CEDH · PRESS;GENERAL;ENG — 8 février 2005

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s40F41F73 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s33165EBA { font-family:Arial; font-size:8pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s55BA6445 { width:85.41pt; display:inline-block } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sFB5BB313 { width:29.88pt; display:inline-block } .s23A41E03 { width:36pt; display:inline-block } .s89705A9F { width:154.82pt; display:inline-block } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sDE1F8FF9 { width:337.58pt; display:inline-block } .s3D237AA5 { width:184.84pt; display:inline-block } .s4B8D41EE { font-family:Arial; font-size:10pt } .sB4D37324 { width:42.1pt; display:inline-block } .sAD033D0D { width:276.22pt; display:inline-block } .s4BBD9D4C { width:116.13pt; display:inline-block } .s2E932ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:11pt } .s8316975 { width:142.81pt; display:inline-block } .sD479557A { width:330.91pt; display:inline-block } .sB36E8B53 { width:142.14pt; display:inline-block } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .s9F8EB0C0 { width:18.63pt; display:inline-block } .s9E97F54A { width:85.05pt; display:inline-block } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   060 8.2.2005   Press release issued by the Registrar   Chamber judgments concerning France, Italy, Russia, Sweden and   Turkey   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing the following eight Chamber judgments, none of which are final. [1]   Lacas v. France (application no 74587/01)   Violation of Article 6 § 1 The applicant, Gérard Lacas, is a French national who was born in 1934 and lives in Serignan (France). He was sued on a guarantee following the liquidation of a company in which he was a shareholder. He issued proceedings in which he alleged that his signature had been forged, but they were dismissed on appeal to the Court of Cassation.   Relying on Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair hearing) of the European Convention on Human Rights, the applicant complained that the procedure followed in the Court of Cassation had been unfair in that neither the report of the judge rapporteur nor the submissions of the advocate-general had been communicated to him.   The European Court of Human Rights held unanimously that there had been a violation of that provision in that there had been no communication to the applicant before the hearing of the judge rapporteur’s report (although the advocate-general had been provided with a copy) or of the tenor of the advocate-general’s submissions (to which the applicant was accordingly unable to reply).   The Court found that the violation constituted sufficient just satisfaction for the non-pecuniary damage sustained by Mr Lacas and awarded him 400 euros (EUR) for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in French.)   Schwarkmann v. France (no. 52621/99)         Violation of Article 6 § 1 The applicant, Benjamin Schwarkmann, was a French national who was born in 1929 and lived in Villeurbanne (France). Following his death in 2001 the Court gave his widow and three daughters leave to continue the proceedings.   The applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time) of the length and unfairness of criminal proceedings he had brought in respect of drafts which he contended were invalid.   Only the complaint relating to the length of the proceedings was declared admissible. The Court noted that the investigation had lasted almost seven years and one month. In the circumstances of the case, the Court found that that period did not comply with the “reasonable-time” requirement laid down by Article 6 § 1 and held unanimously that there had been a violation of the Convention on that account. Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) it awarded the applicant’s heirs EUR 6,000 jointly for non-pecuniary damage. (The judgment is available only in French).   Bifulco v. Italy (no. 60915/00)   Violation of Article 6 § 1 The applicant, Biagio Bifulco, is an Italian national who was born in 1956 and lives at Ottaviano (Italy).   He was charged with being a member of a Mafia-type organisation and detained in June 1998. By order of the Minister of Justice he was held under the special regime provided for by section 41 bis of the Prisons Act, which meant that he was subject to a number of restrictions that did not apply to other prisoners. He lodged an appeal, but it was declared inadmissible as the term of the order had expired and the applicant no longer had an interest in the appeal. The initial one-year term was extended a number of times.   The applicant alleged that the delays by the Italian courts in hearing his appeal against the Minister of Justice’s order had infringed his right to a court, as guaranteed by Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair hearing) of the Convention.   The Court noted that the applicant’s appeal had been declared inadmissible with the result that there had been no decision on the merits and the courts’ powers to review the Minister of Justice’s order had been rendered ineffective. Moreover, in its view, the statutory requirement for courts hearing such appeals to deliver their decisions within ten days had been imposed because of the serious impact the special regime had on prisoner’s rights and the limited temporal validity of such orders.   The Court therefore found that the failure of the courts to decide the applicant’s appeal had violated his right to a hearing by a tribunal. It accordingly held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1 and awarded the applicant EUR 1,500 for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in French.)     Violation of Article 8 L.M. v. Italy (no. 60033/00)   Violation of Article 13 The applicant is an Italian national who was born in 1956 and lives in Syracuse (Italy).   In the morning of 11 September 1999 a search was carried out at her home pursuant to section 41 of the Codified Public Security Laws ( Testo Unico Leggi di Pubblica Sicurezza ) in connection with a suspected offence of unlawful possession of firearms. The suspected offender was in fact the applicant’s son, who lived with her and had previously fallen foul of the law.   No unlawful objects were found in the applicant’s home. A police record of the search was sent to the public prosecutor’s office on 13 September 1999 but was not validated by a member of that office.   Relying on Article 8 (right to respect for private life) the applicant contended that the search was illegal. She further said that she had had no effective remedy available to complain of the authorities’ conduct, contrary to Article 13 (right to an effective remedy).   The search constituted interference with the applicant’s right to respect for her home and private life. The statutory basis for it was section 41 of the Codified Public Security Laws. The Court noted that under the Code of Criminal Procedure the public prosecutor’s office was required to validate records of searches within 48 hours of transmission, thus enabling it to check whether the police had acted lawfully. The total failure to validate the record was unjustified and showed that the relevant authorities had not sought to make sure that the search complied with the procedures laid down by law. The Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention on account of the failure to follow the statutory procedures.   Noting that the applicant had no effective remedy before a domestic court in Italian law to seek redress for her complaint under Article 8, the Court held unanimously that there had also been a violation of Article 13.   Under Article 41 (just satisfaction), the Court awarded the applicant EUR 2,000 for non-pecuniary damage and EUR 3,000 for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in French.)   Bordovskiy v. Russia (no. 49491/99)   No violation of Article 5 §§ 1, 2 and 4 The applicant, Igor Aleksandrovich Bordovskiy, is a Belarusian national who was born in 1967 and lives in Gomen (Belarus).   In 1996 he was twice questioned by the General Prosecutor’s Office in connection with a criminal investigation into a private company he worked for. In 1997 he left his job and moved to St Petersburg in Russia. Seeing his move as an attempt to abscond, the General Prosecutor’s Office charged him with fraud and embezzlement and issued an international warrant for his arrest.   The Russian police arrested the applicant in St Petersburg on 9 July 1998. They took him into custody pending extradition and handed him over to the Belarusian authorities on 17   November 1998 (12 November according to the Russian Government).   The applicant complained under Article 5 §§ 1, 2 and 4 (right to liberty and security) and Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) that his detention pending extradition was unlawful, that he had not been informed promptly of the reasons for his arrest and had not been able to take proceedings by which the lawfulness of his detention could be decided.   As regards the lawfulness of the extradition proceedings, the Court noted that the Russian authorities had received a request for the applicant's extradition on 4 August 1998, that is to say 26 days after his arrest. However, the international arrest warrant had been received from Belarus in September 1997. Under Article 61-1 of the Convention on Legal Assistance in Civil, Family and Criminal Cases signed by the States forming the Community of Independent States, Russia was under an obligation to find and arrest the applicant, and had done so. Furthermore, the request for extradition had been made within the 40 day period allowed by Article 62 § 1 of the Convention. In those circumstances, the Court found that the extradition procedure was lawful and held unanimously that there had been no violation of Article 5 § 1 on that account.   The Court found that contrary to what had been submitted by the applicant the extradition law had the “quality” required by the European Convention on Human Rights. It did not consider the applicant’s detention for four months pending extradition to have been excessively long or see any other reason to believe that the Russian authorities had acted without due diligence. Consequently, it held unanimously that there had been no violation of Article 5 § 1 on that account either.   As regards the applicant’s complaints that he had not been informed of the reasons for his arrest, the Court noted that he was informed when he was arrested that the General Prosecutor’s Office in Belarus was looking for him. The Court found that that information satisfied the requirements of Article 5 § 2 and held unanimously that there had been no violation of that provision.   The Court lastly turned to the applicant’s complaints that he had had no remedy to challenge the lawfulness of his detention solely under Article 5 § 4. It said that it had no reason to doubt that the remedy afforded by Article 220 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was available to the applicant and noted that he had not furnished any evidence to show that the courts had declined to examine his applications. Consequently, the Court held unanimously that there had been no violation of Article 5 § 4. (The judgment is available only in English.)     Violation of Article 5 §§ 3 and 4 Panchenko v. Russia (no. 45100/98)   Violation of Article 6 § 1 The applicant, Igor Vladilenovich Panchenko, was born in 1962 and lives in St Petersburg. A senior operational police officer in the St Petersburg transport police department, he was remanded in custody in August 1995. He was subsequently charged with, among other things, concerted theft, large scale extortion and abuse of power. It was alleged that, with two colleagues, he had extorted money from individuals who were detained on their arrival in St Petersburg on the pretext of an identity check.   He remained in detention until February 2000. In the meantime, following a first trial in July 1998, he had been convicted and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment. That conviction was quashed on appeal on procedural grounds in June 1999. The case was remitted for further investigation, but the applicant remained in detention.   Between November 2002 and February 2004 various charges against the applicant were dropped, notably because they became time-barred. On 17 February 2004 the decision closing the criminal case against him became final.   The applicant complained about the length of his pre-trial detention (Article 5 § 3 of the Convention), that one of his applications for release had not been determined speedily (Article 5 § 4) and that the criminal charges against him had not been heard within a reasonable time (Article 6 § 1).   The Court noted that the Convention had entered into force in respect of the Russian Federation on 5 May 1998. While the Court was only competent to consider events after that date, for the purposes of both Article 5 § 3 and Article 6 § 1 the period preceding it was also relevant to its assessment.   In relation to Article 5 § 3 the applicant had been in pre-trial detention (as opposed to post-conviction incarceration) for a total of eleven months and eight days. Prior to the Convention’s entry into force he had already been detained for two years and eight months. The Court concluded that while the grounds advanced for the applicant’s custody may have justified it initially, they could not be regarded as “sufficient” for his prolonged detention.   The Court also found a violation of Article 5 § 4 in that the applicant’s appeal against a decision rejecting his application for release was not examined for ninety-nine days, in part as a result of delays due to the conduct of the national authorities.   Finally the Court found that the criminal charges brought against the applicant had not been determined within a reasonable time, in breach of Article 6 § 1.The proceedings had lasted a total eight years, five months and six days, of which five years and four months postdated the Convention’s entry into force in Russia. (The judgment is available only in English.)   Miller v. Sweden (no. 55853/00)   Violation of Article 6 § 1 The applicant, Robert Edward Miller, is a Swedish national who was born in 1918 and lives in Stockholm.   In August 1996 he applied for disability benefits. He claimed that, even before his 65th birthday in 1983, he had incurred extra costs due to his illness, (Charcot-Marie-Tooth: patients suffering from this disease slowly lose their normal use of their feet/legs and hands/arms as nerves to the extremities degenerate), from which he had suffered since the 1970s and which had been diagnosed in September 1982. The Social Insurance Office of the County of Stockholm rejected the application, finding that the applicant’s disability had not reached the level required before he turned 65 years of age.   The applicant appealed to the County Administrative Court ( länsrätten ) of the County of Stockholm and requested that an oral hearing be held in his case: his request and appeal were rejected. He appealed to the Stockholm Administrative Court of Appeal ( kammarrätten ) and to the Supreme Administrative Court ( Regeringsrätten ) again requesting an oral hearing, but in vain.   The applicant complained that the lack of an oral hearing in his case, including the fact that he was denied an opportunity to have witnesses called to give evidence on his behalf, constituted a violation of Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial) of the Convention.   The Court considered that the issues raised by the applicant’s judicial appeal were not only technical in nature. In its view, the administration of justice would have been better served in the applicant’s case by affording him a right to explain, on his own behalf or through his representative, his personal situation, taken as a whole at the relevant time, in a hearing before the County Administrative Court.   It could not be said that the question whether the applicant, before the age of 65, fulfilled the legal conditions for the grant of a disability pension, was of such a nature as to release the County Administrative Court from the normal obligation to hold an oral hearing. Accordingly, the Court found by four votes to three that there had been a violation of Article   6 § 1 of the Convention. (The judgment is available only in English.)       Violation of Article 10 Erdost v. Turkey (no. 50747/99)   Violation of Article 6 § 1 The applicant, Muzaffer Erdost, is a Turkish national who was born in 1932 and lives in Ankara.   He wrote a book entitled ‘Three Sivases, in the centre of the pressure being exerted for the imposition of a new [Treaty of] Sèvres on Turkey’ ( Türkiye’nin Yeni-Sevr’e zorlanmasının odağında   : Üç Sivas ), which was published in September 1996. It was a political essay relating how extrajudicial persecution had led to bloodshed in the town of Sivas in 1978, 1993 and 1996. It contained a number of quotations from various newspapers and reviews.   A public prosecutor applied to a judge of the Ankara State Security Court for an order for the book’s seizure, as he considered that it contained separatist propaganda that represented a threat to the integrity of the State. He also instituted criminal proceedings against the applicant. The book was seized on 4 October 1996 and on 20 February 1997 Mr Erdost was sentenced to one-year’s imprisonment and the payment of a fine.   He complained that his criminal conviction constituted a violation of his right to freedom of expression, as guaranteed by Article 10 of the Convention. He also complained under Article   6 (right to a fair hearing) that the proceedings that had resulted in his conviction were unfair.   The Court acknowledged that passages from the book on which the domestic courts had relied in convicting the applicant contained references to “people from different ethnic origins” and to the founding of “a Kurdish state” on “the collapse of the Republic of Turkey”. However, those references were quotations from articles in the press which could not of themselves justify the interference with the applicant’s right to freedom of expression. Furthermore, although certain passages from the book had to be regarded as critical of the national authorities, they did not incite violence or hatred, which, in the Court’s view, was an essential factor to be take into consideration.   In the circumstances, the Court considered that the tenor of the book was not such as to justify the applicant’s criminal conviction, which, along with the confiscation of the book, did not meet a pressing social need and was accordingly not “necessary in a democratic society”. Consequently, the Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 10. It also held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1 on account of the State Security Court’s lack of independence and impartiality.   Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) the Court awarded the applicant EUR 2,500 for pecuniary damage, EUR 5,000 for non-pecuniary damage and EUR 1,000 for costs and expenses. (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.