CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 27 octobre 2009

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Armenia (application no. 22387/05) Violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights Violation of Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial) taken together with Article 6 § 3 (b) (right to adequate time and facilities for preparation of defence) Violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 7 (right of appeal in criminal matters) Stepanyan v. Armenia (no. 45081/04) Violation of Article 6 § 1     Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded Mr Karapetyan 4,500 euros (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 3,000 for costs and expenses. Mr Stepanyan was awarded EUR 1,200 in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 1,000 for costs and expenses. (The judgments are available only in English.)   Principal facts   The applicants are two Armenian nationals, Zaven Karapetyan and Stepan Stepanyan, born in 1945 and 1951, respectively. They live in Karakert and Artashat (Armenia).   Following alleged irregularities in the 2003 presidential elections, the applicants alleged that they were sentenced to administrative detention on account of their political opinions and or activities.   Both applicants were arrested (Mr Karapetyan in March 2003 and Mr Stepanyan in May 2004), and, within the same day, were taken to their local police station, charged, brought before a court and convicted under Article 182 of the Code of Administrative Offences to, respectively, ten and eight days’ detention for disobeying the police and using obscene language.   Mr Karapetyan complained about the conditions of his detention when serving that sentence, notably overcrowding, poor ventilation, lack of natural light and inadequate food. Mr Stepanyan, who was released after six days of detention on health grounds, lodged an extraordinary appeal to the Criminal and Military Court of Appeal. In that appeal he denied at length the account of events as presented by his arresting police officers, the only witnesses at his trial, and on the basis of which he was convicted. In June 2004 the President of the Court of Appeal, in the light of written submissions and without having heard the police officers or the applicant, upheld Mr Stepanyan’s conviction.   Complaints , procedure and composition of the Court   Both applicants relied in particular on Article 6 (right to a fair hearing), complaining about the unfairness of the proceedings against them, notably that their cases were examined in an expedited procedure, therefore not giving them adequate time and facilities for the preparation of their defence. Mr   Stepanyan further alleged that there had been no oral hearing before the Criminal and Military Court of Appeal which tried him. Mr Karapetyan also complained that he had no appeal procedure at his disposal, in breach of Article   2 of Protocol No.   7 (right of appeal in criminal matters). Lastly, Mr   Karapetyan complained that the conditions of his detention were in breach of Article   3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment).   The applications were lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 15 September 2003 and 7 December 2004, respectively.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Josep Casadevall (Andorra), President , Elisabet Fura (Sweden), Corneliu Bîrsan (Romania), Boštjan M. Zupančič (Slovenia), Alvina Gyulumyan (Armenia), Egbert Myjer (the Netherlands), Luis López Guerra (Spain), judges , and also Stanley Naismith , Deputy Section Registrar .     Decision of the Court [2]   Article 3 The Court noted that Mr Karapetyan had had no more than 1.25 square metres of personal space – less than the CPT’s (the Council of Europe’s European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment) standard minimum requirement of 4 sq. m per inmate in multi-occupancy cells – in a pest-infested cell with lack of natural light, no sleeping facilities and an unsanitary toilet. Although his detention had been relatively short, the Court held unanimously that those conditions had to have caused the applicant suffering, diminishing his human dignity and arousing in him feelings of humiliation and inferiority, in violation of Article 3.   Article 6 As in a number of other similar cases against Armenia in which the Court had already found a violation of Article 6 § 3 (b), the Court noted that the administrative case against Mr   Karapetyan had been examined in an expedited procedure during which he had been taken to and kept in a police station without any contact with the outside world, charged, and, in a matter of hours, brought before a court and convicted. It therefore held unanimously that Mr Karapetyan had not had a fair hearing in his case, in particular on account of him not having been given adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence, in violation of Article 6 § 3 (b) taken together with Article   6   §   1.   The Court found that Mr   Stepanyan’s complaints under Article 6 about the expedited proceedings of his conviction of May 2004 had been lodged out of time [3] and declared them inadmissible. As concerned his complaint about the unfairness of the extraordinary appeal proceedings in which his conviction had been upheld, the Court considered that the applicant’s guilt or innocence could not have been properly determined without a direct assessment of the evidence given in person by the applicant and the two police officers in question. It therefore held unanimously that Mr Stepanyan had not had a fair trial before the Criminal and Military Court of Appeal on account of the lack of an oral hearing in his case, in violation of Article 6 § 1.   Article   2 of Protocol No.   7 The Court found, as in other cases previously brought before it against Armenia, that the procedure under which Mr Karapetyan had been convicted had not provided him with a clear and accessible right to appeal, it having lacked any clearly-defined procedure or time-limits or consistent application in practice. The Court therefore held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 7.   ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Press contacts Tracey Turner-Tretz (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30) or Stefano Piedimonte (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 04) Kristina Pencheva-Malinowski (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 70) Céline Menu-Lange (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 58 77) Frédéric Dolt (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 53 39) Nina Salomon (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 49 79)   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. [3] For an application to be admissible it has to be lodged within six months following the last judicial decision in the case.