FIFTH SECTIONCASE OF ALIZADA AND OTHERS v. UKRAINE(Applications nos. 1100/14 and 2 others – see appended table)    JUDGMENT STRASBOURG16 September 2021    This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.In the case of Alizada and Others v. Ukraine,The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of: Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström, President, Ganna Yudkivska, Lado Chanturia, judges,and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,Having regard to:the applications (nos. 1100/14, 24695/14, and 71568/14) against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by one Azerbaijani national and two Ukrainian nationals, whose details are set out in the appended tables (“the applicants”), on the various dates indicated in those tables;the decision to give notice to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”) of the complaints concerning alleged police ill-treatment (all applications); lack of an effective domestic investigation into the allegations in that regard (applications nos. 1100/14 and 71568/14); allegedly unlawful and arbitrary interference with the applicant’s right to respect for home and private life, lengthy non-enforcement of a judgment and lack of effective domestic remedies (application no. 1100/14); allegedly unlawful deprivation of liberty, belated appearance before a judge and lack of a possibility to claim compensation for breaches of right to liberty (application no. 71568/14) and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the applications nos. 24695/14 and 71568/14;the absence of an indication from the Azerbaijani Government of the wish to exercise their right to intervene in the present case in so far as it concerns application no. 1100/14;the decision to grant legal aid in application no. 24695/14;the parties’ observations;Having deliberated in private on 26 August 2021,Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:INTRODUCTION1. The applicants alleged, in particular, under Article 3 of the Convention that they had been ill-treated by the police. Two applicants (applications nos. 1100/14 and 71568/14) additionally alleged that the investigation into their respective complaints was ineffective and raised further complaints under Article 5 §§ 1, 3 and 5, Article 6 § 1, Article 8 and Article 13 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 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.Scope of the case5. In his response to the Government’s observations filed on 16 July 2016, Mr S. Vronskyy (application no. 24695/14) additionally complained, under Article 3 of the Convention, that the investigation of his police ill-treatment allegations was ineffective.6. In the Court’s view, this is a new complaint to be distinguished from the complaint about police ill-treatment as such, which was raised in the original application, and on which the parties have been invited to submit observations. The Court will therefore not take this matter up in the context of the present case (see, mutatis mutandis, Piryanik v. Ukraine, no. 75788/01, § 20, 19 April 2005 and, as a more recent example, Krivolapov v. Ukraine, no. 5406/07, § 64, 2 October 2018).ALLEGED POLICE ILL-TREATMENT (all applications) AND LACK OF AN EFFECTIVE INVESTIGATION (applications nos. 1100/14 and 71568/14)7. The applicants complained that they had been ill-treated by the police. Mr A. Alizada and Mr G. Kononov (applications nos. 1100/14 and 71568/14) also complained that their respective complaints had not been properly investigated. The applicants invoked various Convention provisions in respect of the above complaints.8. 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 the complaints in issue fall to be examined under Article 3 of the Convention. It reads as follows:“No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”Admissibility9. The Court finds that the present complaints are neither manifestly ill‑founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention nor inadmissible on any other grounds. They must therefore be declared admissible.MeritsGeneral considerations10. 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 credible ill-treatment claims at the domestic level. Those claims triggered an obligation on the part of the national authorities to carry out an effective and thorough investigation with a view to establishing the origin of the applicants’ injuries, as well as identifying and punishing those responsible, should the ill-treatment allegations prove to be true.11. From the documents before the Court, it appears that the domestic investigations did not reflect a serious effort to determine the relevant facts (see appended tables for details).Alleged police ill-treatment (all applications)12. The Court further finds that the applicants’ accounts as to the circumstances of their alleged ill-treatment are detailed and coherent. While 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 police ill-treatment. 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, 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’ 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. Examining further complaints raised by Messrs A. Alizada and G. Kononov (applications nos. 1100/14 and 71568/14) concerning allegedly ineffective investigation of their ill-treatment complaints, 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 for the purposes 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 applications constitute another such example of a failure to ensure a prompt and thorough investigation.16. Alizada (application no. 1100/14)17. Mr A. Alizada also complained of the non-enforcement of the final court judgment in his favour (see details in table 1 section B below). He referred to Articles 6 and 13 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.18. The Court finds that this part of the application is a follow-up to the Burmych and Others judgment and shall be dealt with in accordance with the procedure envisaged therein (see Burmych and Others v. Ukraine (striking out) [GC], nos. 46852/13 et al, § 221, 12 October 2017), that is to say struck out and transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in order for it to be dealt with in the framework of the general measures of execution of the pilot judgment in the case of Yuriy Nikolayevich Ivanov v. Ukraine (no. 40450/04, 15 October 2009; see, similarly, Dmytrenko and Bezdorozhniy v. Ukraine [Committee], nos. 59552/11 and 7096/12, § 22, 2 July 2020).Mr G. Kononov (application no. 71568/14)19. Mr G. Kononov also complained under Article 5 § 1 of the Convention that between 19 and 21 November 2010 he had been arbitrarily held in unrecorded detention by the officers of the Nikopol police (see appended table 3, section B, for details).20. Having examined all the material before it, the Court concludes that in the light of its findings in a number of other cases (see, in particular, Smolik v. Ukraine, no. 11778/05, §§ 45-48, 19 January 2012; Grinenko v. Ukraine, no. 33627/06, §§ 74-78, 15 November 2012; and Belousov v. Mr A. Alizada (application no. 1100/14) additionally complained that the same conduct of the police officers on 22 July 2010 in his respect, which had amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment, had also constituted a breach of his rights under Article 8 of the Convention. He also complained that the available domestic remedies for this complaint had been ineffective within the meaning of Article 13 of the Convention.22. Mr G. Kononov (application no. 71568/14) additionally complained that he had not been brought promptly before a judge after his arrest on 19 November 2010, which had been followed by unrecorded detention until 21 November 2010, and that there had been no possibility for him to claim compensation for his unrecorded detention and belated appearance before a judge. He invoked Article 5 §§ 3 and 5 in respect of these complaints.23. The Court considers that it has already addressed the main legal questions raised in the present applications, and that there is no need to make a separate assessment of the admissibility and merits of the complaints mentioned in paragraphs 21 and 22 above (see, for example, Centre for Legal Resources on behalf of Valentin Câmpeanu v. Romania [GC], no. 47848/08, § 156, ECHR 2014, and Borzykh and Others v. Ukraine [Committee], no. 5353/14 and others, §§ 48-49, 25 June 2020).APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION24.

Outcome for Article 5: violation