CEDH · PRESS;GENERAL;ENG — 25 janvier 2005

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[1]     Violation Article 5 § 1 (f) Singh v. the Czech Republic (application no 60538/00)   Violation Article 5 § 4 The applicants, Balbir Singh and Bakhschisch Singh, are Indian nationals who were born in 1955 and 1956 respectively. Mr Balbir Singh currently lives in Slovakia and Mr   Bakhschisch Singh is staying in the Czech Republic.   In November 1996 the applicants were arrested in the Czech Republic, where they were lawfully resident, and were prosecuted for assisting others to cross the border illegally. On 9 April 1998 the Prague 7 district court (obvodní soud) sentenced them to 21 months’ imprisonment and orders were made excluding them indefinitely from national territory.      After serving their sentences, the applicants were placed in detention pending deportation from 11 August 1998, on the ground that it was impossible to deport them immediately since they did not have passports. The applicants applied on two occasions to be released and to be granted refugee status. All their appeals were dismissed.   The applicants were released on 11 February 2001 and were subsequently issued with travel documents enabling them to leave Czech territory.   The applicants alleged that their detention pending deportation had been unlawful and disproportionate, particularly on account of its excessive length. They also submitted that the courts did not rule speedily on their applications for release. They relied on Article 5 §§ 1 (f) and 4 (right to liberty and security) of the European Convention on Human Rights.   The European Court of Human Rights noted that the applicants were detained pending deportation for two and a half years. The proceedings were characterised by periods of inactivity and the Court considered that the Czech authorities ought to have shown greater diligence, especially once the Indian Embassy had expressed its unwillingness to issue the applicants with passports in April 1999. In that respect, the question arose as to why the Czech police had not supplied the applicants with travel documents within the meaning of the Residence of Aliens Act prior to their release.   The Court also noted that, under Czech legislation, detention could only be extended beyond two years if there were serious grounds for assuming that the release of the person concerned would endanger or complicate the proceedings. In the present case, there had been no substantial change in the courts’ submissions throughout the applicants’ detention. In addition, the Court noted that the applicants had been convicted for an offence that was not particularly serious, and that the length of their detention pending deportation had exceeded that of the prison sentence imposed on them.     Consequently, the Court considered that the Czech authorities had not shown due diligence in handling the applicants’ case and that the length of their detention had not been reasonable. Accordingly, it concluded unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 1 (f).   As to the applications for release, the Court noted that the proceedings in connection with the first of those applications had lasted almost three months for two levels of jurisdiction, and that an additional month had been required for notice to be served of the ruling, resulting in uncertainty with regard to the option of submitting a new application. The second application for release had lasted almost eight months. Having regard to its case-law in this area, the Court considered that such lengths of proceedings did not satisfy the requirement of speediness contained in Article 5 § 4, and consequently concluded unanimously that there had been a violation of the Convention in this respect.   Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded each of the applicants 5,000 euros (EUR) for non-pecuniary damage, and EUR 3,000 jointly for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in French.)   Florică v. Romania (no. 49781/99)   Friendly settlement The applicant, Gheorghe Florică, is a Romanian national who was born in 1940 and lives in Bucharest. He is a retired general and former head of the Ministry of Finance’s Financial Guard ( Garda financiară ), and was the manager of a commercial company.   The applicant was prosecuted in connection with various cases, including one known as Ţigareta II - the Constanţa channel , concerning large-scale cigarette-smuggling via Bucharest military airport and the port of Constanţa.   The applicant complained under Article 5 §§ 1 (c), 3 and 5 (right to liberty and security) of the Convention of the unlawfulness of his pre-trial detention from 13   May to 9 June 1999. Relying on Article 6   § 2 (presumption of innocence), he further submitted that his right to be presumed innocent had been infringed on account of statements by a prosecutor and a police investigator as to his guilt.   The case has been struck out following a friendly settlement in which EUR 10,000 is to be paid to the applicant for any non-pecuniary damage and EUR 9,794 for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in French.)   Razaghi v. Sweden (no. 64599/01)   Struck out The applicant, Ali Reza Razaghi, is an Iranian national, born in 1974. On 30 November 1998 he applied for asylum in Sweden. The National Immigration Board ( Statens invandrarverk ) rejected the application and ordered that the applicant be expelled to Iran.   The applicant claimed that, if expelled to Iran, he would risk, among other things, facing death by stoning for having had a relationship with a mullah’s wife. He relied on Article 2 (right to life), Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman treatment) and Article 1 of Protocol No. 6 (abolition of the death penalty).   The European Court of Human Rights observed that, on 23 September 2004 the Swedish Aliens Board revoked the expulsion order against the applicant and granted him a permanent residence permit. Finding that the applicant no longer faced expulsion to Iran or any risk of a violation of the articles of the Convention invoked, the Court concluded that the matter had been resolved and accordingly struck out the case. (The judgment is available only in English.)   Karademirci and Others v. Turkey (nos. 37096/97 and 37101/97) Violation Article 10 The six applicants, İsmail Karademirci, Mehmet Zencir, Şennur Yılmaz, Ayla Bilir, Ayfer Aydoğdu and S.T., are Turkish nationals who were born in 1961, 1964, 1966, 1966, 1961 and 1972 respectively and live in Izmir (Turkey). Mr Karademirci is the chairperson of the Union of Health Professionals for the Izmir region.   On 30 June 1995 25 persons, including the applicants, gathered in front of the Yenişehir Meslek Lisesi secondary school. Mr Karademirci read out a text signed by the Izmir branches of the Union of Health Professionals ( Tüm Sağlık Sen ) and of the Union of Education Professionals ( Eğitim Sen ), criticising the treatment meted out to certain pupils in the İzmir Atatürk Sağlık Meslek Lisesi secondary school.   The persons who attended that meeting were prosecuted for making a “statement to the press” ( basın açıklaması ) without having first submitted the text of the statement to the public prosecutor’s office, in accordance with sections 44 and 82 of the Associations Act (Law no. 2908). On 13 February 1996 the applicants and the other co-defendants were sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, which was commuted to a suspended fine. They appealed unsuccessfully on points of law.   The applicants submitted that their criminal conviction had infringed Articles 10 (freedom of expression), 11 (freedom of assembly and association) and 9 (right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion) of the Convention.   The Court noted that the applicants had been convicted for having made a “statement to the press” under sections 44 and 82 of the Associations Act, which imposed “a formal requirement or condition” on associations before they could publish or distribute leaflets, written statements and similar publications.   Article 10 did not in itself prohibit the imposition of prior restraints on a form of communication. However, in the Court’s opinion, where failure to observe a formal requirement was punishable by a criminal penalty, as in this case, the law must clearly define its application.   In the present case, the criminal court had found that the fact of organising a press conference and reading a text aloud amounted to an action that was subject to the same formality as that established for “leaflets”, “written statements” and “similar publications” under section 44 of the Associations Act. Such an interpretation represented an extension of the scope of section   44 to an area that could not reasonably have been foreseen in the circumstances of the case. Accordingly, the applicants could not reasonably have foreseen that the public reading and distribution of a press statement could be considered as an action which fell within the scope of section 44 of the Associations Act.   Consequently, the Court considered that, in the present case, section 44 of the Act did not meet the requirement of foreseeability as to its application, and concluded unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 10 of the Convention. Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded each of the six applicants EUR 1,000 for non-pecuniary damage. The Court also awarded EUR 1,500 jointly to the first five applicants for costs and expenses, and EUR 1,500 to S.T. for costs and expenses, less EUR 625.04 which the Council of Europe had already paid in legal aid.   (The judgment is available only in French.)     ***   These summaries by the Registry do not bind the Court. The full texts of the Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Registry of the European Court of Human Rights F – 67075 Strasbourg Cedex Press contacts:   Roderick Liddell (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 24 92)   Emma Hellyer (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15)   Stéphanie Klein (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54) Fax: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 27 91   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. Since 1 November 1998 it has sat as a full-time Court composed of an equal number of judges to that of the States party to the Convention. The Court examines the admissibility and merits of applications submitted to it. It sits in Chambers of 7 judges or, in exceptional cases, as a Grand Chamber of 17 judges. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe supervises the execution of the Court’s judgments. More detailed information about the Court and its activities can be found on its Internet site. [1] Under Article 43 of the European Convention on Human Rights, within three months from the date of a Chamber judgment, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the 17 ‑ member Grand Chamber of the Court. In that event, a panel of five judges considers whether the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or its protocols, or a serious issue of general importance, in which case the Grand Chamber will deliver a final judgment. If no such question or issue arises, the panel will reject the request, at which point the judgment becomes final. Otherwise Chamber judgments become final on the expiry of the three-month period or earlier if the parties declare that they do not intend to make a request to refer.