ECtHR: Mukhitdinov v Russia (no. 20999/14), [Articles 3, 5§1, 5§4, 34], 21 May 2015

Date: 
Thursday, May 21, 2015

The applicant is an Uzbek national who had been living in Russia since 1997, acquiring Russian nationality in 2001. After the Russian Federal Migration Service determined that the applicant had obtained nationality by fraud, the applicant was made stateless due to his Uzbek nationality being forfeited after time outside of the territory. Detained by Russian authorities pending extradition following the release of an arrest warrant by Uzbek authorities on charges related to the alleged participation in religious terrorist organisations and for illegally crossing the Uzbek border, the applicant was held for 8 months, before being released. Although the applicant had been granted temporary protection after the Court had indicated interim measures to Russia, and therefore should not have been extradited or involuntarily removed from Russian territory during proceedings before the Court, the applicant’s current whereabouts are unknown, and it is claimed that he was forcibly transferred to Uzbekistan.

The applicant’s complaint alleged that his return to Uzbekistan would expose him to a real risk of treatment contrary to Article 3 ECHR (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment). Further, it was submitted that the detention pending extradition was excessively long, and there was no recourse to adequate review by the courts in violation of Article 5§1 (right to liberty) and Article 5§4 (right to speedy court determination of lawfulness of detention). A second complaint under Article 3 was also registered due to alleged Russian involvement in, and ineffective investigation into, his forced return. 

The Court noted that there have been numerous reports detailing the use of torture and ill-treatment techniques by law enforcement agencies, severe detention conditions, and persecution of political opposition and certain religious groups in Uzbekistan, and that no evidence had been presented to the Court that demonstrated that the Russian authorities had made efforts to evaluate the risks of the extradition. It was thus concluded that the enforcement of the extradition order exposed the applicant to ill-treatment in breach of Article 3. A subsequent violation of Article 3 was found with a related violation of Article 34 (failure to comply with interim measure) as the Court ruled that whatever the authorities' extent of involvement in the transfer, they had failed in their obligations to protect the applicant from such a transfer and conduct an effective investigation into the incident.

With the maximum period of detention awaiting extradition for ‘medium-gravity’ offences under Russian set at six months, the applicant’s detention ceased to be lawful after being detained for this period of time, and thus there had been a  violation of Article 5§1. The applicant’s attempts to raise the argument that his detention had ceased to be lawful were disregarded by Russian authorities, and the merits of this grievance were only examined 70 days after the detention had ceased to be legal. The Court found that this was manifestly inadequate, and not ‘speedy’ within the meaning of Article 5 § 4, and therefore was a violation this article.

Read the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights. 



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Keywords: 
Detention
Inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
Return
Stateless person