CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 3 février 2026

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Russia (no. 4) - 4743/21 and 37083/21 Judgment 3.2.2026 [Section III] Article 2 Positive obligations Article 2-1 Life Domestic authorities’ failure to address applicant’s complaint concerning the real and immediate risk to his life allegedly originating from the State itself: violation Article 3 Degrading treatment Inhuman treatment Applicant simultaneously subjected to a combination of several forms of ill-treatment in detention: violation Article 5 Article 5-1 Lawful arrest or detention Procedure prescribed by law Applicant’s unlawful detention pending the proceedings on the activation of his suspended sentence based on his 2014 conviction: violation Article 5-1-a After conviction Applicant’s unlawful detention after the activation of his suspended sentence based on his 2014 conviction: violation Facts – Following his treatment in Germany following a near-fatal poisoning incident, on 17   January 2021 the applicant voluntarily returned to Russia and was arrested at the official airport border crossing. The two applications concern his arrest and detention, followed by proceedings which culminated in the activation of a suspended prison sentence previously imposed on him in 2014 after his conviction for commercial fraud and money laundering, and his subsequent imprisonment based on that sentence from 2   February 2021 until his death on 16   February 2024. Law – Preliminary issues – (1) Jurisdiction – As regards the applicant’s complaint under Article   5 §   1 concerning his detention after 2   February 2021 upon the activation of the suspended part of the prison sentence, the Court reiterated that a period of detention approved before 16   September 2022 (the date on which the Russian Federation ceased to be a party to the Convention) but extending beyond it fell within the Court’s temporal jurisdiction in its entirety on account of the “continuous” effect of the detention order. The Court also had jurisdiction to examine the applicant’s remaining complaints as the constitutive facts had occurred prior to 16   September 2022. (2) Consequences of the Government’s failure to participate in the proceedings relating to application no.   37083/21 – The respondent Government by failing to submit any written observations in respect of application no.   37083/21 had manifested their intention to abstain from further participating in its examination. In that connection, the Court reiterated that the cessation of a Contracting Party’s membership of the Council of Europe did not release it from its duty to cooperate with the Convention bodies. Consequently, the respondent Government’s failure to engage with the proceedings could not be an obstacle to the examination of the application. (3) Locus standi – The Court found that the applicant’s widow, who had expressed her wish to pursue the applications on behalf of her deceased husband, had a legitimate interest in doing so. Article 5 § 1: (1) Detention after 2 February 2021 – The applicant’s detention after the above date had arisen from the activation of the suspended sentence arising from the 2014 conviction (which had been upheld on appeal in 2015), as allowed for by domestic law. His detention for that period therefore fell, on the face of it, under Article   5   §   1 (a). However, as there existed a clear causal connection between the applicant’s 2014 conviction and his deprivation of liberty in 2021, the Court was required to consider the compatibility of that detention with the Convention in circumstances where it had made previous findings of violations under Articles 6 and 7 in respect of the 2014 conviction. In its judgment of 17   October 2017 in Navalnyye v.   Russia (no.   101/15) the Court had found that there had been violations of Article   7 in respect of the proceedings which had led to the applicant’s 2014 conviction. It had found that the offence of fraud had been “extensively and unforeseeably construed” and that it had not been possible to foresee that the applicant’s conduct would constitute commercial fraud; consequently, it had been equally unforeseeable that his profits would have been deemed to constitute the proceeds of crime the use of which could have amounted to money laundering. Having regard to the nature and scope of its findings under Article   7 in respect of the 2014 conviction, and the connection between that conviction and the applicant’s detention after 2   February 2021, the Court found that the detention violated Article   5 §   1 because the applicant could not have foreseen to a reasonable degree that his actions would have resulted in a deprivation of liberty. Furthermore, the Court found that the applicant’s conviction, which had formed the basis for his detention after 2   February 2021, had been the result of proceedings that had amounted to a “flagrant denial of justice”. In Navalnyye v.   Russia (no.   101/15) it had found that his 2014 conviction had violated his rights under Articles 6 §   1. The domestic courts had failed to rule on the substantive elements of the criminal offences or to carry out a proper assessment of the defence’s arguments. Consequently, their decisions in the applicant’s criminal case had been “arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable”. The judicial examination of his case had been “flawed with arbitrariness ... which [had] undermined the fairness of the criminal proceedings in such a fundamental way that it [had] rendered other criminal procedure guarantees irrelevant”. Given the clear causal link to the 2014 conviction, and the Court’s findings under Article   7 that the domestic interpretation had been unforeseeable, the applicant’s subsequent detention could not be regarded as “lawful” within the meaning of Article   5 §   1 (a). In any event, the profound arbitrariness identified under Article   6 in Navalnyye had reached the threshold of a flagrant denial of justice, reinforcing the same conclusion. Conclusion : violation (unanimously). (2) Detention from 17   January until 2   February 2021 – During that shorter period of just over two weeks, the applicant had been detained pending the outcome of the proceedings concerning the activation of his suspended sentence. The Court did not need to rule on whether his detention fell within one of the permissible grounds under Article   5 §   1, because in any event, it had not been lawful. After being convicted in 2014, the applicant had been given a suspended sentence. As required under domestic law, to activate his suspended sentence, a separate court order had been issued on 18   January 2021 which had been upheld on appeal on 28   January 2021. However, none of the legal provisions referred to by the domestic courts as constituting the statutory basis for ordering the applicant’s detention pending the hearing on whether his suspended sentence should be activated expressly provided for detention in the specific scenario; those provisions were tailored to other specific scenarios – none of which had been applicable to the applicant’s situation. The domestic courts had found that those provisions could be applied “by analogy” to his situation, introducing thus an interpretation in their case-law that had ran counter to the wording of the applicable statutory provisions. They had not referred to any authoritative interpretation of the cited provisions by the Supreme or Constitutional Courts of Russia that confirmed that they could apply to detention pending proceedings for the activation of a suspended sentence. Nor had it been demonstrated that there had been longstanding and settled case-law supporting the application of the cited provisions in such situations. The courts’ interpretation that there had been a statutory basis for detention pending the outcome of activation proceedings appeared to have been arrived at for the first time in the applicant’s case. Their reasoning did not refer in any way to the need to exercise restraint within a context involving deprivation of liberty but rather had justified its conclusion merely on the basis that the prohibition on application “by analogy” had been restricted to the interpretation of substantive criminal law and did not apply to procedural criminal law. The interpretation which had concluded that there had existed such a statutory power in those circumstances had been both novel and expansive and had been contrary to the principle of legal certainty, thus falling short of the Convention standard of lawfulness. New or expansive judicial constructions that lacked a clear basis in the text of the law failed to satisfy the requirements of foreseeability and protection against arbitrariness under Article   5 §   1. It had therefore been incompatible with the purpose of Article   5. The applicant’s deprivation of liberty during this period could not therefore be regarded as “lawful”. Conclusion : violation (unanimously). Article 2: (1) Applicability – The applicant had been poisoned with a chemical nerve agent prohibited by the Chemical Weapons Convention while on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow on 20   August 2020. In its judgment of 6   June 2023 in Navalnyye v.   Russia (no.   3), the Court had found that that incident had constituted a serious and immediate risk to his life. That had occurred only five months before the applicant’s return to Russia from abroad on 17   January 2021 and his arrest on the same day. Given that the domestic inquiry had not permitted the establishment of the relevant facts, ruled out the plausible allegations of poisoning for political motives by a substance identified as a chemical weapon prohibited by international and domestic law, or provided any other plausible explanation for the applicant’s sudden illness or identified those responsible, the Court drew appropriate inferences from the failure to conduct a Convention-compliant investigation, as it had previously affirmed that it would do. It found that a real and immediate risk to the applicant’s life had still persisted at the moment of his return to Russia and his arrest on 17   January 2021 and had continued thereafter. Conclusion : Article   2 applicable (unanimously). (2) Merits – The applicant had argued that the threat to his life had originated from the State itself and that his placement in custody, under the full control of the authorities, would have heightened that threat. In his view the only adequate preventive measure would have been to refrain from detaining him at all. The claim was thus a novel one, having regard to the existing case‑law in respect of Article   2. It might be distinguished from a request to the State authorities to take measures during an applicant’s imprisonment to protect him or her from third parties such as fellow prisoners as well as from a request to a court to consider the applicant’s state of health when deciding whether or not to impose imprisonment, or to order release from imprisonment. The novelty of the applicant’s argument lay in the fact that he had asked the courts to refuse to order his detention because of a threat from the State itself. The State had ignored each prior decision and judgment emanating from the Court concerning the applicant. Upon his voluntary return to Russia after the near-fatal poisoning incident, he had been immediately detained and a sentence of imprisonment had then been imposed, all in violation of the Convention’s provisions. In the course of doing so, the domestic courts had demonstrated their disregard of the Court’s judgment in respect of the 2014 conviction and of domestic law, and had refused to accept that had been any risk to the applicant’s life. They had also failed to take into account the Court’s indication of interim measure, as well as the decision and resolutions of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers urging the applicant’s release. The applicant had argued before the domestic courts - both in the detention proceedings and those to activate his suspended sentence - that his placement in detention would have put his life and health at risk. He had substantiated that argument with reference to the near-fatal poisoning incident and a report by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons which specifically stated that a chemical nerve agent from the Novichok group of substances, banned under the Geneva Convention, had been the poisoning agent. The Court thus concluded that the authorities, having been informed of those matters, had known or ought to have known of the existence of a real and immediate risk to the applicant’s life. Accordingly, the authorities should have addressed the questions of the source of the risk, its level and immediacy, and the range of preventive options (including non‑custodial or enhanced protective arrangements). One obvious issue that had fallen to be assessed had been whether the degree of risk to the applicant had been any worse inside the prison than outside of it, in view of what had been known about the poisoning incident. It was not necessary, however, to consider precisely what would have discharged the domestic courts’ obligation to assess the risk and/or take adequate preventive measures because the courts had simply dismissed the applicant’s arguments summarily and had made no attempt at all to fulfil their obligation under Article   2. In any event, neither they nor any other authority had taken any preventive measures. There had therefore been a failure by the authorities to address the applicant’s complaints under Article   2. Conclusion : violation (unanimously). Article 3: Although there was insufficient basis for a finding that the authorities had failed to provide adequate medical care to the applicant, the Court found that he must have endured constant and considerable pain for a prolonged period of time, considering his diagnosis of acute degenerative disease of the lumbosacral region of the spine (with herniated discs and protrusions). He had also been placed in detention only six months after his poisoning which had resulted in a coma and lengthy in-patient and out-patient treatment. Given his recent serious illness and his deep conviction that the State had been responsible for his poisoning, his anxiety about his health, his mistrust of the detention facility’s medical staff and his wish to have access to independent medical care had been understandable. His anxiety must have been further exacerbated by his deteriorating condition. The combination of those factors had rendered the applicant particularly vulnerable – a consideration that had to be taken into account when determining whether the threshold of severity under Article   3 had been reached. The Court found that the applicant had been simultaneously subjected to a combination of several forms of ill-treatment. The applicant, who had been particularly vulnerable and in pain, had been subjected to sleep deprivation for 39   days as a result of night checks waking him up every two hours. The Court found that this had been done on an arbitrary basis. The night checks had continued while he had been on hunger strike and experiencing back pain which would have increased his distress and suffering. Furthermore, the applicant’s hair had been shaved off without any legal basis or valid justification. Those aspects of his detention, taken together, had reflected a pattern of disregard for the applicant’s health, well-being and dignity which had had the effect of humiliating and debasing him and arousing in him feelings of fear and anguish capable of breaking his moral and physical resistance. Cumulatively, they had amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment. Conclusion : violation (unanimously). Article 18: As the applicant had not maintained this complaint in his observations, the Court considered that he might be regarded as not having wished to pursue it, within the meaning of Article   37 §   1 (a). Given that the Court had already found a violation of Article   18 in several cases lodged by him and the nature of the violations found in the present case, it found no special circumstances regarding respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and the Protocols thereto which required the continued examination of that complaint in the present case where the applicant had not wished to pursue it. Conclusion : struck out (absence of intention to pursue application) (unanimously). Article 34: The Court concluded that the domestic authorities had manifestly not fulfilled their obligation to comply with the interim measure indicated on 16   February 2021 to the Russian Government, under Rule   39 of the Rules of Court, that the applicant should be immediately released. The applicant had remained in detention until his death three years later. In the circumstances of the present case, there had been nothing to absolve the authorities of that obligation. On the contrary, it was clear that the reason for the failure to comply had been the Government’s refusal to accept the legitimacy of the Court’s interim measure. Conclusion : failure to comply with its obligations (unanimously). Rule 39: In the light of the applicant’s death, the interim measure which had previously been indicated ceased to have any basis. Article 41: EUR 26,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage. (See Navalnyye v.   Russia , 101/15, 17   October 2017, Navalnyy v.   Russia [GC], 29580/12 et al, 15   November 2018, Legal Summary ; Navalnyy v.   Russia (no.   2), 43734/14, 9   April 2019, Legal Summary ; Navalnyy v.   Russia (no.   3), 36418/20, 6   June 2023, Legal Summary )   © Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court. 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