CONCURRING OPINION OF JUDGE LEMMENS

This is a case involving torture by the police and the refusal by the investigating authorities to take the applicant ’ s complaint about his ill-treatment seriously. During the applicant ’ s trial, moreover, there were a number of procedural irregularities, partly as a result of the ill-treatment at the initial stage of the proceedings. The case contains a number of examples of how the police and judicial authorities should not fulfil their duties.

I voted with my colleagues on all points. To my regret, however, I feel obliged to mark my disagreement with one paragraph in the judgment. In paragraph 100 the following is stated:

“ Furthermore, the reason for his health situation was neurological pain in the lumbar area, which was established to be the main location of the bruises after his ill-treatment by the police . Given the correlation between the location of pain and the place of bruises, the Court finds that the state of the applicant ’ s health may, at least in part, have been related to his torture by the police and that his health condit ion had been incompatible with the principle of equality of arms and had seriously impaired his right to defend himself in person.”

I do not think that the Court is able to give an opinion on what may have caused the applicant to be in the situation he was in at the hearing before the Gornyatskiy Local Court of Makiyivka on 21 December 2010, almost two years after his ill-treatment by officers of the Makiyivka Police Department. Of course, it is tempting to see a causal link between the two events. Nevertheless, I think it would have been better for the Court, in the absence of clear support in a medical report, not to speculate about such a possible link.