Přehled
Rozhodnutí
THIRD SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 12000/16
Vladimir Andreyevich PROTOPOPOV
against Russia
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 13 October 2020 as a Committee composed of:
Darian Pavli, President,
Dmitry Dedov,
Peeter Roosma, judges,
and Olga Chernishova, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 18 February 2016,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant, Mr Vladimir Andreyevich Protopopov, is a Russian national who was born in 1985 and lives in Bologoye. He was represented before the Court by Mr V. Lukin, a lawyer practising in Bologoye.
The Russian Government (“the Government”) were represented by Mr M. Galperin, Representative of the Russian Federation to the European Court of Human Rights.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
On 21 February 2014 the applicant was charged with the criminal offence of distribution of pornographic material.
On 30 April 2014 the Bologoye Town Court of the Tver Region found the applicant guilty as charged and imposed a conditional sentence of four years’ imprisonment.
On 30 June 2014 the Tver Regional Court upheld the applicant’s conviction on appeal.
On 10 July and 14 December 2015 the Regional Court and the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dismissed cassation appeals by the applicant.
On 24 July 2017 the Town Court accepted that, in the period following his conviction, the applicant had demonstrated good conduct, and expunged his criminal record.
COMPLAINT
The applicant complained that he had been found guilty of an offence which had not been clearly defined by national law, in contravention of Article 7 § 1 of the Convention.
THE LAW
The applicant complained that his conviction had not had a sufficiently clear legal basis as required by Article 7 § 1 of the Convention, which reads, in so far as relevant, as follows:
“No one shall be held guilty of any criminal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a criminal offence under national or international law at the time when it was committed.”
The Government submitted that the applicant had lodged his complaint belatedly and that it should be dismissed for failure to comply with the six‑month rule. They contended that the applicant’s applications for a cassation review of his conviction, lodged in 2015, should not be regarded as an effective remedy in respect of his grievances, and that the final decision in his case within the meaning of the Convention had been taken by the Regional Court on 30 June 2014, upholding his conviction on appeal.
The applicant submitted that he had had recourse to effective domestic remedies in full compliance with domestic law.
The Court reiterates that the six-month period runs from the date of the final decision in the process of exhaustion of domestic remedies (see Blokhin v. Russia [GC], no. 47152/06, § 106, ECHR 2016). Article 35 § 1 of the Convention allows only remedies which are normal and effective to be taken into account as an applicant cannot extend the strict time-limit imposed under the Convention by seeking to make inappropriate or misconceived applications to bodies or institutions which have no power or competence to offer effective redress for the complaint in issue under the Convention (see, for example, Fernie v. the United Kingdom (dec.), no. 14881/04, 5 January 2006; Beiere v. Latvia, no. 30954/05, § 38, 29 November 2011; and contrast Hizb ut-Tahrir and Others v. Germany (dec.), no. 31098/08, §§ 58-59, 12 June 2012, and Petrović v. Serbia, no. 40485/08, § 60, 15 July 2014).
The Court observes that the applicant lodged his complaint on 18 February 2016, that is to say approximately two months after the Supreme Court rejected his second cassation appeal on 14 December 2015, and one year and eight months after the Regional Court upheld his conviction on appeal. Regard being had to the Government’s argument, the Court’s task is accordingly to examine whether the cassation review proceedings instituted by the applicant can be considered an effective remedy to be taken into account for the purposes of the six-month rule.
In this connection, the Court observes that it has already examined the effectiveness of cassation review proceedings under the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, as amended on 31 December 2014 and as in force at the relevant time (see Kashlan v. Russia (dec.), no. 60189/15, 26 November 2015). In Kashlan the Court came to the conclusion that since the new cassation review procedure did not lay down time-limits for lodging applications, it could not be regarded as an ordinary remedy within the meaning of Article 35 § 1 of the Convention, and that applicants did not have to make use of it before lodging a complaint with the Court (ibid., § 29).
Having examined the material submitted by the parties, the Court considers that the above finding holds true in the present case. The present application was lodged after the decision in Kashlan had been adopted, therefore the applicant could have reasonably been aware that the cassation procedure was not an effective remedy in proceedings under the Code of Criminal Procedure (see, for contrary examples, Kruglov and Others v. Russia, nos. 11264/04 and 15 others, § 119, 4 February 2020). Accordingly, there were no further remedies for the applicant to exhaust after the Regional Court upheld his conviction on appeal on 30 June 2014. By lodging the complaint with the Court on 18 February 2016, the applicant failed to comply with the six-month rule. It follows that this application has been lodged out of time and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 5 November 2020.
Olga Chernishova Darian Pavli
Deputy Registrar President