FIFTH SECTIONCASE OF MINYAYLO AND OTHERS v. UKRAINE(Applications nos. 59356/10 and 2 others)    JUDGMENT This version was rectified on 20 November 2020under Rule 81 of the Rules of Court STRASBOURG24 September 2020 This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.In the case of Minyaylo and Others v. Ukraine,The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of: Gabriele Kucsko-Stadlmayer, President, Latif Hüseynov, Lado Chanturia, judges,and Anne-Marie Dougin, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,Having regard to:the applications (nos. 59356/10, 61038/10 and 59824/12) against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by three Ukrainian nationals, Mr Anatoliy Anatolyevich Minyaylo, Mr Igor Aleksandrovich Kindra and Mr Leonid Oleksiyovych Kharchenko (“the applicants”), on the various dates indicated in the appended tables;the decision to give notice of the applications to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”);the parties’ observations;Having deliberated in private on 1 September 2020,Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:INTRODUCTION1. The present case concerns alleged ill-treatment of the applicants by police and the allegedly ineffective investigation of their respective complaints. In addition, it also concerns other complaints under the Court’s well-established case-law (Articles 5 §§ 1 and 5 and 6 § 1).THE FACTS2. The applicants’ details and the relevant facts are set out in the appended tables.3. The Government were represented by their Agent, Mr I. Lishchyna.THE LAWJOINDER OF THE APPLICATIONS4. Having regard to the similar subject matter of the applications, the Court finds it appropriate to examine them jointly in a single judgment.ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 3 OF THE CONVENTION5. The applicants complained that they had been ill-treated by the police and that their respective complaints had not been properly investigated. They referred to Articles 3 and 13 of the Convention.6. The Court, which is master of the characterisation to be given in law to the facts of a case, finds that the complaints at issue fall to be examined under Article 3 of the Convention only (see, among other authorities, Barysheva v. Ukraine, no. 9505/12, § 45, 14 March 2017). That provision reads as follows:“No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”AdmissibilityApplication no. 59356/10 by Mr A. Minyaylo7. The Government alleged that the applicant had not exhausted the available domestic remedies, as he had not appealed against his conviction of 24 December 2010. They also submitted that, should the Court consider that such an appeal did not qualify as an effective remedy, the present complaint should be considered as having been lodged outside the six‑month time-limit, to be calculated from the date of the last decision of the prosecutor’s office not to institute criminal proceedings into the applicant’s ill-treatment allegations, that is, from 15 November 2007. Finally, they submitted that the applicant’s complaint was in any event manifestly ill‑founded.8. The applicant disagreed.9. The Court notes, firstly, that as regards the Government’s objections concerning non-exhaustion and filing the application outside the six-month period, similar objections have already been dismissed in other cases against Ukraine (see, for example, Kaverzin v. Ukraine, no. 23893/03, §§ 90-99, 15 May 2012; Buglov v. Ukraine, no. 28825/02, § 63, 10 July 2014; and Zyakun v. Ukraine, no. 34006/06, § 35, 25 February 2016). The Court sees no reason to depart from those findings in the present case and therefore considers that this complaint cannot be rejected for failure to exhaust domestic remedies or for non-compliance with the six-month time-limit.10. In so far as the Government submitted that the applicant’s complaints were manifestly ill-founded, having regard to all the material in the case file, and in particular the medical documents confirming the applicant’s injuries, the Court does not consider them to be entirely without basis. It further notes that they raise issues of fact and law under the Convention, the determination of which requires an examination of the merits of the case. The Court therefore dismisses the Government’s objection in this connection.Application no. 61038/10 by Mr Kindra and application no. 59824/12 by Mr Kharchenko11. The Government filed no objections concerning the admissibility of the applicants’ complaints under Article 3.Court’s overall conclusion concerning all applications12. The Court notes that the applicants’ complaints are not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention. It further notes that they are not inadmissible on any other grounds. They must therefore be declared admissible.Merits13. The applicants alleged that there had been violations of Article 3 of the Convention under both its substantive and procedural limbs in each of their respective cases.14. The Government filed no comments in respect of application no. 61038/10, lodged by Mr Kindra. As regards the remaining applications, they contested that view.15. Reviewing the facts of the present case in the light of the general principles established in its case-law (see, as a recent authority, Bouyid v. Belgium [GC], no. 23380/09, §§ 81-90 and 114-23, ECHR 2015), the Court considers that the applicants raised arguable ill-treatment claims at the domestic level. Those claims triggered an obligation on the part of the national authorities to carry out an effective official investigation with a view to establishing the origin of the applicants’ injuries and identifying and punishing those responsible, should the allegations concerning ill-treatment have proved to be true.16. From the documents before the Court, it appears that the domestic investigations did not reflect any serious effort to determine the relevant facts (see the appended tables for individual details).17. The Court notes that in the case of Kaverzin (cited above, §§ 173-80) it found that the reluctance of the authorities to ensure a prompt and thorough investigation of ill-treatment complaints lodged against police authorities constituted a systemic problem within the meaning of Article 46 of the Convention. In view of the circumstances of the present applications and its earlier case-law, the Court considers that the present facts constitute another example of such a failure to ensure prompt and thorough investigation.18. The Court further finds that the applicants’ accounts as to the circumstances of their alleged ill-treatment are detailed and coherent, and that the results of the investigations – given their numerous shortcomings – did not disprove those allegations. In those 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 and 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’ injuries has been engaged.19. The Court’s findings in the preceding paragraph are sufficient to enable it to conclude that the applicants were subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment.20.

Article of the Convention at issue: Article 3
Outcome: violation