Published on 24 October 2022

FOURTH SECTION

Application no. 31212/20 Samir MESSAOUDI against the Netherlands lodged on 16 July 2020 communicated on 4 October 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The applicant’s pre-trial detention, which started on 3 March 2020, was based on the existence of a reasonable suspicion of burglary and on the ground of a “risk of reoffending”. At a hearing on 19 March 2020, the Midden-Nederland Regional Court ordered the applicant’s extended detention on remand ( gevangenhouding ) and dismissed his request to conditionally suspend it. The latter decision was upheld by the Arnhem ‑ Leeuwarden Court of Appeal on 6 April 2020. The applicant’s renewed request for the conditional suspension of his detention on remand was examined and refused on 30 April 2020. The Regional Court referred to its decision of 19 March 2020, the fact that that had been upheld on appeal, and added that the applicant had not put forward any new personal circumstances that should cause his personal interests to outweigh the interests of continuing detention on remand.

On both occasions, the applicant had requested that his detention on remand be conditionally suspended because of, inter alia , the medical situation of his partner and the advisory opinion of the probation and social rehabilitation service ( reclasseringsadvies ) that electronic surveillance was “technically and logistically” possible.

The applicant complains under Article 5 § 3 of the Convention that the refusals to suspend his pre-trial detention were not based on relevant and sufficient reasons and that feasible alternatives to detention, such as electronic surveillance, were not seriously considered.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

Has there been a violation of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention? In particular, were the Midden-Nederland Regional Court’s decisions of 19 March and 30 April 2020 – dismissing the applicant’s requests for a conditional suspension of his detention on remand – and the Arnhem-Leeuwarden Court of Appeal’s decision of 6 April 2020 – upholding the Regional Court’s decision of 19 March 2020 – sufficiently reasoned, taking into account the medical situation of his partner and the advisory opinion of the probation and social rehabilitation service ( reclasseringsadvies ) that electronic surveillance was “technically and logistically” possible (see Zherebin v. Russia , no. 51445/09, §§ 50-54 and 61-62, 4 March 2016; Hasselbaink v. the Netherlands , no. 73329/16, §§ 67 ‑ 73, 9 February 2021; and Maassen v. the Netherlands , no. 10982/15, §§ 53-59, 9 February 2021)?