RUNTEVA v. "THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA"
Inadmissible
Aleš Pejchal;Krzysztof Wojtyczek;Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos;Pauliine Koskelo;Ksenija Turković
1. The applicant, Ms Lenče Runteva, is a Macedonian national who was born in 1962 and lives in Štip. She is represented before the Court by Mr T. Torov, a lawyer practising in Štip. 2. The Macedonian Government (“the Government”) are represented by their Agent, Mr K. Bogdanov. 3. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows. 4. By a judgment of 23 April 2001, confirmed on appeal on 10 October 2001, the Kočani Court of First Instance (“the trial court”) convicted the applicant of a serious traffic offence and sentenced her to four years and six months’ imprisonment. The period during which the applicant had been remanded in pre-trial detention (from 2 to 13 October 1999) was to be deducted from the custodial sentence. 5. On 20 January 2003 the applicant started serving the sentence. 6. On 28 July 2004 the President of the State granted pardons to several convicted people, exempting them entirely (потполно) or partially (делумно) from serving their respective prison sentences (се ослободуваат од понатамошно извршување). The applicant obtained a reduction of the serving time by one year and six months. On 29 July 2004 the presidential pardon was published in the Official Gazette. The presidential pardon was granted on the occasion of a national public holiday. 7. On 14 January 2005 the applicant, represented by Mr T. Torov, lodged a request for extraordinary mitigation of her prison sentence (вонредно ублажување на казната), which the Supreme Court granted in a judgment of 1 February 2005. It found that the applicant was the only person who could care for her father, whose health had deteriorated after the death of her mother, which had occurred whilst the applicant was serving her sentence. According to the court, those were new circumstance which the lower courts could not have taken into account in determining the sentence. Relying on sections 399 and 401(6) of the Criminal Proceedings Act of 1997 (see paragraphs 20 and 22 below), it overturned the lower courts’ judgments of 23 April and 10 October 2001 in respect of the sentence and reduced the prison term to three years and six months. The court reiterated that the period of time the applicant had spent in detention on remand was to be deducted from the total prison term. In its judgment, the court did not mention the presidential pardon of 29 July 2004. 8. On 10 March 2005 the judgment was served on the applicant’s representative. 9. In the meantime, namely on 17 February 2005, the trial court accepted a recommendation made by the director of the detention facility (based on the applicant’s good behaviour) and ordered that the applicant be released on parole on 25 February 2005. Referring to the aforementioned presidential pardon, the trial court stated that “[the applicant’s sentence] is three years.” The trial court established that the period of conditional release (условен отпуст) would come to an end on 9 January 2006. It did not mention the Supreme Court’s judgment of 1 February 2005. 10. The applicant was released on parole 25 February 2005. 11. On an unspecified date in 2007, the applicant brought a civil action against the respondent State, claiming compensation for being allegedly unlawfully detained for 60 days due to an error or unlawful action by the State authorities. She also claimed compensation in respect of the period of her conditional release (between 25 February 2005 and 9 January 2006), during which she had been regarded as an offender. She argued that, as a consequence of the Supreme Court’s judgment ordering mitigation of sentence and the presidential pardon, the prison sentence had been reduced to two years excluding the time of her detention on remand. Accordingly, she should have been released some 60 days prior to the date of her release on parole. 12. In a judgment of 25 June 2010, the Skopje Court of First Instance dismissed the applicant’s compensation claim as ill-founded. The court stated the following: “... On the basis of the [information] submitted by [the trial court], the court establishes that the prison sentence imposed on [the applicant] was three years and six months, taking into account the presidential pardon. That aside, the overall sentence, including [the applicant’s] conditional release that came to an end on 9 January 2006, was three years ... It is undisputed that [the applicant] was released from custody on 25 February 2005, as stated in the decision for her release on parole. Accordingly, she was not detained for longer than prescribed ... [The trial court] decision ordering [the applicant’s] conditional release took into consideration the presidential pardon, as is evident from the reasoning provided; however, when reducing the sentence, it gave no weight to it. [The applicant] did not spend a day longer in custody than she was sentenced to. She was supposed to serve the sentence until 9 January 2006, the date when her period of conditional release came to an end... The provisions governing compensation for damage sustained do not apply in the circumstances of the (present) case because the conviction was not wrongful ... The reduction in the prison term following the presidential pardon and the [Supreme Court’s] judgment was based on grounds not related to [the applicant’s] guilt of the crime that she had committed. Only a person who has suffered damage due to a wrongful conviction is entitled to seek compensation for damage sustained. In the present case, [the applicant] was rightfully convicted ...” 13. The applicant challenged this judgment before the Skopje Court of Appeal. She reiterated that, given the extraordinary reduction in the prison term ordered by the Supreme Court and the presidential pardon, she should have been imprisoned for two years, further reduced by the period of her detention on remand. Any detention in excess of this period had therefore been unlawful. Accordingly, she was entitled to compensation in respect of non-pecuniary damage under section 530(1)3 of the Criminal Proceedings Act (see paragraph 23 below). 14. In its judgment of 9 February 2012, the Skopje Court of Appeal upheld the established facts and the reasoning provided by the lower court. It further stated that: “... the reduction of a prison term on the basis of an extraordinary mitigation of sentence [by the Supreme Court] does not constitute grounds for compensation for damage sustained if a person has remained imprisoned for longer than the reduced prison term imposed by a competent court. ... this court considers that in the present case, the lower court having correctly established that [the applicant] had not been imprisoned a single day more than had been prescribed by the above judgments, the applicant has no right to claim compensation under [section 530 (1)2] of the Criminal Proceedings Act ...” 15. On 17 October 2013 the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal on points of law by the applicant and upheld the lower courts’ judgments. The applicant was served with this judgment on 31 January 2014. 16. Article 84 § 1(9) of the Constitution provides that the President of the State can grant pardon in accordance with the legal provisions. 17. Under section 1 of the Pardon Act of 1993, the President of the State may grant pardon to identified individuals in respect of criminal offences provided for by law. A request for pardon can be submitted by the convicted person or by the Ministry of Justice of its own motion (section 2(1)) after a judgment becomes final (section 6(1)). 18. Section 112 of the Criminal Proceedings Act of 1997, as applicable at the relevant time, provided that judgments were delivered to parties either by way of oral pronouncement, if the parties were present at the hearing, or by serving them with a certified copy of the judgment if they were absent from the hearing. 19. Under section 125(2) of the Act, a final judgment became enforceable after being served on the parties provided there were no obstacles to its enforcement. 20. Sections 399-402 provided for an extraordinary mitigation of sentence as an extraordinary remedy that might be used against the penalty imposed by the lower courts. Under section 399, it might be granted on account of facts that had not existed before delivery of the final judgment or of facts that had existed at that time but of which the court had been unaware. 21. Under section 400(2), a request for mitigation of sentence did not suspend its enforcement. 22. The Supreme Court would dismiss the request if the statutory conditions for extraordinary mitigation of sentence were not satisfied. If it granted the request, the Supreme Court would adopt a judgment and overturn the final judgment in respect of the penalty (section 401(6)). 23. Section 530(1)2 provided that a person was entitled to claim compensation if he or she had served a prison sentence but ‒ on the basis of a reopening of proceedings, a legality review request or a request for extraordinary review of a final judgment ‒ should have served a shorter prison term than the one already served. Under sub-paragraph 3, a person was entitled to claim compensation if he or she served a longer (prison) sentence due to an error or unlawful action by a (State) body.