Published on 28 August 2023

FIRST SECTION

Application no. 61734/16 Jahangir HAJIYEV against Azerbaijan lodged on 20 October 2016 communicated on 10 July 2023

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns lawfulness of the applicant’s detention.

The applicant, who is a former chairman of an executive board of a bank, was arrested in 2015 by the Organised Crime Unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (“the OCU”) and later charged with several criminal offences.

On 5 December 2015, the Narimanov District Court ordered the applicant’s detention pending his trial for two months and twenty-nine days. Subsequently, the applicant’s pre ‑ trial detention was prolonged several times (lack of justification for the applicant’s pre-trial detention was the subject of the Court’s examination in Hajiyev v. Azerbaijan [Committee], no. 43389/16, 10 February 2022).

Under the detention order the applicant was to be held in the Baku pre ‑ trial detention facility, a facility under supervision by the Ministry of Justice. However, until 19 December 2015 and from 30 December 2015 to 21 January 2016 he was held in a temporary holding (detention) facility of the OCU, by a prosecuting authority’s decisions of 7, 17 and 29 December 2015 and 8 and 18 January 2016.

The applicant complained to the Sabail District Court about unlawfulness of the above-mentioned decisions of 29 December 2015 and 8 and 18 January 2016. On 11 March 2016 the court partly granted the applicant’s complaint and declared unlawful the prosecuting authority’s decisions of 8 and 18 January 2016.

Later the applicant complained against the decisions of 7 and 17 December 2015. In the same complaint he also repeated his objections against the decision of 29 December 2015. However, on 19 July 2016, the Sabail District Court refused to examine the complaint on the merits, referring to the fact that on the same day, i.e. 19 July 2016, the criminal case against the applicant had been submitted to a trial court. The Baku Court of Appeal upheld the Sabail District Court’s decision.

Relying on Article 6 of the Convention, the applicant complains that his transfers under the custody of the OCU were unlawful and that he was deprived of an opportunity to challenge lawfulness of those transfers. He alleged that the temporary holding (detention) facility of the OCU was not adapted for a long-term stay, that he was deprived there of the rights and opportunities which he had at the Baku pre-trial detention facility, and that the purpose for his transfers to the OCU was to subject him to psychological pressure and other forms of ill-treatment.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Was the applicant deprived of his liberty in breach of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, was the applicant’s detention at the Organised Crime Unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in accordance with a procedure prescribed by law?

2. Did the applicant have at his disposal an effective procedure by which he could challenge the lawfulness of his detention, as required by Article 5 § 4 of the Convention? Was the procedure by which the applicant sought to challenge the lawfulness of his detention in conformity with Article 5 § 4 of the Convention?