CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 27 novembre 2007

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MOLDOVA ŢURCAN v. MOLDOVA   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgments [1] in the cases of Popovici v. Moldova (application no. 289/04) and Ţurcan v. Moldova (no.   10809/06).   The Court held, unanimously, that: in both cases, there had been a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights in respect of the conditions of detention;   in the case of Popovici , there had been a violation of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the Convention; a violation of Article 5 § 3 (pre-trial detention); violations of Article 6 §§ 1 and 2 (right to a fair trial and presumption of innocence); and   in the case of Ţurcan , there had been a violation of Article 5 § 1 (right to liberty and security) in respect of the applicant’s detention without a legal basis after 20   February 2006.   Under Article 41 (just satisfaction), the Court awarded 8,000   euros   (EUR) to Mr Popovici and EUR   9,000 to Mr Ţurcan in respect of non-pecuniary damage, and EUR   7,500 to Mr Popovici and EUR   2,000 to Mr Ţurcan for costs and expenses. (The judgments are available only in English.)   1.     Principal facts   Petru Popovici The applicant, Mr Petru Popovici, known as Micu, is a Moldovan national who was born in 1962. He is currently serving a life sentence in Rezina Prison. In November 2001 he was arrested and placed in detention. Along with ten other persons he was charged with being a member of a criminal gang and with having committed numerous offences, including ten murders and 13 attempted murders.   In March 2003 the Secretary of the Superior Security Council of Moldova, Mr Valeriu Gurbulea, gave an interview to a Russian language newspaper in which he referred to Micu as the “leader of the most important criminal gang”.   On 7   October 2003 Chişinău Court of Appeal acquitted the applicant of all the charges for lack of evidence and ordered his release from custody.   On the same date, he was arrested and placed in administrative detention for 30 days. On the expiry of that period he was remanded in custody on new charges of blackmail. He remained in detention on the basis of periodically renewed decisions until 1   March 2004, when the Supreme Court of Justice examined the appeal lodged by the Prosecutor's Office against the acquittal of 7   October 2003.   The Supreme Court of Justice upheld the prosecutor's appeal, and found the applicant guilty of the majority of the offences as charged. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.   Dorel Ţurcan Dorel Ţurcan is a Moldovan national who was born in 1952 and lives in Chişinău.   On 12 October 2005 he was arrested and charged with assisting the President of a commercial bank in extorting a bribe from a company in order to give it a loan. On 16   January 2006 he was transferred to the remand centre of the Ministry of Justice no. 29/13 (also known as Prison no. 13, former Prison no. 3) in Chişinău. His detention was prolonged for a further 20 days on 3 February 2006.   2.     Procedure   The applications were lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 28 November 2003 and 12 October 2004 in the case of Popovici , and 18 March 2006 in the case of Ţurcan .   In the case of Popovici , judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Nicolas Bratza (British), President , Josep Casadevall (Andorran), Stanislav Pavlovschi (Moldovan), Lech Garlicki (Polish), Ljiljana Mijović (citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina), Ján Šikuta (Slovak), Pâivi Hirvelä (Finnish), judges , and also Lawrence Early , Section Registrar .   In the case of Ţurcan, judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Nicolas Bratza (British), President , Josep Casadevall (Andorran), Giovanni Bonello (Maltese), Kristaq Traja (Albanian), Stanislav Pavlovschi (Moldovan), Ján Šikuta (Slovak), Pâivi Hirvelä (Finnish), judges , and also Lawrence Early , Section Registrar .   3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Complaints   Relying on Article 3, both applicants complained about the conditions of their detention. They also alleged breaches of Article 5 on account of the lack of reasons given for their detention and, in Mr Ţurcan’s case, its lawfulness. Relying on Article   13, Mr Popovici complained about the lack of effective remedies concerning his conditions of detention. He further claimed that the criminal proceedings against him had been unfair, and that here had been a breach of the presumption of innocence, in violation of Article 6.   Decision of the Court   Article 3   Petru Popovici The applicant submitted that the conditions of his detention had been inhuman and degrading. He cited the Court's judgment in the case of Becciev   v. Moldova (application no.   9190/03, 4   October 2005), in which a breach of Article 3 had been found in respect of the conditions of detention in the remand centre of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.   The Court noted that that during his administrative detention, the applicant had indeed been detained in the same detention facility as the applicant in Becciev shortly after Mr Becciev had been detained there. Since the Court had not been presented with any information by the Government concerning any improvement in the conditions of detention in the detention centre in the intervening period, the Court assumed that the conditions had remained unchanged. The Court therefore saw no reason to depart from its earlier finding and concluded that there had been a violation of Article 3.   As to his detention in the second remand centre, the applicant’s description of the conditions of detention was to a very large degree consistent with that of the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT). Moreover, the inadequacy of the food provided in the Moldovan prisons had also been confirmed by a Deputy Prosecutor General in a letter addressed to the President’s office in 2006. In such circumstances and in view of the fact that the applicant had been detained in the remand centre for almost four months, the Court considered that the conditions of detention amounted to a violation of Article 3.   Dorel Ţurcan The applicant had been detained in the same cell as the applicant in the case of Modarca (application no. 14437/05, 10   May 2007), in which the Court had found that the conditions of detention were contrary to Article 3. In view of the similarities of the applicant’s complaint with that in Modarca , and for the reasons given in that case, the Court found that there had been a violation of Article 3 in respect of the conditions of the applicant's detention in Prison no. 13.   Article 5   Petru Popovici The Court observed that the domestic courts, when ordering the applicant's detention and its extension, had cited the relevant law, without giving the reasons why they considered the allegations that the applicant could abscond or obstruct the investigation to be well-founded. The circumstances of the case were similar to earlier cases in which the Court had found violations of Article 5 § 3 on account of insufficient reasons given by the courts for the applicants' detention. Since the Government had put forward no reasons for distinguishing the case from the earlier cases, the Court considered that the same approach should be adopted. There had accordingly been a violation of Article 5 § 3.   Dorel Ţurcan The applicant claimed that his detention had lacked a legal basis, contrary to Article 5 § 1. He considered that the Moldovan practice of not requiring the courts to issue any new detention orders following the submission of the case file to the trial court to be in breach of Article   5   §   1.   The Court recalled that it had found a violation of Article 5 § 1 in earlier Moldovan cases. The file in the case before it did not contain any element which would allow it to reach a different conclusion.   It noted that in November 2006 the law modifying Article 186 (2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure had entered into force, providing for specific time-limits for detention during the judicial phase of criminal proceedings. However, the changes made to the law did not affect the applicant's case, although the Court could take them into account when examining any future applications. There had, accordingly, been a violation of Article   5   § 1.   Article 6 § 1   In Petru Popovici , the Supreme Court, sitting as an appellate court, could give a fresh judgment on the merits and it did so. The effect of that was that the proceedings in the Supreme Court were full proceedings governed by the same rules as a trial on the merits.     Having quashed the decision to acquit the applicant, the Supreme Court determined the criminal charges against the applicant, convicted him on almost all charges and sentenced him to life imprisonment, without hearing evidence from him in person and without producing evidence in his presence at a public hearing.   The issues to be determined by the Supreme Court could not, as a matter of fair trial, have been properly examined without a direct assessment of the evidence given by the applicant in person and by certain witnesses. Indeed, that appeared also to have been contrary to the relevant provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure.   Nor had the Government adduced any evidence to support their claim that the applicant waived his right to attend the hearing. There had therefore been a violation of Article 6 § 1.   Article 6 § 2   Mr Gurbulea's statement had clearly been a declaration of the applicant's guilt which, firstly, encouraged the public to believe him guilty and, secondly, prejudged the assessment of the facts by the competent judicial authority. There had therefore been a breach of Article 6 § 2.   Article 13   Petru Popovici In Ostrovar   v. Moldova (application no.   35207/03, 13 September 2005), the Court had found a violation of Article 13 on the ground that there were no effective remedies against the inhuman and degrading conditions of detention in Moldova. The period of detention of Mr   Ostrovar had partially coincided with that of Mr Popovici and the Government had relied on the same arguments as in Ostrovar . In such circumstances, the Court did not consider it possible to depart from its findings in Ostrovar . There had accordingly been a violation of Article 13 taken in conjunction with Article 3.     ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Press contacts Emma Hellyer (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15) Stéphanie Klein (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54) Tracey Turner-Tretz (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30) Paramy Chanthalangsy (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 54 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. [1] Under Article 43 of the Convention, 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. [2] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.