4.  The applicant was born in 1950 and lives in Nalchik, the Ingushetiya Republic. He is a practising lawyer.
5.  On 10 October 2006 the applicant was travelling by a collective taxi from Nalchik to Grozny in Chechnya. At about 1 p.m. a police officer stopped the vehicle at the Ingush-Chechen administrative border and proceeded to check the passengers’ identity documents. He discovered that the applicant’s signature in his passport had been made in red ink and told him that he would be charged with an administrative offence under Article 19.15 of the Code of Administrative Offences for using an invalid identity document. The applicant raised his objections, claiming that the wrong kind of ink did not render his passport invalid.
6.  The police first took the applicant by car to the Goragorsk police station (ТОМ пос. Горагорск) where an inspector told him that he was “temporarily detained for the purpose of drawing up a report”. Once the report had been completed at 3.15 p.m., another police officer took the applicant, again by police car, from Goragorsk the Nadterechnyi district police station (ОДЧ Надтереченского района). An operative established his identity, verified his documents and let him go at 5.10 p.m. The station chief later stated that the applicant had “thanked him for a prompt release”.
7.  The applicant asked the supervising prosecutor to investigate whether the police had abused their powers by detaining him. The Nadterechnyi district prosecutor’s office issued several decisions refusing institution of criminal proceedings. One of them was set aside by the Nadterechnyi District Court on 13 July 2007 for the following reasons:
“The issue whether the administrative detention of Mr Timishev was necessary has not been clarified. Pursuant to Article 27.3(1) of the Code of Administrative Offences, administrative detention may be applied in exceptional circumstances if this is necessary for the prompt and proper examination of the alleged administrative offence. The decision ... refusing institution of criminal proceedings indicates that a report on the administrative offence ... was compiled and forwarded to [Mr Timishev’s] place of residence. In these circumstances, the court sees no grounds for the administrative detention of Mr Timishev.”
8.  Subsequent decisions refusing institution of criminal proceedings stated alternatively that it was impossible to establish the time of the applicant’s detention because it had not been recorded in any documents, that the applicant had been detained for disobeying police orders, that he had been actually free to go after 3.15 p.m. but had asked to be taken to the Nadterechnyi office to file a complaint there and the police had ensured his safe passage. Each time the prosecutor concluded that the police had not committed any prosecutable offence.
9.  On 27 January 2009 the Nadterechnyi District Court identified a number of serious shortcomings in the investigation. The court pointed out that it had not been established why the report on the administrative office could not have been drafted at the checkpoint and why it was considered necessary to escort the applicant to Goragorsk. It remained unclear what had happened to the report: the investigator had not obtained the forwarding letter or any information about the outcome of the proceedings. The investigator had not inquired why an escorting report required under Article 27.2(3) of the Code or the detention report required under Article 27.4 of the Code had not been prepared. Nor had he determined what “exceptional circumstances” within the meaning of Article 27.3(1) had called for the applicant’s detention and at what time the applicant had actually left the Nadterechnyi police station.
10.  The court was not convinced that the applicant had asked the police to take him to the Nadterechnyi office to file a complaint. It considered implausible that the police had provided a car and an escort to help him complain about their conduct. Even assuming that he had indeed wished to make a complaint, the investigator did not establish what had happened to it or, alternatively, why he had not written it, or why he had gone there in person instead of sending it by post from Goragorsk. Statements by the police officers who stated that the applicant had been “released” were also indicative of the fact that he had been taken to the Nadterechnyi office against his will.
11.  Finally, the court criticised the investigator’s assumption that the applicant had committed an administrative offence. It noted that, according to the Guidance on Issuing Passports (order no. 605 of 15 September 1997), the head of the passports department should have asked the passport holder to sign the passport with special ink. Responsibility for the wrong kind of ink should lie with the official who departed from the Guidance rather than with the applicant.
12.  On 9 April 2009 the investigator issued a further decision refusing institution of criminal proceedings. It was similar in its wording to the previous ones and did not touch upon the areas of concern identified in the District Court’s judgment.