Information Note on the Court’s case-law 68

October 2004

Bojinov v. Bulgaria - 47799/99

Judgment 28.10.2004 [Section I]

Article 5

Article 5-1

Lawful arrest or detention

Delay in implementing decision to release from detention: violation

After placing the applicant in pre-trial detention, the court decided to release him, subject to payment of bail, at the close of a hearing which ended at 9.15 am on 4 June 1998. The sum fixed as bail was paid on the same day and the court forwarded the decision to the prison for enforcement and informed the police. The applicant was released at an unspecified time in the course of the following day.

Article 5 § 1 (extract) – “… the applicant’s release was ordered at 9.15 am on 4 June 1998. The evidence in the file does not reveal at what time the court was informed that the condition attached to this release, namely the payment of bail by the applicant, had been fulfilled. Nonet heless, it appears that this was done in the course of the day and that the registrar of the court sent a letter to the prison indicating that enforcement could occur on the same day, in all probability during the court’s opening hours. The Government have not specified how this letter was transmitted - by fax or by internal or external mail, nor the exact time at which the applicant was released on the following day, 5 June 1998. The Court considers that, in the absence of a detailed hour-by-hour list of the acts and steps taken, the Government’s argument to the effect that there was no delay in releasing the applicant cannot be accepted. In particular, it notes that no action seems to have been taken by the relevant authorities in the evening and during t he night of 4 to 5 June 1998. Whether that lapse of time was necessary to deliver the mail from the court to the prison or was due to inactivity on the part of the prison authorities, it seems that the applicant’s continued detention during that period did not amount to a first step in the execution of the order for his release and therefore did not come within sub-paragraph 1 (c), or any other sub-paragraph, of Article 5. Accordingly, there has been a violation of Article 5 § 1 on that account.”

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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