THIRD SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 4698/13
Volodymyr YEGOROV
against Slovakia
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 22 May 2018 as a Committee composed of:
Dmitry Dedov, President,
Alena Poláčková,
Jolien Schukking, judges,
and Fatoş Aracı, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 9 January 2013,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr Volodymyr Yegorov, is a Ukrainian national, who was born in 1962 and lives in Krivoj Rog (Ukraine). He was represented before the Court by Kubicová, Benkóczki, Baláž - advokáti, s r.o., a law firm with its registered office in Bratislava (Slovakia).
2. The Government of the Slovak Republic (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Ms M. Pirošíková.
3. The Government of Ukraine were informed of the case and invited to exercise their right of intervention (Article 36 § 1 of the Convention and Rule 44 of the Rules of Court), to which they responded that they did not wish to make use of it.
The circumstances of the case
4. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
1. Background
5. From 25 June 2002 until 19 September 2013 the applicant was continuously deprived of his liberty in Slovakia, mainly in the context of detention pending trial in relation to various charges pursued against him, partly in parallel proceedings and partly in consecutive proceedings. For more details, see Yegorov v. Slovakia (no. 27112/11, §§ 8 et seq., 2 June 2015).
6. The present case relates specifically to the applicant’s detention between 27 July 2011 and 22 February 2012.
7. In this time-frame, the lawfulness of his detention was judicially examined at three occasion: (i) at the time of his remand by the Specialised Criminal Court (Špecializovaný trestný súd – “the SCC”) on 29 July 2011, (ii) in the context of his request for release of 1 December 2011, and (iii) in follow up to the decision of the SCC of 3 February 2012 to extend the period of his detention until 27 May 2012.
8. The first examination ultimately resulted in the finding by the Court of a violation of the applicant’s rights under Article 5 §§ 1 (c) and 3 of the Convention (see Yegorov, cited above, §§ 123 et seq.)
9. The second examination led to a decision by the SCC of 22 December 2011 to release the applicant. However, following an interlocutory appeal by the Public Prosecution Service, this decision was not implemented and was ultimately quashed by the Supreme Court on 16 January 2012.
10. The third examination then lead to the applicant’s release under an order of the Supreme Court of 22 February 2012, following his appeal against the decision of 3 February 2012 to extend his detention.
2. The applicant’s claims for damages
11. In connection with his detention in the above-specified period, and in so far as relevant for the purposes of this application, the applicant pursued two types of claims.
12. First, the applicant challenged the Supreme Court’s decision of 16 January 2012 by way of a complaint under Article 127 of the Constitution, claiming a violation of his rights under Article 5 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention, 100,000 euros (EUR) in compensation for non-pecuniary damage, and the quashing of the contested decision.
13. In a judgment of 22 August 2012 the Constitutional Court found a violation of the applicant’s above-mentioned rights, relying on the Supreme Court’s above-mentioned decision of 22 February 2012, which had been given in the meantime.
14. As regards his claim for compensation and for the quashing of the impugned decision, the Constitutional Court noted that, under its established case-law, the purpose of awarding financial satisfaction in respect of a violation of a fundamental right found by it was to complete the protection of that right in instances where it was insufficient merely to find the violation or, as the case may be, to order a re-examination of the case without violating the fundamental right in question.
Taking into account that the applicant had already been released by the above-mentioned order of 22 February 2012, the Constitutional Court found that (i) it was “neither expedient nor appropriate” to award him any just satisfaction, and (ii) it was “not necessary for it to exercise its power to quash the contested decision in order to achieve rectification of the matter”.
15. Second, as revealed by the applicant at the communication stage, on 18 February 2015 he raised a claim with the Ministry of Justice for damages under the State Liability for Damage Act (Law no. 514/2003 Coll., as amended - “the SLD Act”).
In particular, he argued that, in the light of the Supreme Court’s decision of 22 February 2012, the decisions of the SCC to remand him on 29 July 2011 and to extend the period of his detention on 3 February 2012 were unlawful and as such had caused him non-pecuniary damage. He quantified it by an amount of EUR 69,100 and sought to have it awarded. Under section 16(4) of the SLD Act, the entity liable in relation to a compensation claim under the Act had six months to satisfy it, failing which the claimant could pursue the claim before a court.
16. In a letter dated 20 August 2015 the Ministry informed him that in their view the claim was unfounded and could not be accepted.
17. However, as revealed by the Government in their further observations at the communication stage, by an action of 14 August 2015 the applicant had meanwhile lodged his compensation claim under the SLD Act with the Bratislava I District Court.
18. In a judgment of 14 October 2016 the District Court found that the claim had a valid basis. As for its amount, it awarded the applicant EUR 10,550 and dismissed its remainder.
19. The judgment of 14 October 2016 has been challenged by an appeal and the appeal is on-going.
COMPLAINT
20. The applicant complained under Article 5 § 5 of the Convention that in its judgment of 22 August 2012 the Constitutional Court had denied him the enforceable right to compensation for his detention, which it had itself recognised to have been in contravention of the provisions of Article 5.
THE LAW
21. The applicant complained that the dismissal by the Constitutional Court in its judgment of 22 August 2012 of his claim for damages violated his rights under Article 5 § 5 of the Convention, which reads as follows:
“Everyone who has been the victim of arrest or detention in contravention of the provisions of this Article shall have an enforceable right to compensation.”
22. In their initial observations, the Government pointed out that in its judgment of 22 August 2012 the Constitutional Court had found a violation of the applicant’s Article 5 rights and that in its decision of 22 February 2012 the Supreme Court had ordered his release. As a result, in their view, the applicant had lost his victim status for the purposes of the present application. Moreover, they objected that he had failed to exhaust domestic remedies by claiming damages under the SLD Act. Lastly, they submitted that Article 127 of the Constitution and the SLD Act made it possible for the applicant to apply for compensation for the violation of his Article 5 rights, which was compatible with the requirements of Article 5 § 5 of the Convention.
23. In his reply, the applicant accentuated the gravity of the underlying violation of his Article 5 rights and considered that the Government’s objection to his victim status and exhaustion of domestic remedies were practically tantamount to a complete negation of his rights under Article 5 § 5 of the Convention. He pointed out that on several other occasions the Constitutional Court had denied him any compensation on essentially the same grounds as in the present case (see Yegorov, cited above, §§ 41 and 42). Moreover, he referred to the position of the Ministry of Justice as regards his compensation claim under the State Liability Act (see paragraph 16 above) and considered that it showed that there was no prospect of obtaining compensation by making any such claim.
24. In a further reply, the Government informed the Court that following an action by the applicant, the Bratislava I District Court had actually awarded him compensation in respect of the underlying violation of his Article 5 rights (see paragraphs 17 and 18 above). They considered such development as crucial and pointed out that, in violation of his procedural obligations before the Court, the applicant had failed to inform it of this development of his own initiative. In the Government’s view, this failure amounted to an abuse of the right of an individual application within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention.
25. The Court notes first of all that the Constitutional Court’s ruling contested by the applicant in the present case falls within a broader picture of his detention under the remand order 29 July 2011. The unlawfulness and incompatibly of his detention under that order with his Article 5 rights has been established at the national level, by the Supreme Court’s decision of 22 February 2012 and by the Constitutional Court’s judgment of 22 August 2012, as well as by the Court itself (see Yegorov, cited above, § 132).
26. There may accordingly not be any doubt about the applicability of Article 5 § 5 of the Convention in the present case (see, for example, N.C. v. Italy [GC], no. 24952/94, § 49, ECHR 2002‑X).
27. The applicant’s domestic claim, of the dismissal of which he now complains before the Court, had its substantive foundation in Article 46 §§ 3 and 4 of the Constitution, with modalities being left for regulation by way of a statute, in concreto the SLD Act (see, for example, Martikán v. Slovakia (dec.), no. 21056/08, §§ 16, 24-30, 43 and 44, 9 October 2012).
28. In addition to the possibility of claiming compensation under the SLD Act, there was another procedure which might result in an award of compensation in respect of damage due to a violation of the applicant’s Article 5 rights, in particular a complaint under Article 127 of the Constitution (see Martikán, cited above, § 46). The applicant in the present case made use of that possibly, albeit with no success.
29. Although the Court has already found in the past that, on the specific facts of the given cases, Article 127 of the Constitution and the SLD Act made it possible to apply for compensation for the underlying Article 5 violations in a way which was compatible with the requirements of its paragraph 5, it remains a fact that the functional relationship between these two mechanisms has not been entirely clarified (see Martikán, cited above, §§ 49 and 52). The Court finds this relationship of a particular importance in cases such as the present one, in which claims for compensation in the context of a complaint under Article 127 of the Construction are dismissed by the Constitutional Court, with the attendant impact on the likelihood of success of similar claims under the SLD Act (see, mutatis mutandis, Yegorov, cited above, § 97).
30. However, as has been established by the Government at the communication stage, on the specific facts of the present case the applicant’s compensation claim under the State Liability Act was not hampered from succeeding, at least not at the first instance. As the appeal against it is on-going, the application is at this stage in any event premature. It must accordingly be rejected under Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention. This finding is without prejudice to the assessment of the Government’s objection under Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention (see paragraph 24 above).
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 14 June 2018.
Fatoş AracıDmitry Dedov
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy