CASE OF VASILEVSKIY AND BOGDANOV v. RUSSIA
Violation of Article 5 - Right to liberty and security (Article 5-5 - Compensation);Non-pecuniary damage - award (Article 41 - Non-pecuniary damage;Just satisfaction)
Branko Lubarda;Dmitry Dedov;Georgios A. Serghides;Helen Keller;Helena Jäderblom;Pere Pastor Vilanova
5. Mr Vasilevskiy was born in 1973 and lives in Blagoveshchensk. 6. Mr Vasilevskiy stayed in detention for longer that he should have because the sentencing courts did not count the time he had spent in pre-trial detention towards the overall duration of his sentence, in breach of the applicable domestic provisions. In response to Mr Vasilevskiy’s repeated complaints, on 7 May 2007 the Belogorskiy District Court in the Amur Region corrected the error and acknowledged that his sentence had expired on 26 February 2006. Mr Vasilevskiy was released on 13 June 2007. He sought compensation for 472 days during which he had been wrongfully detained. 7. On 13 December 2013 the Blagoveshchensk Town Court in the Amur Region awarded him 150,000 Russian roubles (RUB – 3,320 euros (EUR) at the then-applicable exchange rate) in respect of non-pecuniary damage. Mr Vasilevskiy lodged an appeal, submitting in particular that that sum was substantially lower than that which the Court would have awarded in a similar case. 8. On 28 February 2014 the Amur Regional Court dismissed his appeal. As regards the level of compensation, it held that the Town Court had “had regard to the case-law of the European Court but had correctly determined the amount of compensation in respect of non-pecuniary damage in the light of the requirements of Russian law”. 9. Mr Bogdanov was born in 1981 and lives in the Novgorod Region. 10. On 30 March 2007 Mr Bogdanov was convicted of supplying drugs on four separate occasions in 2006 and sentenced to twelve years’ imprisonment. On 20 March 2013 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation acknowledged, referring to the Court’s case-law under Article 6 of the Convention, that the police had incited Mr Bogdanov to commit the last three of the four offences. It declared that part of evidence inadmissible, voided his conviction in that part, reduced his sentence to six years’ imprisonment and ordered his immediate release. 11. By that time, Mr Bogdanov had spent 119 days in custody over and above the adjusted six-year sentence. He sought to recover damages in respect of his wrongful imprisonment. 12. On 13 March 2014 the Valdayskiy District Court in the Novgorod Region awarded him RUB 80,000 (EUR 1,576). However, on 9 July 2014 the Novgorod Regional Court reduced the award to RUB 15,000 (EUR 324), referring to the “circumstances in which the criminal proceedings had been instituted” and the “category of offence that Mr Bogdanov had been charged with”. On 30 September 2014 the Regional Court rejected a cassation appeal lodged by Mr Bogdanov.