EIT:n suuri jaosto: Poliisimiehen vapaudenriisto öljyn salakuljetusta koskevan tutkintaiskun yhteydessä lainvastainen

Euroopan ihmisoikeustuomioistuimen suuri jaosto on eilen antamassaan tuomiossa arvioinut romanialaisten tuomioistuinten toimintaa vangitsemisen lainmukaisuuden kannalta.

EIT:n lehdistötiedotteesta:

The large-scale criminal investigation which clearly formed the background to the events of 16 July 2003 had been aimed at dismantling a vast petroleum-trafficking network involving police officers and gendarmes. The opening of proceedings against Mr Creangă and his colleagues was therefore to be seen in this context, and the need to carry out a series of criminal investigation procedures on the same day tended to indicate that Mr Creangă had been obliged to comply. Seeing that the Government had been unable to show that the applicant had left the NAP headquarters or that he had been free to leave the premises after his initial statement, and having regard to the coherent nature of his account, the Court considered that he had indeed remained in the prosecution service premises and had been deprived of his liberty, at least from 12 noon to 10 p.m.

The Court had to determine whether Mr Creangă had been deprived of his liberty “in accordance with a procedure prescribed by law” within the meaning of Article 5 § 1. Mr Creangă had been summoned to appear before the NAP to make a statement in the context of a criminal investigation, without having been given any further information. At 12 noon the prosecutor had informed him that criminal proceedings had been opened against him. The Court considered that, from that moment, the prosecutor had had sufficiently strong suspicions to justify depriving the applicant of his liberty for the purpose of the investigation and that Romanian law provided for the measures to be taken in that regard. However, the prosecutor had decided only at a very late stage, towards 10 p.m., to place him in pre-trial detention. Accordingly, Mr Creangă’s deprivation of liberty on 16 July 2003, at least from 12 noon to 10 p.m., had had no basis in domestic law and had breached Article 5 § 1.

Placement in pre-trial detention from 25 July 2003
In its Chamber judgment the Court had found that an application to have a decision quashed had been neither accessible nor foreseeable for the applicant. The remedy in question could be used only by the Procurator General, who was the hierarchical superior of the prosecutor who had ordered the applicant’s detention and requested its extension. The Court had also noted that the provision of the Code of Criminal Procedure by whichan application to have a final decision quashed could be lodged where the decision was “contrary to the law” was too vague to be foreseeable. It had held that Mr Creangă’s deprivation of liberty from 25 July 2003 had not had a sufficient basis in domestic law. Reiterating that it was essential for the conditions for deprivation of liberty under domestic law to meet the standard of “lawfulness” set by the Convention, the Court agreed entirely with the conclusions of the Chamber judgment of 15 June 2010 and held that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 1.

Koko lehdistötiedote, missä myös linkki koko tuomioon: Creangă v. Romania

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