Judgments concerning Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Turkey

Transcription

1 issued by the Registrar of the Court Judgments concerning Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Turkey ECHR 43 (2013) The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing the following 11 Chamber judgments 1, none of which is final. The judgments in French are indicated with an asterisk (*). The Court has also delivered today judgments in the cases of Vojnity v. Hungary, Eduard Popa v. the Republic of Moldova, and Necati Yılmaz v. Turkey, for which separate press releases have been issued. Amie and Others v. Bulgaria (application no /08) The applicants are Mahmud Abas Amie and Rowida Mustafa Kamah, husband and wife, and their children, Katia Mahmud Amie, Firas Mahmud Amie and Abas Mahmud Amie, who were born in 1970, 1971, 1991, 1993 and 2002, respectively. They currently live in Sofia, Bulgaria. They are all stateless persons and were granted refugee status in Bulgaria in 2001, except for Abas Mahmud Amie, who acquired Bulgarian nationality by being born in the country. In 2006, Mr Abas Amie was placed in a detention facility following an order by the Bulgarian authorities for his expulsion on the ground that he was involved in terrorist activities and therefore represented a serious threat for national security. During the ensuing proceedings, Mr Abas Amie was released after nearly three months, then arrested and placed in detention again from 2008 until Relying on Article 5 1 (right to liberty and security) and Article 5 4 (right to have lawfulness of detention decided speedily by a court), Mr Abas Amie complained about the unlawfulness of his detention pending expulsion for a total period of more than one year and eight months without effective judicial review. The other applicants complained that the expulsion order against their husband and father and his resulting detention pending its enforcement had amounted to an unlawful interference with their right to respect for their family life, in breach of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life). Violation of Article 5 1 Violation of Article 5 4 Violation of Article 8 (should the order to expel Mr Abas Amie be put into effect) Just satisfaction: EUR 3,500 (non-pecuniary damage) to Mr Abas Amie and EUR 1,000 (costs and jointly to all applicants Dimitar Krastev v. Bulgaria (no /04) The applicant, Dimitar Krastev, is a Bulgarian national who was born in 1947 and lived in Plovdiv (Bulgaria). He died on 19 March 2012 and his wife, his son and his daughter pursued the application before the Court. Mr Krastev was the head of the police force in one of the districts of Plovdiv. In March 2005 he was found guilty of abuse of office and 1 Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, Chamber judgments are not final. During the three-month period following a judgment s delivery, any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Court. If such a request is made, a panel of five judges considers whether the case deserves further examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a final judgment. If the referral request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day. Under Article 28 of the Convention, judgments delivered by a Committee are final. Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for supervision of its execution. Further information about the execution process can be found here:

2 sentenced to an 18-month suspended prison sentence, which was subsequently replaced with an administrative fine. The case concerned his complaint that, during the related internal inquiry against him in 1999, his office had been searched and almost all the contents of his safe had been seized and subsequently forfeited. Relying in particular on Article 6 1 (right to a fair trial), Mr Krastev complained first that the proceedings in which he had challenged the prosecutor s decision to confiscate some of the items seized from his safe had not been fair and had not involved a hearing. Violation of Article 6 1 Just satisfaction: EUR 2,400 (non-pecuniary damage) and EUR 1,000 (costs and Krisztián Barnabás Tóth v. Hungary (no /06) The applicant, Krisztián Barnabás Tóth, is a Hungarian national who was born in 1974 and lives in Budapest. In 2004, Mr. Tóth separated from his wife, who was pregnant. A few months later she gave birth to a baby girl, who was adopted by her new partner. The case concerned the applicant s complaint about the authorities refusal of his request to establish paternity of the baby girl, the domestic courts ultimately finding in May 2006 that it would not be in the child s best interests. The applicant relied on Article 8 (right to respect for family and private life). No violation of Article 8 László Károly v. Hungary (no. 2) (no /08) The applicant, László Károly, is a Hungarian national who was born in 1950 and lives in Budapest. The case concerned his complaint about police brutality. He alleged that he had got involved in a fight with some plain-clothed police officers in September 2000 and had been taken to the local police station where he had been repeatedly beaten and insulted. Mr Károly immediately filed a complaint against the police officers involved but the Hungarian authorities discontinued the investigation. Simultaneously, Mr Károly was charged with drunken driving and violence against an official. He was acquitted. In November 2008, he was awarded compensation following an official liability case he had brought against the Budapest Police Department and the Attorney General s Office in which the national courts found, without addressing the issue of police brutality, that he had not resisted arrest and had been unlawfully prosecuted. Relying on Article 3 (prohibition of torture and of inhuman or degrading treatment), Mr Károly alleged excessive use of force. In particular, he claimed that the multiple bruising he had sustained could not be justified by his alleged resistance to arrest as the domestic courts themselves had found in the liability case that his behaviour had not warranted the force used by the police. Violation of Article 3 (inhuman treatment) Just satisfaction: EUR 5,000 (non-pecuniary damage) and EUR 3,000 (costs and Armando Iannelli v. Italy (no /03)* The applicant, Armando Iannelli, is an Italian national who was born in 1923 and lived in San Bartolomeo in Galdo (Italy) at the time when the application was lodged. Following his death, his heirs pursued the application. He was the owner of a 5,590 m² plot of land with a building on it. In 1989 the municipal council approved plans to build a hospital on the land, and in 1990 the mayor ordered its immediate occupation with a view to its expropriation. In June 2011 the Naples Court of Appeal found that the expropriation had 2

3 been illegal from the outset because the occupation order was not lawful. The court held that under Constitutional Court orders nos. 348 and 349 of 2007 indirect expropriation was contrary to Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 of the Convention. Relying in particular on Article 6 1 (right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time), the applicant complained about the length of the proceedings and the insufficient compensation awarded by the Court of Appeal under the Pinto Act. Violation of Article 6 1 Just satisfaction: EUR 4,200 (non-pecuniary damage) and EUR 2,000 (costs and D.G. v. Poland (no /07) The applicant, D.G., is a Polish national who was born in 1980 and lives in Siedlce (Poland). He was tried in various criminal proceedings and sentenced to a total of eight years imprisonment. A paraplegic confined to a wheelchair and suffering from a number of health problems, he complained that during his three terms of detention in January and February 2001, from September 2003 to May 2004 and from September 2005 to June 2008 the care given to him and the conditions of his detention had been incompatible with his medical needs. In particular, he alleged that the prison facilities were not adapted to the use of a wheelchair, which had resulted in problems of access to the toilet facilities, and that he had not received a sufficient supply of incontinence pads. Furthermore he maintained that his cells had been overcrowded and dirty and he had had to share them with smokers. He relied on Article 3 (prohibition of torture and of inhuman or degrading treatment). Violation of Article 3 (material conditions of the applicant s detention in view of his special needs) Just satisfaction: EUR 8,000 (non-pecuniary damage) Austrianu v. Romania (no /02) The applicant, Eugeniu Costel Austrianu, is a Romanian national who was born in 1964 and lives in Leresti (Romania). In September 1993 he was convicted of murder and sentenced to 27 years imprisonment. He served his sentence until December Relying in particular on Article 3 (prohibition of torture and of inhuman or degrading treatment), he complained that in December 1998 he had been ill-treated by a prison guard in Colibasi prison in particular, that he had been hit with a truncheon and that the ensuing investigations into his complaints had been ineffective. He also complained about inadequate medical care in detention for his various health problems, including mental illness and an ulcer. Two violations of Article 3 (treatment + investigation concerning the incident of 9 December 1998) No violation of Article 3 (medical care in detention) Just satisfaction: EUR 10,000 (non-pecuniary damage) and EUR 1,524 (costs and Bugan v. Romania (no /06) The applicant, Sorin Bugan, is a Romanian national who was born in 1968 and lives in Sinaia (Romania). He is a journalist and editorial director for the weekly magazine, Ziar de Sinaia. Relying on Article 10 (freedom of expression), he complained about being 3

4 ordered to pay damages to the director of the local public hospital following his publication in 2005 of four articles criticising the hospital s management. Violation of Article 10 Just satisfaction: EUR 16 (pecuniary damage), EUR 4,500 (non-pecuniary damage) and EUR 2,000 (costs and Dzugayeva v. Russia (no /04) The applicant, Yelena Dzugayeva, is a Russian national who was born in 1967 and lives in Vladikavkaz (Russia). She is an entrepreneur who trades in reusable glass bottles. The case concerned her complaint that the local authorities had impounded her trailer containing 34,000 glass bottles in October 2002 because she did not have a parking permit, and then had returned it to her almost empty, save some broken glass. Relying on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property), she complained in particular that her ensuing claim for compensation had been dismissed as the exact number of bottles in the trailer could not be specified. Violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 Just satisfaction: EUR 3,000 (pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage) and EUR 850 (costs and Yefimenko v. Russia (no. 152/04) The applicant, Sergey Yefimenko, is a Russian national who was born in 1969 and is serving a prison sentence of 19 years and six months in the Chelyabinsk Region (Russia) for murder, kidnapping and extortion. Relying in particular on Article 3 (prohibition of torture and of inhuman or degrading treatment) and Article 13 (right to an effective remedy), he complained about the conditions of his detention on remand from March 2001 to October Relying on Article 5 1 (a) (right to liberty and security), he also alleged that his detention after conviction by the trial court in April 2003 until the detention order was quashed in 2010 had been unlawful, in particular because it had not been based on a sentence imposed by a competent tribunal, two of the lay judges not having been authorised to sit on the bench. Lastly, he alleged that prison staff had inspected his correspondence with the Regional Bar Association and a non-governmental organisation as well as with the European Court of Human Rights, in breach of Article 8 (right to respect for correspondence) and Article 34 (right of individual petition). Violation of Article 3 (conditions of detention on remand) Violation of Article 13 Violation of Article 5 1 Violation of Article 8 (correspondence) Violation of Article 34 Just satisfaction: EUR 20,000 (non-pecuniary damage) and EUR 1,000 (costs and Gülaydın v. Turkey (no /09)* The applicant, Mehmet Hida Gülaydın, is a Turkish national who was born in 1969 and lives in Diyarbakır (Turkey). On 28 March 2004 local elections were held in Diyarbakır and the applicant was one of the tellers for the People s Social Democratic Party ( SHP ). When the polling stations closed a scuffle broke out between partisans of another political party and the police. The applicant was attempting to leave the scene when he was stopped and knocked unconscious by the police. He was driven to the emergency 4

5 ward at the Diyarbakır public hospital by people who witnessed the incident. Relying in particular on Article 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment), the applicant complained about the ill-treatment inflicted on him by the police and the lack of an effective remedy under domestic law. Violation of Article 3 (treatment + investigation) Just satisfaction: EUR 15,000 (non-pecuniary damage) and EUR 500 (costs and This press release is a document produced by the Registry. It does not bind the Court. Decisions, judgments and further information about the Court can be found on To receive the Court s press releases, please subscribe here: Press contacts echrpress@echr.coe.int tel: Tracey Turner-Tretz (tel: ) Céline Menu-Lange (tel: ) Nina Salomon (tel: ) Denis Lambert (tel: ) 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. 5