FIFTH SECTIONCASE OF DERKACH v. UKRAINE(Applications nos. 23537/20 and 23615/20)      JUDGMENT STRASBOURG9 February 2023   This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Derkach v. Ukraine,The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of: Mārtiņš Mits, President, Mattias Guyomar, Mykola Gnatovskyy, judges,and Viktoriya Maradudina, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,Having deliberated in private on 19 January 2023,Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:PROCEDURE1. The case originated in two applications against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on the various dates indicated in the appended table.2. The applicant was represented by Mr A.V. Pustyntsev, a lawyer practising in Dnipro, Ukraine.3. The Ukrainian Government (“the Government”) were given notice of the applications.THE FACTS4. The applicant’s details and information relevant to the applications are set out in the appended table.5. The applicant complained of the inadequate conditions of his detention and of the lack of any effective remedy in domestic law. He also raised other complaints under the provisions of the Convention.THE LAWJOINDER OF THE APPLICATIONS6. 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 ARTICLES 3 AND 13 OF THE CONVENTION7. The applicant complained principally of the inadequate conditions of his detention and that he had no effective remedy in this connection. He relied on Articles 3 and 13 of the Convention.8. The Court notes that the applicant was kept in detention in poor conditions. The details of the applicant’s detention are indicated in the appended table. The Court refers to the principles established in its case‑law regarding inadequate conditions of detention (see, for instance, Muršić v. Croatia [GC], no. 7334/13, §§ 96‑101, ECHR 2016). It reiterates in particular that a serious lack of space in a prison cell weighs heavily as a factor to be taken into account for the purpose of establishing whether the detention conditions described are “degrading” from the point of view of Article 3 and may disclose a violation, both alone or taken together with other shortcomings (see Muršić, cited above, §§ 122-41, and Ananyev and Others v. Russia, nos. 42525/07 and 60800/08, §§ 149‑59, 10 January 2012).9. In the leading cases of Melnik v. Ukraine (no. 72286/01, 28 March 2006) and Sukachov v. Ukraine (no. 14057/17, 30 January 2020) the Court already found a violation in respect of issues similar to those in the present case.10. Having examined all the material submitted to it, the Court has not found any fact or argument capable of persuading it to reach a different conclusion on the admissibility and merits of these complaints. Having regard to its case-law on the subject, the Court considers that in the instant case the applicant’s conditions of detention were inadequate.11. The Court further notes that the applicant did not have at his disposal an effective remedy in respect of these complaints.12. The applicant submitted other complaints which also raised issues under the Convention, given the relevant well-established case-law of the Court (see appended table). These complaints are not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention, nor are they inadmissible on any other ground (see, in particular, Olekseychuk v. Ukraine [Committee], 5765/20, § 19, 15 December 2022, related to the absence of an effective domestic remedy in Ukraine to challenge the pre-trial detention during the period between June 2019 and January 2021).

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