FIFTH SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 37662/11 Vladimer DOLIDZE against Georgia

The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 10 March 2022 as a Committee composed of:

Ganna Yudkivska, President, Lado Chanturia, Mattias Guyomar, judges, and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the application (no. 37662/11) against Georgia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 8 June 2011 by a Georgian national, Mr Vladimer Dolidze (“the applicant”), who was born in 1983 and lives in Tbilisi, and was represented before the Court by Ms S. Abuladze, a lawyer practising in Tbilisi;

the decision to give notice of the application to the Georgian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Mr B. Dzamashvili, of the Ministry of Justice;

the parties’ observations;

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

1. The present case concerns an allegation under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that criminal proceedings against the applicant were unfair because the pre-trial investigation was conducted in a biased and partial manner. The applicant also complained about the manner in which the identification parade had been conducted in his case.

2. By a decision of 15 April 2010, as amended on 28 May 2010, the applicant was charged with the offence of resisting police officers with the intention of obstructing them in the course of their duties, committed as part of a group (Article 353 § 2 of the Criminal Code), and with the offence of unlawful purchase, possession and carrying of firearms (Article 236 §§ 1 and 2 of the Criminal Code). The official version of the events stated that on 12 April 2010 at around 10 p.m., in the course of a verbal altercation between three police officers and two young men, a fight had broken out involving about twenty people, including the applicant. Several persons were arrested, while others, including the applicant, managed to escape. Seven police officers were granted victim status in the proceedings.

3. The applicant was arrested on 20 April 2010 and remanded in pre-trial detention. On 7 June 2010 the investigation was completed, and the case file was forwarded to the first-instance court along with a bill of indictment in respect of the applicant and seven co-accused. On 15 November 2010 the applicant’s lawyer lodged an application with the first-instance judge, complaining that the investigation had been conducted in a one-sided manner, given that the Vake-Saburtalo police department in charge of the investigation was the same department in which the “victim” police officers were working. The applicant requested that several investigative actions be conducted which could corroborate his version of the events – that he had not been present at the moment when the fight had broken out and that he had been assaulted. His application was rejected as unsubstantiated.

4. During the trial proceedings the applicant alleged that not only had the police department of the “victim” police officers investigated the case, but that one of the “victim” police officers had been involved in the investigation itself. He also called into question the validity of the records of his photo identification by the “victim” police officers, questioning the timing of the procedure and the accuracy of the photograph used. He alleged that, for the purposes of identification, the police had used a photograph taken during his teenage years when he had not had a beard.

5. By a decision of 29 December 2010, the Tbilisi City Court found the applicant, along with three other co-defendants, guilty as charged and sentenced him to ten years’ imprisonment. The proceedings in respect of four other defendants were first separated and then suspended. The applicant maintained in court that he had been physically assaulted by police officers during the 12 April incident. His wife and a friend, who were examined in court, also stated that they had witnessed the incident and had seen the applicant being beaten by police officers. After hearing the witnesses, including all the police officers involved in the incident and several eyewitnesses, and having examined the relevant forensic evidence, including medical, biological, and ballistic reports, and the records of the photo identification of the applicant, the first ‑ instance court dismissed the applicant’s allegations as contradicting the material in the case file.

6. The applicant appealed against his conviction, declaring his innocence. He maintained that he had not been at the location of the incident when the fight had broken out and that he had only intervened later to halt the violence, but instead had been beaten himself. He complained again that various procedural irregularities had taken place during the police investigation into his case, and he criticised the whole process as being biased and subjective. On 1 April 2011 the Tbilisi Court of Appeal upheld the applicant’s conviction in full. In connection with his version of events, the court concluded that it was not supported by the evidence gathered during the investigation. The appeal court rejected the applicant’s allegations concerning various procedural irregularities as unsubstantiated. As to the facts, the court concluded that the police officers’ statements were consistent enough to prove the official version of the incident.

7. On 18 July 2011 the Supreme Court of Georgia dismissed an appeal on points of law by the applicant as inadmissible.

THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT

8. The applicant alleged a breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention on account of the alleged unfairness of the criminal proceedings which had been conducted against him. The Government submitted that the application was inadmissible under Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention, as the applicant had falsely argued that one of the so-called “victim” police officers had been involved in the investigation into the case, and that in any event, the application form had been submitted in a confusing and disorganised manner, and the applicant’s lawyer, Mr M. Nozadze, had been banned on 22 October 2013 from representing applicants in proceedings before the Court. The applicant dismissed the Government’s allegations as unfounded and irrelevant.

9. The Court considers that it does not have to examine the Government’s plea of abuse of the right of application, as the present application is in any event inadmissible for the following reasons. The applicant failed to show that any of the “victim” police officers had indeed been involved in the criminal proceedings conducted against him. The investigation into the relevant incident was assigned to a group of investigators from the same police department; however, none of the procedural documents in the case file support the allegation that the relevant police officers participated in the actual investigation other than within the scope of the role accorded to them as victims of the purported offences. The fact that the investigation was conducted by investigators from the same police department does not suffice to render the proceedings unfair. Although this fact may give rise to apprehension as to the neutrality of the investigation, what is decisive is the overall fairness of the criminal proceedings (see Ibrahim and Others v. the United Kingdom [GC], nos. 50541/08 and 3 others, §§ 274 and 280-94, 13 September 2016; Al-Khawaja and Tahery v. the United Kingdom [GC], nos. 26766/05 and 22228/06, §§ 118, and 152-65, ECHR 2011; and Bykov v. Russia [GC], no. 4378/02, §§ 94-105, 10 March 2009). The Court notes, in this connection, that at no point did the applicant request the withdrawal of any of the investigators. His allegations of bias were always worded in general and vague terms. The evidence gathered during the pre-trial investigation, under the supervision of a prosecutor, was subsequently the subject of adversarial argument in court, with each item of evidence being examined in the presence and with the participation of the defence. The judges examined the applicant’s allegations of bias and dismissed them as unsubstantiated. Furthermore, the applicant’s conviction was based, along with the police testimony, on other supporting evidence, such as the results of forensic examinations and statements of other witnesses (see paragraph 5 above). Last but not least, the applicant never lodged a criminal complaint concerning his alleged ill ‑ treatment by police officers (see Manukian v. Georgia (dec.) [Committee], no. 49448/08, § 35, 3 May 2016). The Court accordingly considers that the fact that the investigation was conducted by the Vake-Saburtalo police department did not adversely affect the overall fairness of the criminal proceedings in respect of the applicant under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.

10. The applicant also complained about the manner in which his photo identification had been conducted. The Court 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, this complaint either does not meet the admissibility criteria set out in Articles 34 and 35 of the Convention or does not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Convention or the Protocols thereto.

11. It follows that the application must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Declares the application inadmissible.

Done in English and notified in writing on 31 March 2022.

Martina Keller Ganna Yudkivska Deputy Registrar President