Marteling 19-jarig meisje tijdens verhoor in politiecel - Mensenrechtenhof veroordeelt Rusland (en)

Press release issued by the Registrar

CHAMBER JUDGMENT - MENESHEVA v. RUSSIA

The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment [1] in the case of Menesheva v. Russia (application no. 59261/00).

The Court held unanimously that there had been:

• • 

  a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of torture) of the European Convention on Human Rights as regards the ill-treatment;

• • 

  a violation of Article 3 of the Convention as regards the absence of effective investigation into the applicant’s allegations of ill-treatment;

• • 

  a violation of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) on account of the lack of effective remedies in respect of the ill-treatment complained of;

• • 

  violations of Article 5 § 1 (right to liberty and security) in respect of the applicant’s arrest and overnight detention, and in respect of the applicant’s five days’ detention;

• • 

  a violation of Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial).

Under Article 41 (just satisfaction), the Court awarded the applicant 0.75 euros (EUR) for pecuniary damage, EUR 35,000 for non-pecuniary damage and EUR 150 for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in English.)

• 1. 

  Principal facts

The applicant, Olga Yevgenyevna Menesheva, is a Russian national who was born in 1979 and lives in Bataysk (Russia).

On 13 February 1999 the applicant was arrested by three plain clothes policemen and bundled into an unmarked car after refusing them entry into her flat. She claimed that the police officers, who were investigating a murder in which they believed her supposed boyfriend, L., was a suspect, rough handled her and made threats against her and her family during the arrest. Without being given any reason for her arrest she was taken to Zheleznodorozhnyy District Police Station.

The applicant claimed that she was ill-treated in the police station. In particular she described how she was throttled and beaten with sticks by several police officers. They also insulted her and threatened her with rape and violence against her family. Her requests for medical assistance and access to a lawyer were also refused. Later in the day she was taken home but then re-arrested and suffered more ill-treatment.

The applicant was kept in detention until 2.30 p.m. the next day. No record of her detention was kept. She was then brought before a judge of Zheleznodorozhnyy District Court of Rostov who, without introducing himself or explaining his ruling, sentenced her to five days detention for resisting arrest (an administrative offence). She was released on 18 February 1999. In the meantime her keys were taken from her and her flat was searched.

On 19 February 1999 she was examined by a medical expert who established that she had multiple bruises on the face and legs, abrasions on the face, jaw, neck and legs, and a traumatic oedema of the soft tissues of the head.

The applicant brought proceedings against her ill-treatment by the police and her unlawful detention and lodged a claim for damages.

On 22 December 1999 Bataysk Town Court of the Rostov Region examined the applicant’s claim and held that the search of her flat, the initial arrest and the five days’ detention had been lawful. As to the allegations of ill-treatment, the court relied on the fact that the prosecutor had refused to open a criminal investigation in respect of the police officers and that an internal police inquiry had concluded that no ill-treatment had been established. It dismissed the forensic report as irrelevant and held that the allegations of ill-treatment were unsubstantiated. The applicant appealed unsuccessfully.

On 15 March 1999 the applicant attempted to challenge her five days’ detention before Rostov Regional Court. In reply she was informed that no appeal against a decision on administrative detention was provided for by law. Her subsequent appeals were all rejected on the ground that the courts lacked jurisdiction over the subject matter.

In March 2003 the President of the Rostov Regional Court quashed the decision of 14 February 1999 on the grounds that the judge who had convicted the applicant had not examined the circumstances of the case and had not established whether she was guilty of any administrative offence. It was found that no forceful resistance had taken place, because the police were carrying out an investigation and not safeguarding public order when the applicant resisted. It was also held that the police had acted in violation of the procedural law.

On 3 March 2004 the Office of the Prosecutor General ordered the District Prosecutor’s Office to complete a criminal investigation of the alleged ill-treatment and unlawful arrest and detention under the supervision of the Prosecutor General within 30 days.

The parties have not provided any update concerning the criminal investigation since 19 April 2004.

• 2. 

  Procedure and composition of the Court

The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 20 June 2000 and declared partly admissible on 15 January 2004.

Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:

Christos Rozakis (Greek), President,

Snejana Botoucharova (Bulgarian),

Anatoli Kovler (Russian),

Elisabeth Steiner (Austrian),

Khanlar Hajiyev (Azerbaijani),

Dean Spielmann (Luxemburger),

Sverre Erik Jebens (Norwegian), judges,

and also Søren Nielsen, Section Registrar.

• 3. 

  Summary of the judgment [2]

Complaints

The applicant alleged ill-treatment by the police, the absence of an effective investigation of her complaints in that respect, unlawful arrest and detention and the absence of effective domestic remedies. She relied on Articles 3, 13, 5 § 1 and 6 § 1.

Decision of the Court

Article 3

Ill-treatment by the police

The Court held that it was common ground that the applicant’s injuries were not sustained before she was taken into police custody and that, having regard to the applicant’s consistent and detailed allegations, corroborated by the forensic report, the Court accepted that she was ill-treated by the police.

The Court observed that the applicant was only 19 years old at the time and, being a female confronted with several male policemen, was particularly vulnerable. Furthermore, the ill-treatment had lasted for several hours during which she had been twice beaten up and subjected to other forms of violent physical and moral impact.

In these circumstances, the Court concluded that, taken as a whole and having regard to its purpose and severity, the ill-treatment at issue amounted to torture within the meaning of Article 3 and found that there had been a violation in this regard.

Failure to carry out an effective investigation

The Court found that an obligation arose to investigate the applicant’s allegation of ill-treatment as soon as she had brought the matter before the competent authorities, however, no investigation followed. The inquiry that took place in the Internal Affairs Department of the Rostov Region, although it had resulted in some disciplinary charges, it had not disclosed the names of those charged or the grounds for their punishment. For that reason alone it could not qualify as an effective investigation.

The investigation was only opened almost four years after the events complained of, when the matter was brought to the attention of the domestic authorities in connection with the applicant’s proceedings before the Court. However, the investigation had not been satisfactory, as it had failed to establish the material circumstances and to address the questions put before it, such as the origin of the applicant’s injuries.

On 3 March 2004 the Prosecutor General gave orders for the investigation to be resumed, but since then there has been no follow-up. Therefore the Court could not but conclude that in the past three years the authorities had not remedied the shortfalls of which they had been acutely aware. Accordingly the Court held that there had been a violation of Article 3 on account of the lack of an effective investigation into the applicant’s allegations of ill-treatment.

Article 13

Since no effective investigation had been carried out, any other remedy available to the applicant, including the claim for damages, had limited chances of success.

The domestic civil courts did not make an independent assessment of the facts and simply endorsed the prosecutor’s opinion that the applicant’s claim was unmeritorious. Therefore the action for damages was not capable of affording redress to the applicant. The Court therefore found that the applicant had been denied an effective domestic remedy in respect of the ill-treatment by the police. Consequently, it held that there had been a violation of Article 13.

Article 5 § 1

Arrest and overnight detention

The Court noted that the applicant’s charge with the administrative offence had clearly been a mere pretext to ensure her availability in order to force her to give information on L’s case and to make her surrender the key to her flat.

The Court observed that for some 20 hours after her initial arrest there existed no records as to the applicant’s identity or the reason for and expected duration of her detention. That fact in itself had to be considered a most serious failing and was incompatible with the requirement of lawfulness and with the very purpose of Article 5. The Court therefore concluded that the period of the applicant’s detention until her appearance before a judge on 14 February 1999 did not comply with the guarantees of Article 5 § 1 and that there had therefore been a violation of that provision.

Five days’ detention on the charge of forceful resistance to the police

The Court found that the judge had exercised his authority in manifest opposition to the procedural guarantees provided for by the Convention. Therefore the ensuing detention order was inconsistent with the general protection from arbitrariness guaranteed by Article 5. It followed that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 1.

Article 6 § 1

The Government accepted that the proceedings at issue had been defective both under domestic law and the Convention. The applicant’s allegations that there had been no adversarial proceedings as such, and that even the appearances of a trial had been neglected to the extent that she did not even have a chance to find out the purpose of her brief appearance before the judge, were corroborated in the court ruling quashing that judgment. It followed that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1.

***

The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site (http://www.echr.coe.int).

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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. Since 1 November 1998 it has sat as a full-time Court composed of an equal number of judges to that of the States party to the Convention. The Court examines the admissibility and merits of applications submitted to it. It sits in Chambers of 7 judges or, in exceptional cases, as a Grand Chamber of 17 judges. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe supervises the execution of the Court’s judgments.

[1] Under Article 43 of the European Convention on Human Rights, 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.