CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 26 mars 2009

.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 } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s6B505E72 { margin:0pt; padding-left:0pt } .sD711EC90 { margin-left:31.52pt; padding-left:7.48pt; font-family:serif } .s3DC36BA9 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sC7EAD8B { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   253 26.03.2009   Press release issued by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENT KREJČÍŘ v. THE CZECH REPUBLIC   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment [1] in the case of Krejčíř v. Czech Republic (applications nos. 39298/04 and 8723/05) concerning the extension of the applicant’s pre-trial detention.   The Court held unanimously that there had been:   a violation of Article 5   § 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights regarding the lawfulness of the decision extending the applicant’s detention; no violation of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention regarding the applicant’s ability to benefit from release conditioned by guarantees; a violation of Article 5 § 4 regarding review by a court of the applicant’s detention.   The Court found that no separate issue arose under Article 6 § 1.   The Court held that the finding of a violation constituted in itself sufficient just satisfaction in respect of the non-pecuniary damage sustained by the applicant and awarded, under Article 41 (just satisfaction), 5,000   euros   (EUR) for costs and expenses. ( The judgment is available only in French .)   1.     Principal facts   The applicant, Radovan Krejčíř, is a national of the Czech Republic who was born in 1968. He settled in Prague but is currently in South Africa, where extradition proceedings are pending against him.   On 18 September 2003 Mr Krejčíř was arrested and questioned in connection with proceedings brought against him for fraudulent use of money lent by a bank under a number of credit agreements.   On 20 September 2003 the district court judge remanded the applicant in custody on the ground that he might otherwise abscond and bring pressure to bear on witnesses. The judge considered that there were plausible grounds for suspecting the applicant of having committed the offence in question.   Mr Krejčíř appealed against that decision, arguing that it had failed to cite specific grounds. His appeal was dismissed by the Prague Court on 23 October 2003, without a hearing having been held.   On 5 May 2004 the Constitutional Court dismissed an appeal lodged by Mr Krejčíř. It found that the decision was in conformity with the Constitution and the principles governing the appeal procedure, according to which a decision being appealed against could only be set aside if its operative provisions were erroneous, which, it held, was not the case here.   On 10 December 2003 the district court dismissed Mr Krejčíř’s first application for release.   On 19 December 2003 the public prosecutor at the Prague Supreme Court decided to extend the applicant’s detention on grounds of the seriousness of the offence with which he was charged, a parallel set of criminal proceedings being brought against him, the risk that he would obtain false identity papers with a view to absconding, and the pressure that had already been brought to bear on witnesses. The prosecutor concluded that the time-limit on detention referred to in Article 67(b) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (“the CCP”) did not apply in the present case, by virtue of the grounds set forth in the second sentence of Article   71   §   2 of the CCP allowing that time-limit to be suspended.   An appeal by Mr Krejčíř against that decision was dismissed by the Supreme Court on 16   January 2004, without a hearing having been held.   The applicant unsuccessfully appealed against a decision of 27 January 2004 dismissing his second application for release. According to Mr Krejčíř, the decision to keep him in detention for more than three months had not been made by a court as required by Article 71 § 2 of the CCP. The City Court observed that the Code did not specify which authority had power to make such a ruling and that it was for the prosecutor to decide whether to extend the detention beyond three months.   The applicant lodged a constitutional appeal against the decisions of 19 December 2003 and 16 January 2004 which was dismissed by the Constitutional Court on the ground that the aim pursued by the detention could not be achieved by a less restrictive measure.   On 17 September 2004 the applicant was released further to a decision of the prosecutor taken pursuant to the provisions of the CCP specifying the maximum periods of detention.   During a search of his home on 18 June 2005 Mr Krejčíř ran away, and went first to the Seychelles islands and then to South Africa, where he was arrested. Proceedings are currently under way to extradite him to the Czech Republic. The Government indicated that the applicant was the subject of eight sets of criminal proceedings in the Czech Republic.   2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The applications were lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 4 November 2004 and 7 March 2005 respectively and declared admissible on 11 October 2007.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Peer Lorenzen (Denmark), President , Rait Maruste (Estonia), Karel Jungwiert (the Czech Republic), Renate Jaeger (Germany), Mark Villiger (Liechtenstein), Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (“the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”), Zdravka Kalaydjieva (Bulgaria), judges , and also Stephen Phillips , Deputy Section Registrar .   3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Complaints   Mr Krejčíř relied in particular on Articles 5 § 3 and 5 § 4. He complained of the unlawfulness of the decision to keep him in detention and of having been unable to obtain release conditioned by guarantees. He also complained that the proceedings concerning review of the lawfulness of his detention had not complied with the requirements of the Convention.   Decision of the Court   The applicant lodged two applications relating to his pre-trial detention. The Court examined them jointly, the facts at the origin of the second case being the sequel to the events described in the first one.   Article 5 § 3   Lawfulness of the extension of Mr Krejčíř’s detention   The Court reiterated that the conditions for deprivation of liberty had to be clearly defined under domestic law and that the law itself had to be foreseeable in its application and meet the standard of “lawfulness” set by the Convention.   It noted that the decision of 23 October 2003 did not refer to Article 71   §   2 of the CCP and did not mention the length of the detention.   The Court also pointed out that the prosecutor who had taken the decision of 19 December 2003, referring in the reasons for his decision to Article 71 § 2 of the CCP, did not offer the requisite guarantees of independence, and that when this decision was ratified by the Supreme Court the three-month time-period had expired.   The Czech Constitutional Court had acknowledged that the CCP did not indicate the manner in which the three-month period should be declared non-applicable under the second sentence of Article 71 § 2. The Court considered that a gap of that kind in the domestic law was contrary to the requirements of legal certainty and foreseeability and that the situation created in the present case had infringed the applicant’s right guaranteed by Article 5 § 3.   The Court accordingly found a violation of Article 5 § 3.   Mr Krejčíř’s ability to obtain release conditioned by guarantees   The Court reiterated that the domestic courts had to review a person’s continued pre-trial detention in order to guarantee his or her release where circumstances no longer justified the deprivation of liberty.   In this case, up until 7   June   2004 the applicant had been detained on the grounds of a risk that he might bring pressure to bear on witnesses provided for in Article 67 (b) of the CCP, which legally prevented him from having the offer of guarantees he had made in his first two applications for release examined by the courts.   The Court observed that in the present case the lack of review by a court had concerned only the guarantees that were meant to replace the applicant’s pre-trial detention, that this lack of a review had been limited in time, and that the applicant had not been deprived of all review of the continuing grounds justifying the deprivation of his liberty.   The Court noted that the Czech courts had had the option of ordering his unconditional release throughout the duration of the criminal proceedings brought against the applicant.   Accordingly, it held that there had not been a violation of Article 5 § 3 in that respect.   Article 5 § 4   The Court observed that proceedings in which an appeal against a detention order was being examined must be adversarial, and equality of arms between the parties – that is, the prosecutor and the detained person – ensured.   In the present case Mr Krejčíř’s appeal against the district court’s decision of 20   September 2003 remanding him in custody was examined without a hearing and in the absence of the parties. The Court noted, however, that the City Court had considerably developed and specified the grounds for detention that had previously been expressed in vague terms by the district court.   The Court pointed out that although the applicant had been able to consult all the documents in the case file, he had not been able to foresee the facts on which the court would rely as grounds for placing him in detention. It observed that it was actually the facts referred to by the Prague Court that had justified suspending the three-month time-limit on grounds of a risk of pressure being brought to bear on witnesses.   Regarding the dismissal of the appeal lodged by Mr Krejčíř against the decision of 19   December 2003 extending his detention, the Court observed that by not holding a hearing the Supreme Court had failed to allow the applicant to make oral submissions regarding factors essential to the assessment of the lawfulness of his detention, whereas the last hearing at which he had been able to make submissions had dated back several months earlier.   It therefore considered that, regarding the decisions of 20 September and 19 December 2003, the applicant had not had the benefit of a review by a court as required by Article 5 § 4 and held that there had been a violation of that Article.   The Court rejected the complaint based on Article 5   § 4 regarding the speediness of the proceedings on the ground that it was out of time.   It also rejected the complaint lodged under Article 5 § 1 (c), as manifestly ill-founded.     ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Press contacts Stefano Piedimonte (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 04) Tracey Turner-Tretz (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30) Paramy Chanthalangsy (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 28 30) Kristina Pencheva-Malinowski (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 70) Céline Menu-Lange (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 58 77)   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.