CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 16 juillet 2009

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s40F41F73 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .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 } .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 }   577 16.07.2009   Press release by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENT PRENCIPE v. MONACO   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment [1] in the case of Prencipe v. Monaco (application no. 43376/06). The Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 3 (right to liberty and security) and no violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights.   Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded the applicant 6,000   euros   (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage. ( The judgment is available only in French. )   1.     Principal facts   The applicant, Josette Prencipe, is a French national who was born in 1940 and lives in Nice (France). She stands charged with having misappropriated several million euros when she worked as a bank employee in Monaco. When first questioned on 6 January 2004, she confessed to misappropriating the money, explaining that she had acted on instructions given over the telephone by unknown voices, and that she had not made any personal profit from her actions. The next day she was charged and remanded in custody. Appeals and requests for her release lodged by the applicant and her counsel were rejected. The appeals were based in particular on the duration of the detention and the applicant’s state of health, which was allegedly incompatible with her continued detention. On 13 December 2007, while the criminal proceedings were in progress, Mrs Prencipe was released   “in order to comply with the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights concerning the reasonable length of detention pending trial”.   2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 6 October 2006.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Peer Lorenzen (Denmark), President , Rait Maruste (Estonia), Karel Jungwiert (Czech Republic), Renate Jaeger (Germany), Isabelle Berro-Lefèvre (Monaco), Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (“the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”), Zdravka Kalaydjieva (Bulgaria), judges , and also Claudia Westerdiek , Section Registrar .   3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Mrs Prencipe complained that the length of her detention pending trial was excessive, alleging in particular that the domestic courts had never sufficiently substantiated the grounds on which she had been placed and held in detention. She also complained that her prolonged detention had been incompatible with her state of health, which had deteriorated as a result. Her continued detention had thus allegedly infringed Articles 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) and 5   §   3 (right to liberty and security) of the Convention, on which she relied.   Decision of the Court   In its judgment, the first concerning Monaco, the Court reached the following conclusions.   Article 5 § 3   The Government’s request to have the case struck out of the list (unilateral declaration)   The Government of Monaco asked the Court to strike the case out of its list in so far as the complaint under Article 5 § 3 was concerned.   The request was accompanied by a declaration presenting the measures taken in 2007 to regulate “the duration of pre-trial detention even more restrictively ... out of concern to comply even more closely with European standards, ... even though the length of judicial proceedings in Monaco was not a structural problem”. The Government offered to pay the applicant EUR   15,000 to settle the case once and for all. The Court considered that the Government’s declaration made no acknowledgment that the length of the applicant’s detention pending trial in this case had been in violation of Article   5   §   3 of the Convention. Also, although the sum proposed by the Government appeared satisfactory, the Court observed that the Government were offering it ex gratia . In the circumstances the Court considered that the Government’s unilateral declaration did not suffice to render further examination of this complaint unnecessary, and decided to examine it.   The merits   Mrs Prencipe’s detention pending trial had lasted almost 4 years. However, the Court limited its examination to the period from the entry into force of the Convention in respect of Monaco (on 30 November 2005) to the applicant’s release (on 13   December 2007), while bearing in mind that she had in fact been in detention from 7 January 2004 onwards.   Mrs Prencipe had been under suspicion when she was placed in detention and throughout the investigation, and had indeed confessed. However, the reasons given by the domestic courts to justify her detention had been too abstract and insufficiently substantiated (the seriousness of the offences and the threat to law and order;   the need to guarantee the applicant’s appearance in court; the risk of collusion or pressure between the co-accused). The Court pointed out in particular that the matter of whether the applicant was able to offer sufficient guarantees that she would appear in court if released had not been properly examined. Ultimately, the justification for the length of the applicant’s detention, while relevant, had been insufficient in the circumstances as the initial relevance had not withstood the test of time. The impugned detention had therefore been in violation of Article 5 § 3.   Article 3   Admissibility   The Court began by dismissing the Government’s preliminary objection that the applicant had failed to exhaust domestic remedies as she had not lodged an appeal before the Court of Judicial Review against two judgments of the Court of Appeal. The Court considered that the judicial review appeal in this particular case did not meet the requirements of the Convention as Monaco’s legislation provided for a fine to be imposed automatically on the appellant if an appeal was rejected. Imposing a fine based on the outcome of an appeal when no abuse of process was alleged rendered the appeal ineffective.   The merits   The various medical reports drawn up and produced before the Court made no mention of any incompatibility between Mrs Prencipe’s state of health and her continued detention or of any deterioration in her health as a result of her detention, and no suggestion that the prison was unable to cater for her needs. The prison authorities had checked the applicant’s health at regular intervals (she had had more than 220 consultations in the prison and been transferred for external consultations about 30 times). The prison authorities had therefore not failed in their duty to take all the necessary measures in that respect. The Court accordingly found that it had not been established that Mrs Prencipe had been subjected to treatment which attained a sufficient level of severity to fall within the scope of Article 3 of the Convention, and concluded that there had been no violation of that provision.     ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Press contacts Frédéric Dolt (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 53 39) Stefano Piedimonte (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 04) Tracey Turner-Tretz (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 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.