Published on 3 October 2022

FIFTH SECTION

Application no. 12971/19 Sergiy Vasylyovych KRAYNYAK and Igor Volodymyrovych GUMENYUK against Ukraine lodged on 28 February 2019 communicated on 3 May 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The background to the case is described in the communication in case no. 68353/17 Kraynyak v. Ukraine (communicated on 5 January 2018). [1]

The applicants were arrested on 31 August 2015 and remanded in custody on suspicion of involvement in a lethal terrorist bombing attack near the Parliament in Kyiv. Their detention was extended on several occasions.

The first applicant was released and placed under a 24 hours house arrest on 22 May 2020, which expired on 22 July 2020. According to the most recently available information the second applicant remains in detention and both applicants are on trial on the above-mentioned charges.

The applicants submitted that their appeals against the trial court’s orders extending their detention were examined by the Kyiv Court of Appeal with delay, notably that:

- the appeal against the order of 25 July 2019 was examined on 14 November 2019;

- the appeal against the order of 6 September 2019 was examined on 4 February 2020;

- the appeal against the order of 24 October 2019 was examined on 17 February 2020.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Has there been a breach of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention in the applicants’ cases? In particular:

(i) did the courts provide relevant and sufficient reasons for the applicants’ detention and do the national authorities display “special diligence” in the conduct of the proceedings (see Kharchenko v. Ukraine , no. 40107/02, §§ 79-81 and 99, 10 February 2011, and Buzadji v. the Republic of Moldova [GC], no. 23755/07, § 87, 5 July 2016)?

(ii) was the domestic courts’ reliance on Article 176 § 5 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in the applicants’ cases compatible with the requirements of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention (see Grubnyk v. Ukraine , no. 58444/15, §§ 110-30, 17 September 2020, and compare, for example, Avraimov v. Ukraine , no. 71818/17, §§ 57-72, 25 March 2021 [Committee], and Aleksandrovskaya v. Ukraine , no. 38718/16, §§ 105-13, 25 March 2021 [Committee])?

As far as the first applicant is concerned, the Government are invited to comment, to the extent possible, only on additional developments which occurred after they had submitted their observations in case no. 68353/17 Kraynyak v. Ukraine , and to limit the scope of their observations, to the extent possible, to matters not covered in the Government’s observations on the admissibility and merits in that case.

2. Did the proceedings concerning the extension of the applicants’ detention and examination of appeals against the relevant detention extension orders comply with the requirements of Article 5 § 4 of the Convention, in particular with that of speediness?

3. Do the applicants have an effective and enforceable right to compensation for their detention in alleged contravention of Article 5 § 3, as required by Article 5 § 5 of the Convention (see Korban v. Ukraine , no. 26744/16, § 201, 4 July 2019, with further references)?

[1] See https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-180441