THIRD SECTION

DECISION

Application no s . 34104/08 and 51910/08 Artem Vladimirovich ULANOV against Russia and Valeriy Vladimirovich LI against Russia (see appended table)

The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 18 January 2018 as a Committee composed of:

Luis López Guerra, President, Dmitry Dedov, Jolien Schukking, judges, and Liv Tigerstedt, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above applications lodged on the various dates indicated in the appended table,

Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicants,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

FACTS AND PROCEDURE

The list of applicant s and the relevant details of the application s are set out in the appended table.

The applicants ’ complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention concerning the excessive length of criminal proceedings were communicated to the Russian Government (“the Government”) . In application no. 51910/08 the applicant also raised other complaints under the provisions of the Convention.

THE LAW

A. Joinder of the applications

Having regard to the similar subject matter of the applications, the Court finds it appropriate to examine them jointly in a single decision.

B. Complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention ( excessive length of criminal proceedings )

In the present application s , having examined all the material before it, the Court considers that for the reasons stated below, the applicants ’ complaint about the excessive length of the criminal proceedings against them should be dismissed.

In particular, the Court observes that the criminal proceedings against the applicants were discontinued either following the court ’ s acquittal judgment (application no. 51910/08) or in view of the lack of any evidence of a crime (application no. 34104/08).

The Government submitted that, following the discontinuation of the criminal proceedings or acquittal of the applicants, they should have exercised their “right to rehabilitation” by lodging a claim for compensation for wrongful prosecution. While the applicant in application no. 34104/08 had effectively exercised that right leading to the acknowledgment by the Russian courts of an excessively long and wrongful prosecution and an award for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage, the applicant in application no. 51910/08 did not make use of that venue and did not lodge a tort action seeking compensation for non-pecuniary damage, provided for by Article 135 § 2 of the Russian Code of Criminal Procedure.

Whereas the Court has consistently held that an award of compensation in the “rehabilitation” proceedings cannot deprive the applicant of his status as a “victim” of violations of Article 5 of the Convention (see Pushchelenko and Others v. Russia , nos. 45392/11 et al., § 27, 12 March 2015, and Shalya v. Russia , no. 27335/13, § 9, 13 November 2014), it dispensed with ruling whether or not that procedure constituted an effective remedy for a grievance under Article 6 § 1 about an excessive length of criminal proceedings (see Zementova v. Russia , no. 942/02, § 61, 27 September 2007). However, the Court has recently found that three applicants lost their status as “victims” of the alleged violation of their right to a trial within a reasonable time after the domestic courts had awarded them sums of money in the “rehabilitation” proceedings, taking into account in particular the duration of the criminal proceedings (see Khanov and Others v. Russia (dec.), nos. 15327/05 et al., 30 June 2016). The Court sees no reason to depart from that finding in respect of application no. 34104/08, where the applicant had been awarded significant compensation for damage, including for the length of the criminal prosecution against him. It thus accepts the Government ’ s argument concerning the loss of the applicant ’ s victim status in respect of this complaint. Accordingly, the case brought by this applicant is incompatible ratione personae with the provisions of the Convention and must be rejected pursuant to Article 35, §§ 3 and 4.

As regards the applicant in application no. 51910/08, the Court reiterates that the existence of mere doubts as to the prospects of success of a particular remedy which is not obviously futile is not a valid reason for failing to exhaust domestic remedies (see Sejdovic v. Italy [GC], no. 56581/00, § 45, ECHR 2006 ‑ II). Since it has not been plausibly shown that the “rehabilitation” proceedings could not have led to an award of compensation for the alleged breach of the applicant ’ s right to a trial within a reasonable time, the applicant should have used this remedy. The Court therefore upholds the Government ’ s objection and rejects this complaint by the applicant under Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies (see, for similar reasoning, Kruk v. Russia (dec.), no. 44432/06, 20 September 2016).

C. Remaining complaints

In application no. 51910/08 the applicant also raised other complaints under various articles of the Convention.

The Court has examined the applications listed in the appended table and considers that, in the light of all the material in its possession and in so far as the matters complained of are within its competence, these complaints either do not meet the admissibi lity criteria set out in Articles 34 and 35 of the Convention or do not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Convention or the Protocols thereto.

It follows that this part of the applications must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 § 4 of the Convention .

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Decides to join the applications;

Declares the application s inadmissible.

Done in English and notified in writing on 8 February 2018 .

Liv Tigerstedt Luis López Guerra Acting Deputy Registrar President

APPENDIX

No.

Application no.

Date of introduction

Applicant name

Date of birth

Representative name and location

Start of proceedings

End of proceedings

Total length Level of jurisdiction

34104/08

02/05/2008

Artem Vladimirovich ULANOV

11/11/1985

01/04/2006

08/09/2008

22/01/2008

22/07/2010

1 year(s) and 9 month(s) and 22 day(s) 2 level(s) of jurisdiction

1 year(s) and 10 month(s) and 15 day(s) 3 level(s) of jurisdiction

51910/08

30/09/2008

Valeriy Vladimirovich LI

25/04/1949

Loginov Aleksandr Aleksandrovich

Yakutsk

05/05/1998

28/12/2005

08/08/2005

01/04/2008

7 year(s) and 3 month(s) and 4 day(s) 2 level(s) of jurisdiction

2 year(s ) and 3 month(s) and 5 day(s) 3 level(s) of jurisdiction