FIFTH SECTIONCASE OF LEONTYEV AND OTHERS v. UKRAINE(Application no. 23249/14)     JUDGMENT STRASBOURG5 October 2023    This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Leontyev and Others v. Ukraine,The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of: Carlo Ranzoni, President, Lado Chanturia, María Elósegui, judges,and Viktoriya Maradudina, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,Having deliberated in private on 14 September 2023,Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:PROCEDURE1. The case originated in an application against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 19 March 2014.2. The Ukrainian Government (“the Government”) were given notice of the application.THE FACTS3. The list of applicants and the relevant details of the application are set out in the appended table.THE LAWALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 6 § 1 of the Convention4. The applicants complained of the lack of reasoning or inadequate reasoning in a court decision. They relied, expressly or in substance, on Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.5. The Court reiterates that, according to its long-standing and established case-law, it should not act as a court of fourth instance and will not therefore question under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention the judgment of the national courts, unless their findings can be regarded as arbitrary or manifestly unreasonable (see Bochan v. Ukraine (no. 2) [GC], no. 22251/08, § 61, ECHR 2015, with further references).6. Article 6 § 1 obliges domestic courts to give reasons for their judgments. This duty cannot be understood as requiring a detailed answer to every argument, and the question of compliance with that duty can only be determined in the light of the circumstances of the case (see Ruiz Torija v. Spain, 9 December 1994, § 29, Series A no. 303‑A, and García Ruiz v. Spain [GC], no. 30544/96, § 26, ECHR 1999‑I). Those principles were applied in a number of Ukrainian cases (see, for example, Benderskiy v. Ukraine, no. 22750/02, §§ 42-47, 15 November 2007; Pronina v. Ukraine, no. 63566/00, § 25, 18 July 2006; and Bogatova v. Ukraine, no. 5231/04, §§ 18 and 19, 7 October 2010).7. Reviewing the facts of the present case in the light of those principles, the Court considers that the domestic courts failed in their duty to provide reasons for their decisions and did not address pertinent and important arguments raised by the applicants. The specific procedural failings are indicated in the appended table, and they prompt the Court to conclude that the applicants were stripped of their right to a reasoned court decision.8.

Article of the Convention at issue: Article 6
Outcome: violation