CEDH · PRESS;FORTHCOMINGHEARINGS;ENG — 28 avril 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 } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .sC7EAD8B { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .s2E932ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:11pt } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s3DC36BA9 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt }   353 28.4.2009   Press release issued by the Registrar   HEARINGS IN MAY   The European Court of Human Rights will be holding the following four hearings in May 2009 :   Wednesday 6 May 2009: 9.15 a.m.   Grand Chamber   Medvedyev and Others v. France (application no. 3394/03)   The applicants are Oleksandr Medvedyev and Borys Bilenikin, Ukrainian nationals, Nicolae Balaban, Puiu Dodica, Nicu Stelian Manolache and Viorel Petcu, Romanian nationals, Georgios Boreas, a Greek national, and Sergio Cabrera Leon and Guillermo Luis Eduar Sage Martinez, Chilean nationals. They were crew-members of the Winner , a cargo vessel flying the flag of Cambodia.   As part of an international operation against drug trafficking, the French authorities were informed that the ship was likely to be carrying significant quantities of narcotics. In consequence, the French Navy apprehended it on the high seas, in the waters off Cap Verde, then towed it to Brest harbour (France). The applicants claimed to have been the victims of an arbitrary deprivation of liberty on account of being detained on board the Winner for 13   days under the surveillance of the French military, then in police custody – two days for some of them, three days for the others – on their arrival in Brest.   Relying on Article 5 § 1 (right to liberty and security) of the European Convention on Human Rights, they complain that the deprivation of liberty to which they were subjected was unlawful, particularly in the light of international law. Under Article 5 § 3 (right to liberty and security) of the Convention, they also complain that they waited 15 to 16 days to be brought before “a judge or other officer authorised by law to exercise judicial power”.   In a judgment of 10   July 2008 the Court held that the applicants had not been deprived of their liberty in accordance with a procedure prescribed by law and consequently held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 1. However, considering that the length of their deprivation of liberty had been justified by the “wholly exceptional circumstances” of the case, in particular the inevitable delay entailed by having the Winner tugged to France, the Court concluded, by four votes to three, that there had not been a violation of Article 5 § 3. It held that the finding of a violation constituted in itself sufficient just satisfaction for the non-pecuniary damage sustained by the applicants, and awarded them EUR   5,000   euros   (EUR) jointly for costs and expenses.   On 1 December 2008 the case was referred to the Grand Chamber at the Government’s and the applicants’ request.     Tuesday 12 May 2009: 9 a.m.   Chamber hearing on the merits and the admissibility   Gillan and Quinton v. the United Kingdom (no. 4158/05)   Between 9 and 12 September 2003 there was a Defence Systems and Equipment International Exhibition (“the arms fair”) at the Excel Centre in Docklands, East London, which was the subject of protests and demonstrations.   The applicants, Mr Kevin Gillan and Ms Pennie Quinton, are British nationals who were born in 1977 and 1971 respectively and live in London. On 9 September 2003 the first applicant was riding a bicycle and carrying a rucksack near the arms fair, on his way to join the demonstration. He was stopped and searched by two police officers acting under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (“the 2000 Act”). He was allowed to go on his way after having been detained for about 20 minutes.   On the same day, the second applicant, a journalist, was stopped close to the arms fair. She was searched by a police officer and ordered to stop filming notwithstanding that she showed her press cards. The police officer told her that she was using her powers under sections 44 and 45 of the 2000 Act. Nothing incriminating was found and Ms Quinton was allowed to go on her way. The record of her search showed she was stopped for five minutes but she thought it was more like thirty minutes.   The applicants applied for judicial review. They sought to challenge, first, the decision of the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to give an authorisation under sections 44(1) and (2) of the 2000 Act in relation to the whole of the Metropolitan District for the period in question, as part of a “rolling programme” of such authorisations, and the decision of the Secretary of State to confirm it. It was submitted that Parliament had intended the section 44 power to stop and search randomly, without the need for reasonable grounds of suspicion, to be used in response to an imminent terrorist threat where general police powers to stop and search were inadequate, and that such an authorisation should be limited, both temporally and geographically. Secondly, the applicants challenged the police decision to use the section 44 power against the protesters, since this use was alleged to be contrary to the purpose of the 2000 Act. It was further alleged that the section 44 authorisations and the use of the stop and search power against the applicants constituted a disproportionate interference with their rights under Articles 5, 8, 9, 10 and 11.   On 31 October 2003 the High Court dismissed the application. The Court of Appeal, on 29   July   2004, made no order on the applicants’ claims against the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and dismissed the claim against the Secretary of State.   On 8 March 2006 the House of Lords unanimously dismissed the applicants’ appeals. In particular, on the question whether either applicant had been deprived of liberty as a result of the stop and search procedure, the Lords accepted that there were some features indicative of a deprivation of liberty, such as the coercive nature of the measure, but given that the procedure was very brief, the better view was that Article 5 did not apply. The Lords were further doubtful whether an ordinary superficial search of the person could be said to show a lack of respect for private life, so as to bring Article 8 into operation. Even if Article 8 did apply, the procedure was in accordance with the law and it would be impossible to regard a proper exercise of the power as other than proportionate when seeking to counter the great danger of terrorism. Finally, although the Lords could conceive of the power to stop and search, if misused, as infringing a person’s rights to free expression and assembly, that had not occurred in the applicants’ case.   The applicants complain that the use of the section 44 power to stop and search each of them breached their rights under Articles 5, 8, 10, 11 and 13 of the Convention.     Wednesday 20 May 2009: 9.15 a.m.   Grand Chamber   Kononov v. Latvia (no. 36376/04)   Vasiliy Kononov was born in 1923. He was a Latvian national until 12 April 2000, when he was granted Russian nationality.   The case concerned Mr Kononov’s prosecution for war crimes he allegedly committed in 1944. At the time the territory of Latvia was under German occupation.   In 1942 the applicant was called up as a soldier in the Soviet Army. In 1943 he was parachuted into Belarus territory (also under German occupation at the time) near the Latvian border, where he joined a Soviet commando unit composed of members of the “Red Partisans”.   According to the facts as definitively established by the competent Latvian courts, on 27 May 1944 the applicant led a unit of armed Red Partisans wearing German uniforms to avoid arousing suspicion in a punitive expedition on the village of Mazie Bati, certain of whose inhabitants were suspected of having betrayed and turned into the Germans another group of Red Partisans. The applicant’s men burst into and searched six houses. After finding rifles and grenades supplied by the German military administration in each of the houses, the Partisans executed the six heads of family concerned. They also wounded two women. They then set fire to two houses and four people perished in the flames. In all, nine villagers were killed: six men and three women, one in the final stages of pregnancy.   According to the applicant, the victims of the attack were collaborators who had delivered a group of 12 Partisans (including two women and a small child) into the hands of the Germans some three months earlier. The applicant said that his unit had been instructed to capture those responsible so that they could be brought to trial. He had not personally led the operation or entered the village.   In January 1998 the Centre for the Documentation of the Consequences of Totalitarianism ( Totalitārisma seku dokumentēšanas centrs ) launched a criminal investigation into the events of 27 May 1944. It considered that the applicant could have committed war crimes under Article 68-3 of the former Latvian Criminal Code. Article 68-3 provided that those found guilty of war crimes were liable to between three and fifteen years’ imprisonment or life imprisonment. Article 6-1 permitted the retrospective application of the criminal law with respect to war crimes and Article 45-1 provided that the prosecution of such crimes was not subject to statutory limitation.   On 2 August 1998 the applicant was charged with war crimes and on 10 October 1998 placed in pre-trial detention. He entered a not guilty plea.   The Riga Regional Court found him guilty and imposed an immediate six-year custodial sentence. That judgment was quashed on 25 April 2000 on the ground that various issues remained unresolved, including whether Mazie Bati had in fact been within “occupied territory” and whether the applicant and his victims could be classified as “combatants” and “non-combatants” respectively. The applicant was released from detention.   On 17 May 2001, following a fresh preliminary investigation, the applicant was again charged with an offence under Article   68-3.   On 3 October 2003 the Latgale Regional Court acquitted him of the war-crimes charges, but found him guilty of banditry. It accepted that the deaths of the men from Mazie Bati could be regarded as necessary and justified in military terms, but found that there was no justification for the killing of the three women or the burning down of the village buildings. The applicant and his men had committed an act of banditry and the applicant, as the commanding officer, was responsible for the actions of his unit. However, since banditry did not fall into the category of offences exempt from statutory limitation, the Regional Court relieved the applicant of criminal liability.   On 30 April 2004 the Criminal Affairs Division of the Supreme Court allowed an appeal from the prosecution and quashed that judgment, again finding the applicant guilty of war crimes under Article 68-3. Noting that he was aged, infirm and harmless, it imposed an immediate custodial sentence of one year and eight months. The applicant lodged an unsuccessful appeal on points of law.   The applicant submitted in particular that the acts of which he had been accused had not, at the time of their commission, constituted an offence under either domestic or international law. He alleged a violation of Article 7 § 1 (no punishment without law).   In a judgment of 24   July 2008 the Court held, by four votes to three, that there had been a violation of Article 7. Under Article 41 (just satisfaction), the Court awarded the applicant, by four votes to three, EUR   30,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.   On 26 January 2009 the case was referred to the Grand Chamber at the Government’s request.     Tuesday 26 May 2009: 9 a.m.   Chamber hearing on the merits and the admissibility   Muñoz Diaz v. Spain (no. 49151/07)   The applicant, Ms María Luisa Muñoz Díaz, is a Spanish national who was born in 1956 and lives in Madrid.   She married M. D. in November 1971 according to the Roma community’s special rite. They had six children, who were entered in the family record book issued by the Spanish authorities. In 1986 the couple were granted large-family status.   On 24 December 2000 M. D. died. He had been a builder and had paid social-security contributions for more than nineteen years. The applicant applied for a survivor’s pension but the National Institute of Social Security (INSS) refused to grant her one as she had not been M.   D.’s wife under civil law; that decision was upheld in May 2001.   The applicant subsequently applied to the labour court. In a decision of 30 May 2002 the judge of the labour court held that she was entitled to a survivor’s pension, finding that the decision by the INSS, which had been based on the non-recognition in civil law of the marriage between Ms Muñoz Díaz and the deceased, had constituted discriminatory treatment on the ground of ethnic origin.   On an appeal by the opposing party, the Madrid Higher Court of Justice quashed that decision and held in a judgment of 7 November 2002 that the couple had been united through a custom that had no effect on civil status, and not in accordance with the applicable law.   The applicant lodged an amparo appeal with the Constitutional Court, which dismissed it in a judgment of 16 April 2007, finding that Ms Muñoz Díaz and M. D. had chosen not to formalise their union by legal or recognised means, despite having been free to do so through the general, ethnically neutral, option of a civil marriage. The court also observed that it was necessary to limit survivors’ pensions to those who were married, in the context of limited social-security resources and the many needs to be met.   However, in a dissenting opinion one of the judges highlighted the constitutional dimension of the issue and argued that guaranteeing equality for ethnic minorities required positive discrimination measures. In his view, it had been disproportionate to refuse Ms   Muñoz Díaz a survivor’s pension, seeing that her family possessed a family record book and had been granted large-family status and health-care assistance and the Spanish State had received contributions from her husband for more than nineteen years.   Ms Muñoz Díaz’s application was lodged with the Court on 29 October 2007.   She complains that the refusal to grant her a survivor’s pension on the ground that her marriage has no effect under civil law infringes the principle of non-discrimination set forth in Article 14, in conjunction with the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions, guaranteed by Article 1 of Protocol No.   1.   Relying on Article 14 in conjunction with Article 12, Ms Muñoz Díaz further complains that Spain’s lack of recognition in civil law of Roma marriage – the only form of marriage recognised in the Roma community – despite the fact that the Roma minority has been settled in Spain for at least five hundred years amounts to a breach of her right to marry.     ***   Decisions, judgments and further information about the Court can be found on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ) [1] .   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] These summaries by the Registry do not bind the Court.