- What was the statutory or jurisprudential basis for the appeal court’s findings relating to the single criminal event and the preponderance of the date on which the victim had discovered the dissemination of libellous statements?
- Did the ban in section 10 imply that one could not be amnestied for an offence (namely, under Article 298.1 of the Criminal Code) if she had been previously and separately convicted for another offence listed in this section and for which amnesty was not being sought? Did the applicant meet all the other pertinent conditions for an amnesty? If yes, was the refusal of this favourable measure in relation to a non-final conviction in breach of Article 7 of the Convention (see Scoppola v. Italy (no. 2) [GC], no. 10249/03, §§ 108-109, 17 September 2009; Del Río Prada v. Spain [GC], no. 42750/09, § 88, ECHR 2013; and Gouarré Patte v. Andorra, no. 33427/10, §§ 33-36, 12 January 2016)?
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