ECHR Article 5-3
Length of pre-trial detention
Period of over five years in pre-trial detention owing to difficulties in obtaining evidence from abroad: no violation
Facts – The applicant was arrested in Germany in April 2007 in possession of forged identity papers. He remained in custody and, following further inquiries, was detained in connection with suspected terrorist offences committed in Turkey. His detention was repeatedly extended on the grounds that there was a risk of collusion and of his absconding, as he had no fixed residence in Germany. In September 2011, a court of appeal convicted him of two counts of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment, but his conviction was subsequently quashed and the case was remitted for a fresh trial by another chamber of the same court. The proceedings were still pending at the date of the European Court’s judgment.
In total the applicant spent five years and eight months in detention over two separate periods before eventually being released by order of the court of appeal in February 2014, on the grounds that, even though the criminal proceedings were still pending, his continued detention would be disproportionate. In his application to the European Court, the applicant complained of the length of his pre-trial detention
Law – Article 5 – 3: The Court accepted that the persistence of reasonable suspicion that the applicant had committed serious offences and was liable to abscond constituted relevant and sufficient grounds for his continued detention. However, it also had to ascertain whether the judicial authorities had displayed ‘special diligence’ in the conduct of the proceedings.
It was common ground that the delays had primarily been caused by the difficulties of gathering evidence by way of letters rogatory from Turkey. In that connection, the Court noted that while some delays in criminal procedures within the framework of international anti-terror laws were unavoidable due to difficulties in collecting evidence in different countries, a pro-active approach was nevertheless necessary to speed up the procedure as far as possible. In the applicant’s case, the court of appeal had travelled four times to Turkey in order to follow up the requests by letters rogatory and so could not be said to have failed to exercise special diligence. Furthermore, the applicant had contributed to the length of the proceedings by requesting the court of appeal to re-open the taking of evidence. While he was entitled to make use of his procedural rights, any consequential lengthening of the proceedings could not be held against the State.
The applicant’s continued detention had been subject to repeated reviews in which the grounds for detention had been carefully examined in the light of all the available evidence. Indeed, the court of appeal had decided in February 2014 to release the applicant on the grounds that it felt unable to expedite the proceedings as was necessary in view of the overall duration of the applicant’s detention. It had thereby expressly referred to the principle of proportionality. The present application thus fell to be distinguished from other cases in which the Court had found that the length of the detention on remand was not justified by the complexity of the proceedings, that the domestic courts had failed to process the proceedings with special diligence or in which the applicants were not released before the criminal proceedings had ended.
In the light of these factors and, in particular, of the thorough examination of the grounds for detention by the domestic courts, the length of the applicant’s detention, though considerable, could still be regarded as reasonable.
Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).
67522/09 – Legal Summary, [2014] ECHR 1415
Bailii
European Convention on Human Rights
Human Rights
Updated: 25 December 2021; Ref: scu.541473
