LEHTJARV proti Estonsku

FIFTH SECTION

PARTIAL DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 11713/05
by Boris LEHTJÄRV
against Estonia

The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 26 June 2006 as a Chamber composed of:

Mr P. Lorenzen, President,
Mrs S. Botoucharova,
Mr K. Jungwiert,
Mr V. Butkevych,
Mr R. Maruste,
Mr J. Borrego Borrego,
Mrs R. Jaeger, judges,
and Ms C. Westerdiek, Section Registrar.

Having regard to the above application lodged on 21 March 2005,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr Boris Lehtjärv, is an Estonian national who was born in 1979 and lives in the Endla village, Saaremaa.

The circumstances of the case

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.

1. Length of the applicant’s detention on remand

On 1 May 2003 the applicant was taken into custody on suspicion of having committed several offences. Apparently his detention was authorised and extended on several occasions by the Saare County Court (maakohus).

On 3 November 2003 the applicant was committed for trial together with ten other accused. He was charged with drugs offences and with several offences of fraud and use of counterfeit documents. The County Court decided not to change the preventive custody measure, which had been applied during the pre-trial investigation.

Several requests made by the applicant to release him from detention and to apply a more lenient preventive measure were refused by the County Court in 2004.

On 29 October 2004 the County Court again refused the applicant’s request to apply a more lenient preventive measure – prohibition to leave one’s place of residence – instead of custody. The court was of the opinion that the grounds which had warranted his detention during the pre-trial investigation – the risk that he might evade the investigation or that he could commit further offences – still existed. It noted that the applicant had four prior convictions and that he had committed the offences he was charged with while he was on probation. The court concluded that the applicant, if at liberty, could commit further offences or abscond.

On 12 January 2005 the County Court refused a request made by the applicant to apply a prohibition to leave one’s place of residence as a more lenient preventive measure instead of custody. The court repeated its earlier reasoning. It conceded that prior convictions in themselves could not serve as grounds for his detention; however, this fact, taken together with the information in the case file concerning the applicant’s personality gave the court sufficient reasons to suspect that he could commit further offences or abscond.

On 17 March 2005 the County Court again refused to release the applicant and to apply a prohibition to leave his place of residence instead. The court repeated the reasoning of its previous decisions and found that he could commit new offences or abscond, if released.

20 May 2005 the County Court refused to release the applicant. The Court repeated its earlier reasoning. It also noted that he was charged, inter alia, with drugs offences and that, if convicted, he could be sentenced to imprisonment for one to five years. The Court found that there were sufficient reasons for suspicion that the applicant, if released, could commit further offences or abscond.

On 8 June 2005 the applicant again requested the County Court that he be released. By a letter of 27 June 2005 a judge of the County Court replied that according to the law a detainee was entitled to lodge a new petition for the review of the well-foundedness of his detention not earlier than two months after the examination of his previous petition. Accordingly, the applicant had been entitled to lodge a new petition in the second half of July. Referring also to the judicial vacation period coming up, the judge informed the applicant that his petition would be dealt with in the second half of July 2005.

On 11 July 2005 the applicant lodged a petition for his release with the County Court.

On 9 August 2005 the County Court granted the applicant’s request to release him and to replace the preventive custody measure with a prohibition to leave his place of residence.

2. Conditions of detention

The applicant was kept in detention from 1 May 2003 to 9 August 2005, that is more than two years and three months. For most of the time he was kept in the Pärnu Prison. However, he spent several short periods in the Kuressaare Police Department Arrest House (politseijaoskonna arestimaja), where he was escorted from the Pärnu Prison in connection with his trial in the Saare County Court in Kuressaare. During the first two years of detention, he spent a total of 115 days in the arrest house.

On 1 July 2005 the applicant was transferred from Pärnu to the Tallinn Prison. He was released on 9 August 2005.

In the applicant’s cell in the Kuressaare arrest house there was no water supply or sink. The ventilation was inadequate. There was no lavatory in the cell; the inmates had to use a bucket, which stood in a corner of the cell, instead. It was not partitioned, with the result that the detainees had to relieve themselves in each other’s presence. The smell was intolerable. The inmates were not provided with hygiene articles or toilet paper. There was no table in the cell. The detainees had no possibility to be in the fresh air and there were no national newspapers they could read.

COMPLAINTS

1. The applicant complained under Article 5 § 3 of the Convention about the length of his detention.

2. He complained that his requests to be released, lodged with the Saare County Court on 8 June and 11 July 2005, had not been decided within the time limit set by the law.

3. He further complained that the conditions of his detention amounted to a violation of Article 3 of the Convention.

4. (a) He also complained that his detention had been in violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention and that his presumption of innocence, guaranteed by Article 6 § 2, had been violated.

(b) Finally, he complained that he, as a person charged with a criminal offence, had been subject to more extensive restrictions than the convicted offenders. He relied on Article 9 of the Convention and Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 of the Convention.

THE LAW

1. The applicant complained about the length of his detention on remand, relying on Article 5 § 3 of the Convention, which provides in the relevant part:

“Everyone arrested or detained in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 1 (c) of this Article shall be ... entitled to trial within a reasonable time or to release pending trial. Release may be conditioned by guarantees to appear for trial.”

The Court considers that it cannot, on the basis of the case file, determine the admissibility of this complaint and that it is therefore necessary, in accordance with Rule 54 § 2 (b) of the Rules of Court, to give notice of this part of the application to the respondent Government.

2. The applicant complained that after the Saare County Court’s refusal to release him on 20 May 2005, the court had not reconsidered the lawfulness of his detention after one month, as required by the law and despite his request of 8 June 2005. Moreover, his request to be released, lodged on 11 July 2005, had not been decided within the five-days time limit set by the law. The County Court had examined the request and ordered the release of the applicant only on 9 August 2005. Article 5 § 4 of the Convention provides:

“4. Everyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings by which the lawfulness of his detention shall be decided speedily by a court and his release ordered if the detention is not lawful.”

The Court considers that it cannot, on the basis of the case file, determine the admissibility of this complaint and that it is therefore necessary, in accordance with Rule 54 § 2 (b) of the Rules of Court, to give notice of this part of the application to the respondent Government.

3. The applicant further complained that the conditions of his detention in the Kuressaare Arrest House amounted to a violation of Article 3 of the Convention, which reads:

“No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

The Court considers that it cannot, on the basis of the case file, determine the admissibility of this complaint and that it is therefore necessary, in accordance with Rule 54 § 2 (b) of the Rules of Court, to give notice of this part of the application to the respondent Government.

4. The Court has examined the remainder of the applicant’s complaints as submitted by him. However, in the light of all the material in its possession, the Court finds that these complaints do not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms set out in the invoked Articles of the Convention or its Protocol. It follows that this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Decides to adjourn the examination of the applicant’s complaints concerning the length of his pre-trial detention, the speediness of the proceedings in which the lawfulness of his detention was decided and the conditions of his detention;

Declares the remainder of the application inadmissible.

Claudia Westerdiek Peer Lorenzen
Registrar President