CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 12 juin 2008

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Russia - 16074/07 Judgment 12.6.2008 [Section I] Article 3 Degrading treatment Inhuman treatment Applicant held for 34 days in a cell designed for short-term administrative detention not exceeding three hours: violation   Article 5 Article 5-1 Lawful arrest or detention Unrecorded detention without a judicial decision: violation   Facts : The applicant, who is a Belarus national, was arrested on 20   February 2007 on her arrival at Domodedovo airport (Russia) with a view to her extradition to Belarus as she was on a list of its fugitives from justice. The police did not draw up an official record of the arrest. She was placed in a holding cell at the airport’s transport police station and, following a faxed petition from the Belarus authorities, was kept there pending a formal extradition request. The applicant repeatedly complained to the domestic courts that she was being held without a judicial decision in excess of the maximum period – 48 hours – provided for under the Russian Constitution and Code of Criminal Procedure. However, they refused to hear her complaints because she was not a party to criminal proceedings in Russia and, in any event, they considered that under the relevant treaty (the Minsk Convention) the faxed letter of the Belarus authorities constituted a lawful basis for her detention until such time as a formal extradition request had been received. The applicant also complained to the Russian authorities about the conditions of her detention at Domodedovo. She alleged in particular that she was being held in a cell measuring approximately four square metres with no toilet, sink, bedding, table, chair or windows. The cell did not have a door but an open metal grille which left her plainly in view at all times. Occasionally she had to share the cell with other women offenders. She also stated that she was never taken outside for exercise and had to rely on her sister and boyfriend to bring her food. The Government acknowledged, for the most part, the applicant’s description of her conditions of detention. They submitted, however, that the police had provided her with a mattress from a hotel and food from the airport canteen. On 23 March 2007 the Prosecutor General’s Office’s applied for an arrest warrant, after receiving an extradition request from Belarus. That application was granted three days later and the applicant was transferred to a remand prison. Ultimately, the request for the applicant’s extradition to Belarus was granted. Law : Article 5 §   1 (f) – The Court firstly observed that the absence of any formal record with information as to the date, time and location of the applicant’s detention, her name, the reasons for her detention and the name of the arresting police officer, had to be considered a most serious failing and incompatible with the very purpose of Article 5 of the Convention. Furthermore, the applicant’s detention, which was only formalised by an arrest warrant 34 days after her placement in custody, had also been incompatible with the Russian Constitution and Code of Criminal Procedure, which provided that the maximum period of detention without a judicial decision could not exceed 48 hours. The Minsk Convention, which required that provisional detention comply with domestic procedure, could not have been a legal basis either. The Russian authorities had misconstrued the relevant provision of the Minsk Convention, which did not provide a legal basis for detention of an initial 40-day period but required that anyone detained for more than 40 days be released if, in the meantime, no extradition request had been received. Conclusion : violation (unanimously). Article 3 – The Court had already found violations of Article 3 in cases where applicants had been kept in cells designed only for short-term detention. Moreover, the report by the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) on holding cells in several police stations in Moscow had found, in particular, that the cells, which were dark, dirty, poorly ventilated and ill-furnished, were unacceptable for periods of custody exceeding three hours. As there had been no judicial decision concerning the applicant’s detention, she could not be transferred to a remand prison and had been held for 34 days in a cell designed for short-term administrative detention not exceeding three hours. Not only had it been tiny   – falling short of the seven-square-metre CPT guideline –it had also lacked the necessary amenities for prolonged detention. On occasions she had even had to share that tiny cell with other women offenders. The fact that the applicant had been confined to a cramped cell, which had no privacy, for practically 24 hours a day for more than a month, without exposure to daylight or air and without physical activity or other pastime, had to have caused her considerable suffering. Lastly, the fact that it had been impossible to establish whether there were any formal catering or bedding arrangements was a consequence of the applicant being detained outside any legal framework. Even if the police officers had brought her food, their goodwill could obviously not be a substitute for the glaring absence of precise regulations governing her situation. The Court therefore concluded that the conditions of detention which the applicant had had to endure for 34 days had to have caused her intense distress and hardship and aroused in her feelings of fear, anguish and inferiority capable of humiliating and debasing her and that those feelings had to have been exacerbated by her deprivation of liberty without a lawful basis. Conclusion : violation (unanimously). The Court also found a violation of Article 5   §   4 of the Convention (see also Nasrulloyev v. Russia , no.   656/06, 11 October 2007, Information Note no. 101). Article 41 – EUR 10,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.   © Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court. Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes