Outcome of the Gusev v. Russia Case

On 15 May, the European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgment in the case of ‘Gusev v. Russia’. The Court unanimously ruled that the applicant’s rights had been violated under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (prohibition of torture, and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment) and Article 5(3) (right to release pending trial).

The Court also ruled that there was no violation of Article 5(1) of the Convention (right to liberty and security), notes the ‘Memorial’ Human Rights Centre in a press release from 16 May.

The Court awarded the applicant 5,000 euros in compensation for non-pecuniary damage and 1,000 euros for legal costs and expenses, writes the Prima-news news agency.

The applicant was represented by lawyer Olga Tseytlina (St. Petersburg) and lawyer from the ‘Memorial’ HRC in Moscow Kirill Koroteev, with the assistance of William Bowring and Philip Leach (European Human Rights Advocacy Centre, London).

The applicant, Pavel Gusev, is a Russian citizen born in 1981. In April 2000, he was arrested on suspicion of theft and placed in a St. Petersburg remand centre (SIZO), known as ‘Kresty’. The criminal case against the applicant was terminated in September 2000, but he remained in custody on the basis of another arrest warrant in connection with another theft case. In September 2001, he was convicted of theft but released from serving his sentence on the basis of the 2000 amnesty.

Gusev complained that he had been subjected to ill-treatment by both police and SIZO officers and by his cellmates. Gusev also complained that his detention was unjustified and unreasonably long.

The Court noted that the Russian authorities acknowledged the overcrowding in the SIZO where the applicant was held but were unable to report the specific number of prisoners in each of the cells where he was located. The Court also noted that the testimonies of other prisoners supported the applicant’s position regarding overcrowding. The Court once again pointed out that the responsibility for organising a penitentiary system that respects the human dignity of convicts lies with the Russian government and cannot depend on financial or organisational difficulties. In this case, the cells where the applicant was held were overcrowded; he did not have his own place to sleep and was forced to sleep in turns with cellmates or on the floor. Thus, a violation of Article 3 of the Convention was found.

The European Court also noted that Russian courts, when making decisions on the applicant’s detention and the extension of his detention period, did not consider the specific facts of the case, but relied solely on the gravity of the charges. This ground is insufficient, from the Court’s point of view, to keep the applicant in custody, especially since, in the Russian system, the gravity of the charge is determined by the prosecutor’s office and is not controlled by the court until the verdict is delivered, which gives the prosecution almost unlimited opportunities to predetermine judicial decisions on the detention of defendants, in violation of Article 5(3) of the Convention.

However, since there were legal grounds for holding the applicant in custody throughout the entire period of his stay in the SIZO, the Court ruled that there was no violation of Article 5(1) of the Convention in the case.