FOURTH SECTION
CASE OF SULTANA v. MALTA
(Application no. 36184/21)
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
17 December 2024
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Sultana v. Malta,
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Jolien Schukking, President,
 Faris Vehabović,
 Lorraine Schembri Orland, judges,
and Simeon Petrovski, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 36184/21) against the Republic of Malta lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 3 July 2021 by a Maltese national, Mr Rosario Sultana (“the applicant”), who was born in 1975, lives in Msida and was represented by Dr T. Azzopardi, a lawyer practising in Valletta;
the decision to give notice to the Maltese Government (“the Government”) of the complaints concerning Article 5 § 3 and Article 6 § 1 and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated in private on 26 November 2024,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The application concerns the excessive length of the applicant’s detention on remand and of the criminal proceedings against him in breach of Articles 5 § 3 and 6 § 1 of the Convention. 2. On 4 January 2011 the applicant was arrested and remanded in custody, following complaints by his daughter that he had sexually abused her. Despite the prosecution having declared, in April 2012, that it had no further evidence, a bill of indictment was only issued in December 2013. Thereafter, the applicant unsuccessfully asked the Criminal Court to refer a number of constitutional complaints to the constitutional jurisdictions. Later, on the applicant’s request, the Criminal Court suspended the proceedings sine die pending the outcome of separate constitutional proceedings instituted by the applicant (see below). 3. In the meantime, the applicant’s eight requests for bail in the first twenty months since his arrest were all rejected, and none was lodged thereafter until 29 July 2013, which was upheld by a decree of 31 July 2013. Thus, the applicant remained in pre-trial detention for thirty‑one months exceeding the “twenty-month” threshold provided for by law in circumstances such as those of the present case. 4. In 2015 the applicant instituted separate constitutional redress proceedings. On 12 January 2021, on appeal, the Constitutional Court found, inter alia, a violation of Articles 5 § 3 and 6 § 1 of the Convention (length of proceedings) and awarded the applicant 3,000 euros (EUR) in compensation in that respect, noting that he had not been in gainful employment for five years before his arrest, and that if he were to be found guilty in the criminal proceedings, the time spent in pre-trial detention would be deducted from his prison sentence. Moreover, the applicant had been partly responsible for eleven months of detention due to his failure to file a bail application at the relevant time. 5. After the constitutional redress proceedings, on 13 June 2022 a trial by jury commenced at the end of which the applicant was found guilty and sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment. He did not appeal. According to domestic law, the period of detention on remand was deducted from the final sentence imposed (Article 22 of the Criminal Code). 6. The applicant complained that he was still a victim of the violations of Article 5 § 3 and Article 6 § 1 of the Convention acknowledged by the Constitutional Court.

Article of the Convention at issue: Article 5
Outcome: violation