REVA A OSTATNÍ proti Ukrajině

FIFTH SECTION

CASE OF REVA AND OTHERS v. UKRAINE

(Applications nos. 68519/12 and 2 others)

JUDGMENT

STRASBOURG

27 March 2025

This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.

In the case of Reva and Others v. Ukraine,

The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:

Armen Harutyunyan, President,
Andreas Zünd,
Mykola Gnatovskyy, judges,
and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the applications against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by three Ukrainian nationals, Mr Dmytro Valentynovych Reva (application no. 68519/12, “the first applicant”), Mr Viktor Valeryevich Sukachov (application no. 5810/13, “the second applicant”), and Mr Lev Volodymyrovych Prosvirin (application no. 32912/13, “the third applicant”), on the various dates indicated in the appended table;

the decision to give notice of the complaints under Articles 5, 6, 8 and 13 of the Convention to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”) represented by their Agent, Mrs M. Sokorenko, and to declare the remainder of the applications inadmissible;

the parties’ observations;

the decision to reject the Government’s objection to the examination of the applications by a Committee;

Having deliberated in private on 6 March 2025,

Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

1. The applicants’ pre-trial detention and their prosecution

1. On 27 April 2012, before the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship held in Ukraine, a series of explosions took place in Dnipropetrovsk (currently Dnipro), causing bodily injuries to numerous passers-by. Those explosions were believed to be a terrorist attack.

2. On 31 May 2012 the first and second applicants were arrested on suspicion of having been involved in the above-mentioned attack. On 1 June 2012 the third applicant was arrested for the same reason.

3. On 2 June 2012 the Babushkinskyy District Court of Dnipropetrovsk (“the District Court”) ordered the applicants’ pre‑trial detention, mainly referring to the gravity of charges against them and the risk that they might abscond and hinder the investigation or continue with their criminal activities. The first and third applicants appealed against the District Court’s decisions, but to no avail.

4. On 26 July and 26 September 2012, the District Court extended the applicants’ detention, since the reasons for their detention as previously indicated still persisted. On the latter date the second applicant’s detention was extended until 30 October 2012, and the first and third applicants’ detention was extended until 31 October 2012.

5. On 24 October 2012 the criminal case against the applicants was transferred to the Industrialnyi District Court of Dnipropetrovsk (“the trial court”) for examination. On 8 November 2012 the trial court accepted the case for trial and extended the applicants’ detention, without indicating the reasons for such detention or setting any time‑limits.

6. On 11 March 2014 the prosecuting authorities dropped the charges against the first and third applicants for lack of evidence, and on the same day the trial court ordered their release.

7. From 18 June 2015 onwards the trial court extended the second applicant’s detention, fixing time-limits which lasted two to four months.

8. On 20 February 2018 the second applicant was convicted as charged and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. The sentence was not challenged and became final.

2. Alleged breach of the first and third applicants’ right to be presumed innocent

9. Between June 2012 and April 2013 officials of the prosecuting authorities (including the Prosecutor General and the Dnipropetrovsk regional prosecutor), the Security Service, and the Deputy Prime Minister made public statements which were disseminated by various media describing the course of the criminal investigation and the availability of evidence indicating that the suspects, whose names were not disclosed, had committed the crime in question. The progress of the investigation was also widely described in the media, in particular in two documentaries broadcast in 2012 which allegedly indicated what the applicants’ names were, showed their faces and referred to them as the perpetrators of the terrorist act.

10. On 2 June 2012 a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, M., who belonged to the opposition party, made a statement to the media in which he named the applicants as suspects but cast doubt on their involvement in the crime in question.

11. In October 2012 the first applicant instituted defamation proceedings against one of media companies that had broadcast one of the documentaries (see paragraph 9 above), stating that its content had damaged his reputation. In February 2013 the third applicant instituted similar proceedings.

12. On 4 June 2013 the Kyiv City Court of Appeal quashed a first-instance decision in favour of the first applicant and dismissed his defamation claims. There is no evidence as to whether the first applicant appealed on points of law. As to the third applicant’s defamation claim, the domestic courts dismissed it as unsubstantiated, the final decision in the case being delivered by the Higher Specialised Court on Civil and Criminal Matters on 2 September 2013.

13. In September 2013 the third applicant applied to the trial court, seeking a separate finding that there had been a breach of the principle of presumption of innocence owing to the statements made by the Dnipropetrovsk regional prosecutor in the course of the investigation and the trial, and various publications on the matter in the media. On 25 September 2013 the trial court refused that application, finding that the official involved in the criminal proceedings in question had not breached the domestic law.

14. The applicants principally complained under Article 5 §§ 1 and 3 of the Convention that their pre-trial detention between the end of the investigation and the beginning of the trial had not been based on any court order, and that their pre-trial detention had overall been unjustified and excessive. The first and third applicants also complained under Article 6 § 2 of the Convention that public statements by State officials had breached the principle of presumption of innocence.

THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT

1. JOINDER OF THE APPLICATIONS

15. Having regard to the similar subject matter of the applications, the Court finds it appropriate to examine them jointly in a single judgment.

2. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 5 OF THE CONVENTION

16. The Court considers that the applicants’ complaints under Article 5 outlined in paragraph 14 above are not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention or inadmissible on any other grounds. They must therefore be declared admissible.

17. The Government submitted that there had been no breach of the applicants’ Convention rights. The applicants disagreed.

1. Article 5 § 1 of the Convention

18. The Court notes that the Government failed to provide a court order or any other explanation to justify the applicants’ detention between 30-31 October 2012, when the court orders for their detention expired, and 8 November 2012, when the trial court examined the issue of their detention (see paragraphs 4 and 5 above). The Court has already examined and found a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention in a number of cases concerning the practice of holding defendants in custody solely on the basis of the fact that an indictment has been submitted to the trial court. It has held that the practice of keeping defendants in detention without a specific legal basis or clear rules governing their situation – with the result that they may be deprived of their liberty for an unlimited period without judicial authorisation – is incompatible with the principles of legal certainty and protection from arbitrariness. The Court has also identified this as a recurrent problem in Ukraine (see Kharchenko v. Ukraine, no. 40107/02, §§ 71 and 98, 10 February 2011).

19. There has accordingly been a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention in relation to the second applicant’s detention from 30 October to 8 November 2012, and the first and third applicants’ detention from 31 October to 8 November 2012.

2. Article 5 § 3 of the Convention

20. The first applicant referred to the period from 31 May 2012 to 11 March 2014, that is, one year and nine months.

21. The second and third applicants referred to the period from 31 May 2012 to 20 February 2018 and from 1 June 2012 to 11 March 2014, respectively. Taking into account that they failed to appeal against the District Court’s decisions extending their detention from 26 July to 26 September 2012 by following an ordinary appeal procedure which was available to them (see Bevz and others v. Ukraine, [Committee], nos. 17955/13 and 6 others, §§ 16-19, 25 June 2020), that period should be deducted from the period of detention under examination, that is five years and seven months and one year and seven months, respectively.

22. Having examined all the material before it, and in particular taking into account the fact that from 8 November 2012 to 11 March 2014 the first and third applicants were held in detention on the basis of a decision issued by the trial court which contained no reasons and fixed no time-limit for that detention, and that the second applicant was detained from 8 November 2012 to 18 June 2015 on the same grounds (see paragraphs 5 and 7 above), the Court concludes that the applicants’ complaints disclose a violation of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention, in the light of its findings in Kharchenko (cited above, §§ 79‑81 and 99).

3. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 6 § 2 OF THE CONVENTION in respect of the first and third applicants

23. The Government argued that the applicants had failed to exhaust effective domestic remedies, notably a civil-law remedy available to them.

24. The first and third applicants submitted that the statements made by the officials in the press coverage of the criminal proceedings against them had breached the principle of presumption of innocence. They also stated that they had used all the remedies available to them.

25. The Court observes that there is no need to rule on the Government’s objection, since the above complaint is in any event inadmissible for the following reasons.

26. When complaining of a breach of their right to be presumed innocent, the applicants principally relied on media publications that had mainly been based on official information or statements made by the law-enforcement authorities involved in the investigation or other high-ranking public officials (see paragraph 9 above). The Court is not convinced, however, that the media sources relied on by the applicants constituted a mere verbatim reproduction of (or an otherwise direct quotation from) any part of that official information (see Mityanin and Leonov v. Russia, nos. 11436/06 and 22912/06, § 102, 7 May 2019).

27. The Court further reiterates that Article 6 § 2 cannot prevent the authorities from informing the public about criminal investigations in progress but requires that they do so with all the discretion and circumspection necessary if the presumption of innocence is to be respected (see Allenet de Ribemont v. France, 10 February 1995, § 38, Series A no. 308).

28. In this connection, the Court observes that the statements of public officials which the applicants relied on did not refer to them by name and overall appeared to be couched in reserved terms.

29. Regarding the statement made by M., the parliamentarian who disclosed the applicants’ names (see paragraph 10 above), the Court notes firstly that the available material does not indicate that M. had any link to the investigation or occupied any serious position within the government which enabled him to influence the investigation or public opinion. In the absence of such an indication and without any further substantiation from the applicants, he could not be regarded as having acted as a public official within the meaning of Article 6 § 2 (see, for example, McCann and Healy v. Portugal, no. 57195/17, §§ 65-66, 20 September 2022). As to the substance of his statement, M. did not express his opinion about the applicants’ guilt, but instead expressed doubt as regards their involvement in the terrorist act and their ability to commit the crime in question. There is therefore nothing to suggest that the above statement could encourage the public to believe the applicants guilty and prejudge the assessment of the facts by the competent judicial authority.

30. Even accepting that the impugned wording might give the impression of an affirmative statement as to the applicants’ guilt, the available material does not confirm that the State should be held responsible under Article 6 § 2 on this account. Accordingly, this complaint is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.

4. OTHER COMPLAINTS

31. The applicants also complained under Articles 5 §§ 1 and 4, 6, 8 and 13 of the Convention of some irregularities with documenting their arrest, the lack of an effective procedure to challenge the lawfulness of detention, the unreasonable length of the proceedings, and the restriction of visits and correspondence with relatives during their detention. Having regard to the facts of the case, the submissions of the parties and its findings above, the Court considers that it has dealt with the main legal questions raised by the case and that there is no need to examine the remaining complaints (see Centre for Legal Resources on behalf of Valentin Câmpeanu v. Romania [GC], no.47848/08, § 156, ECHR 2014).

APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION

32. The first applicant claimed 5,414.27 euros (EUR) in respect of pecuniary damage for the loss of income caused by his criminal prosecution and detention, EUR 10,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage, EUR 5,957.23 in respect of costs and expenses incurred before the domestic courts and EUR 3,150 for those incurred before the Court.

33. The third applicant claimed EUR 50,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage, EUR 13,550 in respect of costs and expenses incurred before both the domestic courts and the Court, and 27,949 Ukrainian hryvnias (UAH – EUR 700) in respect of postage and clerical expenses, the translation of documents and the conducting of an expert assessment. He also provided a time sheet which indicated that his lawyer had spent 118 hours on his representation at domestic level at an hourly rate of EUR 25, and 220 hours on the proceedings before the Court at an hourly rate of EUR 30.

34. The Government contested the applicants’ claims, arguing that they were excessive and unsubstantiated.

35. The Court notes that the second applicant did not submit a claim for just satisfaction within the set time-limit. It therefore does not award him any sum on that account.

36. Furthermore, the Court does not discern any causal link between the violation found and the pecuniary damage alleged by the first applicant; it therefore rejects this claim. On the other hand, it considers it reasonable to award the first and third applicants the amounts indicated in the appended table in respect of non-pecuniary damage, plus any tax that may be chargeable to them.

37. As regards the costs and expenses, according to the Court’s case-law, an applicant is entitled to the reimbursement of costs and expenses only in so far as it has been shown that these have been actually and necessarily incurred and were reasonable as to quantum. In the present case, the Court rejects the first applicant’s claims as he failed to present an agreement on legal fees concluded with his lawyer or an approved time sheet indicating the legal work performed. The Court awards the third applicant the amount of EUR 1,500 covering costs and expenses under all heads, plus any tax that may be chargeable to him.

FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT, UNANIMOUSLY,

1. Decides to join the applications;
2. Declares the complaints raised by the applicants under Article 5 § 1 of the Convention concerning their unlawful detention for the periods of time indicated in the appended table, and under Article 5 § 3 of the Convention concerning the lack of justification for their detention during the periods of time indicated in the appended table admissible, and the first and third applicants’ complaints under Article 6 § 2 of the Convention inadmissible;
3. Holds that there has been a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention in respect of all the applicants;
4. Holds that there has been a violation of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention in respect of all the applicants;
5. Holds that there is no need to examine the admissibility and merits of the applicants’ other complaints under Article 5 §§ 1 and 4 and Articles 6, 8, and 13 of the Convention;
6. Holds

(a) that the respondent State is to pay the first and third applicants, within three months, the amounts indicated in the appended table, plus any tax that may be chargeable, in respect of non-pecuniary damage and costs and expenses, to be converted into the currency of the respondent State at the rate applicable at the date of settlement;

(b) that from the expiry of the above-mentioned three months until settlement simple interest shall be payable on the above amounts at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points;

7. Dismisses the remainder of the applicants’ claim for just satisfaction.

Done in English, and notified in writing on 27 March 2025, pursuant to Rule 77 §§ 2 and 3 of the Rules of Court.

Martina Keller Armen Harutyunyan
Deputy Registrar President

APPENDIX

List of cases