Published on 13 December 2021

SECOND SECTION

Application no. 43674/16 Milan RADONJIĆ and Ratko ROMIĆ against Serbia lodged on 28 June 2016 communicated on 23 November 2021

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns: (a) the length of the applicants’ pre-trial detention and the alleged abstract and repetitive reasoning offered by the domestic authorities, and (b) the length of detention-related proceedings before the Constitutional Court.

The applicants were in pre-trial detention between 14 January 2014 and 6 July 2017, on suspicion of having committed an aggravated murder. During this time their detention was extended on numerous occasions, and was mostly justified by the risk of “social disturbance” caused by a particular gravity of the criminal offence that they had been charged with and public reaction to them.

The length of detention-related proceedings before the Constitutional Court varied between five months and more than two years.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Was the length of the applicants’ pre-trial detention in breach of the “reasonable time” requirement of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention and/or the reasoning offered by the domestic courts therefor in breach of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention (see Labita v. Italy [GC], no. 26772/95, §§ 152-153, ECHR 2000 ‑ IV; Stevan Petrović v. Serbia , nos. 6097/16 and 28999/19, §§ 141-145, 20 April 2021; Maassen v. the Netherlands , no. 10982/15, § 57, 9 February 2021; and Letellier v. France , 26 June 1991, § 51, Series A no. 207)?

2. Was the procedure by which the applicants sought to challenge the lawfulness of their pre-trial detention in conformity with Article 5 § 4 of the Convention? In particular, did the length of the proceedings before the Constitutional Court, by which the applicants sought to challenge the lawfulness of their pre-trial detention, comply with the “speed” requirement of Article 5 § 4 of the Convention (see Žúbor v. Slovakia , no. 7711/06, §§ 89-90, 6 December 2011)?

3. The Government are invited to submit to the Court, within the same time ‑ limit, a factual update on the criminal proceedings in question after 6 July 2017, including the applicants’ detention, and to submit the relevant decisions in this regard, if any.

APPENDIX

No.

Applicant’s Name

Year of birth

Nationality

Place of residence

1.Milan RADONJIĆ

1959Serbian

Belgrade

2.Ratko ROMIĆ

1963Serbian

Belgrade