Communicated on 19 October 2018

SECOND SECTION

Application no. 75787/17 Dumitru BARABOI and Valeria GABURA against the Republic of Moldova lodged on 17 October 2017

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the applicants ’ detention on remand and house arrest for more than five months on charges of pimping. They were accused of running an erotic video-chat business which, according to the prosecutors and the domestic courts, amounted to pimping. The applicants argued during the remand proceedings that there was no reasonable suspicion that they had committed the offence imputed to them, because the activity of the web-cam models employed by them could not be assimilated to prostitution. They also argued that there were no relevant and sufficient reasons for ordering their detention and house arrest. During their remand they were detained in Prison No. 13, where the conditions of detention were allegedly very poor.

The applicants complain under Article 5 § 1 that there was no reasonable suspicion that they had committed the offence imputed to them and that the detention was arbitrary and unlawful. They also complain under Article 5 § 3 that there were no relevant and sufficient reasons to deprive them of liberty and under Article 3 that that they had been held in inhuman and degrading conditions of detention.

QUESTIONS tO THE PARTIES

1. Was the applicants ’ deprivation of liberty ordered “in accordance with a procedure prescribed by law” for the purposes of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention (see Steel and Others v. the United Kingdom , 23 September 1998, § 54, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998 ‑ VII)?

2. Were the applicants deprived of their liberty in breach of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, was the applicants ’ detention based on a reasonable suspicion that they had committed an offence (see Muşuc v. Moldova , no. 42440/06, §§ 29-34, 6 November 2007) ?

3. Was the applicant ’ s detention based on relevant and sufficient reasons, as required by Article 5 § 3 of the Convention (see Buzadji v. the Republic of Moldova [GC], no. 23755/07 , §§ 115-23, ECHR 2016 (extracts))?

4. Did the material conditions of the applicants ’ detention amount to inhuman or degrading treatment under Article 3 of the Convention (see Shishanov v. the Republic of Moldova , no. 11353/06 , 15 September 2015)?