FIFTH SECTIONCASE OF STOROZHUK AND KONONOV v. UKRAINE(Applications nos. 13577/16 and 48768/16)      JUDGMENT STRASBOURG8 February 2024 This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.In the case of Storozhuk and Kononov v. Ukraine,The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of: Lado Chanturia, President, Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström, Mykola Gnatovskyy, judges,and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,Having regard to:the applications against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by the applicants listed in the appended table, (“the applicants”), on the various dates indicated therein;the decision to give notice of the complaints set out in paragraphs 1-3 below to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”), represented, most recently, by their Agent Ms M. Sokorenko, and to declare the remainder of application no. 48768/16 inadmissible;the parties’ observations;Having deliberated in private on 18 January 2024,Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE1. The applicants referred, in particular, to Article 3 of the Convention and alleged that they had been ill-treated by police officers and that the investigation into their complaints had been ineffective.2. Mr A.M. Storozhuk (application no. 13577/16) additionally complained, in particular, under Article 5 § 1 of the Convention, that on 21 September 2010 he had been arbitrarily restrained, handcuffed, detained in a police car and taken to a substance abuse centre without any grounds and without proper records being made.3. Mr K.S. Kononov (application no. 48768/16) additionally complained under Article 5 § 3 of the Convention that the duration of his detention during the investigation and trial of his criminal case had been excessive and under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the length of the criminal proceedings against him had been excessive.4. The facts of each of the individual applications are set out in detail in the appended tables.THE COURT’S ASSESSMENTJOINDER OF THE APPLICATIONS5. Having regard to the similar subject matter of the applications, the Court finds it appropriate to examine them jointly in a single judgment.Alleged police ill-treatment and lack of an effective investigation6. The applicants complained, under various Convention provisions, that they had been ill-treated by the police and that their complaints had not been properly investigated. The Court, which is master of the characterisation to be given in law to the facts of a case (see, among other authorities, Barysheva v. Ukraine, no. 9505/12, § 45, 14 March 2017), finds that these complaints fall to be examined under Article 3 of the Convention.7. The Government contended that the complaint by Mr A.M. Storozhuk (application no. 13577/16) was premature, as the relevant domestic proceedings were still ongoing. They further argued that Mr K.S. Kononov (application no. 48768/16) had not exhausted domestic remedies, as he had not pursued an appeal against a decision of 6 July 2016 to discontinue the criminal proceedings in respect of his allegations of ill-treatment. Finally, the Government argued that the complaints raised by both applicants were manifestly ill-founded in any event.8. Reviewing the Government’s objections in the light of the available documents and the principles developed in its case-law (see, in particular, Kaverzin v. Ukraine, no. 23893/03, §§ 91-99 and 172-80, 15 May 2012, and Belousov v. Ukraine, no. 4494/07, §§ 48-49 and 56-58, 7 November 2013), the Court considers that they should be dismissed. It finds that the applicants have raised arguable allegations of ill-treatment and provided the domestic authorities with appropriate opportunities to deal with them, thus discharging their obligation to exhaust domestic remedies. The Court further considers that the complaints raised by both applicants are not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention and are not inadmissible on any other grounds. They must therefore be declared admissible.9. Reviewing the facts of the present case in the light of the general principles established in its case-law (see Bouyid v. Belgium [GC], no. 23380/09, §§ 81-90 and 114-23, ECHR 2015), the Court considers that the applicants raised credible allegations of ill-treatment at the domestic level. Those claims triggered an obligation on the national authorities to carry out effective and thorough investigations with a view to establishing the origin of the applicants’ alleged and documented injuries and identifying and punishing those responsible should the allegations of ill-treatment prove to be true.10. From the documents before the Court, it appears that the domestic investigations did not reflect a serious effort to determine the relevant facts (see the appended tables for details).11. The Court notes that in Kaverzin (cited above, §§ 173-80) it found that the reluctance of the authorities to ensure a prompt and thorough investigation into complaints of ill-treatment lodged against police authorities constituted a systemic problem for the purposes of Article 46 of the Convention. In view of the circumstances of the present applications and its previous case-law, the Court considers that they constitute another example of a failure to ensure a prompt and thorough investigation.12. The Court further finds that the applicants’ accounts as to the circumstances of their alleged ill-treatment are detailed and coherent. Even though some of the allegations are not corroborated by medical or other objective evidence, the results of the investigations, given their numerous shortcomings, did not disprove the applicants’ allegations that they had been victims of ill-treatment by law-enforcement officers. In these circumstances, and given the onus on the State to provide a plausible explanation for injuries sustained by persons under the control of the police (see Bouyid, cited above, § 83; see also, by way of example, Adnaralov v. Ukraine, no. 10493/12, § 45, 27 November 2014; Kulik v. Ukraine, no. 10397/10, § 59, 19 March 2015; and Yaroshovets and Others v. Ukraine, nos. 74820/10 and 4 others, § 85, 3 December 2015), the Court concludes that the State’s responsibility for the applicants’ ill-treatment is engaged.13. The above findings are sufficient for the Court to establish that the applicants were subjected to ill-treatment which must be classified as inhuman and degrading.14.

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