CASE OF ČAČKO v. SLOVAKIA
No violation of Article 3 - Prohibition of torture (Article 3 - Degrading punishment;Inhuman punishment) (Substantive aspect);No violation of Article 13+3 - Right to an effective remedy (Article 13 - Effective remedy) (Article 3 - Prohibition of torture;Degrading punishment;Inhuman punishment)
Alvina Gyulumyan;Ján Šikuta;Johannes Silvis;Josep Casadevall;Luis López Guerra
5. The applicant was born in 1970. He is serving a life sentence in the Leopoldov prison. 6. On 7 September 2005, at about 10 p.m., the applicant was taken to a police station. In the course of the night he was questioned about the violent death of his stepfather. He was tested for alcohol in his blood and biological samples were taken from him. A police investigator accused the applicant of murder. The applicant was suspected of having stabbed his stepfather fourteen times on 7 September 2005, as a result of which the latter had died. At the request of the public prosecutor the applicant was formally arrested at 12.30 a.m. on 8 September 2005. 7. By a decision of 12 September 2005 a judge of the Košice I District Court remanded the applicant in custody with effect from 8 September 2005. On 28 September 2005 the Košice Regional Court dismissed a complaint by the applicant against that decision. 8. In the context of the investigation the applicant, repeatedly and in the presence of his lawyer, admitted having stabbed his stepfather and described the circumstances. He later requested that his action be qualified as causing bodily harm as he had not intended to kill the victim. 9. On 5 December 2005 the public prosecutor indicted the applicant before the Košice Regional Court. 10. On 13 July 2007 the Košice Regional Court convicted the applicant of murder. With reference to Article 219 § 2, Article 29 §§ 1 and 3, Article 30 § 1(c), Article 43 § 1 and Article 35 § 3 of the Criminal Code of 1961, the first-instance court sentenced the applicant to life imprisonment without the possibility of release on parole. 11. On the basis of statements by twenty-two witnesses, the opinions of five medical experts and a forensic institute, and the documentary evidence available, the court established that the applicant had deliberately stabbed his stepfather fourteen times with a knife with the intention of killing him. That action had been prompted by the applicant’s aggressive behaviour while in a state of intoxication and his abnormally antisocial personality. 12. The Regional Court noted that at the pre-trial stage the applicant had admitted, several times and in the presence of his lawyer, the offence imputed to him and had described the relevant facts in detail. However, at the main hearing he denied having killed the victim. The court held, for the reasons which were set out in detail in its judgment, that the evidence available clearly indicated that he had committed the offence. He had done so in a particularly contemptible manner as he had attacked the victim unexpectedly and had taken advantage of the latter’s incapacity to defend himself as a result of heavy intoxication. 13. According to the expert opinion on which the court relied, the applicant was pathologically aggressive. He lacked any self-control and there were practically no prospects of his re-socialisation at that time. The probability that he would re-offend in the future was extremely high. 14. The applicant had been convicted of different offences five times previously. Those convictions included a rape and a murder. He had committed the second murder only several months after his conditional release from prison, where he had been serving a sentence imposed for a similar offence. The Regional Court concluded that the statutory conditions for imposing a life sentence without the right to be released on parole were therefore met. 15. At the same time, the Regional Court quashed the six-month prison sentence which the Michalovce District Court had imposed on the applicant on 24 October 2005, as well as all consecutive decisions concerning that punishment. 16. The applicant appealed. He submitted that he had made the initial statements admitting the offence while in a state of a shock and fatigue resulting from his intoxication, and that the police had exposed him to psychological pressure prior to the interrogation. There existed no direct evidence proving that he had committed the offence. The applicant further argued that the first-instance court had not established all the relevant facts and had committed errors of law. The evidence obtained did not suffice for his conviction. No reconstruction of the crime had been carried out, the reference in the expert opinion as to an injury to the victim’s hand and the applicant’s social and psychological profile were confusing. The applicant further argued that the Regional Court had failed to hear the children who had found the blood-stained knife. 17. On 27 February 2008 the Supreme Court quashed the first-instance judgment to the extent that it concerned the sentence imposed. It then imposed a term of life imprisonment on the applicant and held, with reference to Article 30 § 1(d) of the Criminal Code, that the possibility of his release on parole was to be excluded. It did so because the Regional Court had incorrectly referred, in the operative part of its judgment, to the subparagraph of Article 30 § 1 of the Criminal Code which allowed for such a penalty. 18. In all other respects the Supreme Court endorsed the conclusions reached at first instance. It considered the applicant’s arguments irrelevant. In particular, in September and October 2005 the applicant had admitted three times, in the presence of his lawyer, to have committed the offence. In that context he had indicated manifold details which could only have been known to the perpetrator, for example that he had taken the knife from the flat where he and his mother lived, and where he had hidden it after the incident. The applicant had also described the T-shirt he had worn and such a T-shirt had been found hidden in the applicant’s flat stained with the victim’s blood. That blood could not have stemmed from an injury on the victim’s hand, as claimed by the applicant, as the experts had excluded such an injury. The applicant had also indicated a motive for his actions. 19. The Supreme Court held that the Regional Court had gathered all relevant evidence with a view to establishing the facts of the case and had correctly applied the law when convicting the applicant. The statutory prerequisites for imposing a life sentence without the possibility of release on parole were met. 20. The appeal court also quashed the six-month prison sentence which the Michalovce District Court had imposed on the applicant on 24 October 2005, as well as all relevant consecutive decisions relating to that punishment. 21. The applicant lodged an appeal on points of law. As in the appeal proceedings, he challenged the establishment of the facts and the conclusions reached in the first-instance and appeal proceedings. 22. On 2 March 2009 the Supreme Court (cassation chamber) dismissed the applicant’s appeal on points of law. The decision stated that in proceedings in an appeal on points of law courts could only examine errors of law allegedly committed at lower levels of jurisdiction. However, no such arguments had been put forward by the applicant. The interrogations at the pre-trial stage in the course of which the applicant had admitted the offence had been carried out in accordance with the Code of Criminal Procedure and in the presence of his lawyer. The Regional Court had therefore been entitled to read out those statements at the main hearing before it. 23. As to the sentence imposed, the applicant had not raised any specific arguments in his appeal on points of law. In any event, the lower courts had correctly concluded that, given his earlier convictions, the three-strike rule set out in Article 43 § 1 of the Criminal Code was applicable to his case. Similarly, the lower courts had correctly exercised their discretionary power under Article 30 § 1(d) of the Criminal Code when excluding the possibility of his release on parole. 24. On 7 May 2009 the applicant submitted a complaint to the Constitutional Court. He indicated that it was directed against the abovementioned ordinary courts at three levels which had dealt with his case, and at the prosecuting authorities involved. In the summary of his complaint the applicant indicated that it concerned his conviction and the sentence imposed. He alleged a breach of his rights under the Constitution and the Convention. He complained, inter alia, that he had been detained unlawfully and that the criminal proceedings against him had been flawed. He explicitly alleged a breach of Article 3, Article 5 § 1(a) and (c) and § 3, Article 6 §§ 1, 2 and 3(d), and Articles 8, 13 and 14 of the Convention, as well as Article 2 § 1 of Protocol No. 7. 25. The applicant joined to his appeal the three ordinary courts’ decisions in his case and requested that the Constitutional Court quash them. He indicated that he was indigent and asked the Constitutional Court to appoint a lawyer to represent him in the constitutional proceedings. 26. In a letter dated 21 September 2009 a Constitutional Court judge informed the applicant that in his complaint he had not specified an outcome he sought to obtain from the Constitutional Court which would be enforceable given the powers of that court. As the Constitutional Court could not deal with such a submission, it had to be set aside pursuant to section 23(a) of the Constitutional Court Act 1993. 27. On 21 December 2005 the Košice I District Court ordered that the applicant be released from pre-trial detention and start serving a six-month prison term which had been imposed by a penal order issued by the Michalovce District Court on 24 October 2005 in a different set of proceedings. 28. In a decision of 14 July 2006 the Košice Regional Court ordered that the applicant be released from pre-trial detention and start serving a thirty-seven month prison term which had been imposed in a different set of proceedings by the Banská Bystrica District Court. 29. A decision issued by a higher judicial officer of the Košice Regional Court on 31 March 2008 stated that the period of the applicant’s detention from 8 September 2005 to 14 July 2006 was to be incorporated into the term of life imprisonment imposed on him. The applicant was further ordered to reimburse to the State the costs of his detention during the above period, pursuant to Article 555 § 1 (a) of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 2005. On 12 May 2008 the presiding judge of the Regional Court dismissed the applicant’s complaint against that decision. On that basis the Košice prison administration ordered the applicant, on 4 June 2008, to pay the equivalent of approximately 800 euros (EUR) in respect of the 310 days he had spent in pre-trial detention. 30. In the course of the criminal proceedings, newspapers published several articles about the case in which they implied that the applicant was a brutal offender. The applicant considered that those articles were based on information which the media had obtained from the prosecuting authorities dealing with his case. 31. On 14 November 2013 the applicant filed a fresh appeal on points of law in respect of the proceedings leading to his conviction. The proceedings are pending.