FOURTH SECTION

DECISION

Application no . 5609/08 Revaz BULIA and Iakob KVINIKADZE against Georgia

The European Court of Human Rights ( Fourth Section ), sitting on 23 June 2015 as a Committee composed of:

George Nicolaou , President, Krzysztof Wojtyczek, Yonko Grozev , judges,

and Fatoş Aracı , Deputy Section Registrar ,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 20 November 2007 ,

Having regard to the declaration submitted by the respondent Government on 7 April 2015 requesting the Court to strike the application out of the list of cases and the applicants ’ reply to that declaration,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

FACTS AND PROCEDURE

1 . The applicants, Mr Revaz Bulia and Mr Iakob Kvinikadze , are Georgian nationals, who were born in 1953 and 1975 respectively. They were represented before the Court by Ms L. Koiava and Mr O. Mebonia , lawyers practising in Tbilisi.

2 . The Georgian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr L. Meskhoradze , of the Ministry of Justice.

3 . The case mainly concerned an exceptional extension of the applicants ’ detention pending trial for additional three months without the applicants ’ knowledge or presence at the respective court hearing.

4 . On 15 December 2014 the application was communicated to the respondent Government under Article 5 § 3 of the Convention.

5 . By a letter of 7 April 2015 the Government submitted to the Court a unilateral declaration with a view of resolving the issues raised in the application. The relevant parts of the declaration read as follows:

“ The Government of Georgia wish to express regretful acknowledgment of a violation of Mr Revaz Bulia ’ s and Mr Iakob Kvinikadze ’ s rights under Article 5 § 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights on the account of the lack of sufficient reasoning in the decision of the Tbilisi Court of Appeal of 22 June 2007 extending the applicants ’ pre-trial detention for three months .

That being so, the Government undertake to pay each applicant 1,500 (one thousand and five hundred) euros to cover any pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages and costs and expenses, plus any tax that may be chargeable to the applicants.

This sum will be converted into the Georgian national currency at the rate applicable on the date of payment, and will be free of any taxes that may be applicable. It will be payable within three months from the date of notification of the decision by the Court pursuant to Article 37 § 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In the event of failure to pay this sum within the said three-month period, the Government undertake to pay simple interest on it, from the expiry of that period until the settlement, at a rate equal to the marginal landing rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points. ... “

6. By a letter of 18 May 2015 the applicants informed the Court that they did not accept the terms of the unilateral declaration, claiming that the proposed amount of compensation was insufficient.

THE LAW

7. The Cour t re iterates th at Article 37 of the Convention provides that it may at any stage of the proceedings decide to strike an application out of its list of cases where the circumstances lead to one of the conclusions specified, under (a), (b) or (c) of paragraph 1 of that Article. Article 37 § 1 (c) enables the Court in particular to strike a case out of its list if:

“for any other reason established by the Court, it is no longer justified to continue the examination of the application”.

8. It also recalls that, in certain circumstances, it may strike out an application under Article 37 § 1 (c) of the Convention on the basis of a unilateral declaration by a respondent Government even if the applicant wishes the examination of the case to be continued (see Taktakishvili v. Georgia ( dec. ), no. 46055/06 , 16 October 2012). To this end, the Court will examine carefully the declaration in the light of the principles emerging from its case-law, in particular the Tahsin Acar judgment ( Tahsin Acar v. Turkey , [GC], no. 26307/95 , §§ 75-77, ECHR 2003-VI ; WAZA Spółka z o.o . v. Poland ( dec. ) no. 11602/02 , 26 June 2007; and Sulwińska v. Poland ( dec. ) no. 28953/03 ).

9. Having due regard to the terms of the Government ’ s unilateral declaration in the present case, the Court observes that their declaration contains a sufficiently clear acknowledgement of a breach of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention. In this regard, t he Court notes that it has established its practice in respect of the complaints under Article 5 § 3 of the Convention concerning the lack of reasoning in the decisions ordering and extending pre-trial detention (see Saghinadze and Others v. Georgia , no. 18768/05 , §§ 133-140, 27 May 2010, and Janiashvili v. Georgia , no. 35887/05 , §§ 86 ‑ 87, 27 November 2012, with further references therein).

10. Therefore, in view of the nature of the admission contained in the Government ’ s declaration, as well as of the amount of compensation proposed, the Court considers that it is no longer justified to continue the examination of the application (Article 37 § 1(c)). Moreover, in light of the above considerations, and in particular given the clear case-law on the topic, the Court is satisfied that respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and the Protocols thereto does not require it to continue the examination of the application (Article 37 § 1 in fine).

11. Finally, the Court emphasises that, should the Government fail to comply with the terms of their unilateral declaration, the application could be restored to the list in accordance with Article 37 § 2 of the Convention ( Josipović v. Serbia ( dec. ), no. 18369/07 , 4 March 2008).

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Takes note of the terms of the respondent Government ’ s declaration under Article 5 § 3 of the Convention and of the modalities for ensuring compliance with the undertakings referred to therein;

Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases in accordance with Article 37 § 1 (c) of the Convention.

Done in English and notified in writing on 16 July 2015 .

Fatoş Aracı George Nicolaou Deputy Registrar President