CASE OF STADNIK v. RUSSIA
Violation of Article 5 - Right to liberty and security (Article 5-5 - Compensation)
Branko Lubarda;Georgios A. Serghides;Pere Pastor Vilanova
4. The applicant was born in 1976. 5. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows. 6. In 1994, the applicant was convicted of theft and given a two-year custodial sentence conditional on one year’s probation. However, the court applied a general amnesty act and the applicant’s conviction, including the probation period, was spent with immediate effect. 7. Less than one year later, on 29 May 1995, a different court convicted the applicant of aggravated robbery and sentenced him to six years’ imprisonment. Considering that the applicant had breached the terms of his probation by committing a new offence, the court ordered the suspended sentence to be activated and increased the total length of the sentence by one year. 8. On 11 December 2001 the Presidium of the Omsk Regional Court acknowledged that the 1995 judgment had been unlawful in the part relating to the increase of the final sentence in connection with the prior conviction that had already been spent. The length of the sentence was varied to six years’ imprisonment, calculated from 2 January 1995 which was the date of the applicant’s arrest. Given that the applicant had already spent more than six years in detention, the Presidium ordered his immediate release. 9. The applicant unsuccessfully tried several avenues for claiming compensation for his unlawful detention during eleven months and fourteen days. 10. He sought first to exercise the “right to rehabilitation” under the Code of Criminal Procedure (see paragraph 13 below). On 5 August 2003 the Oktyabrskiy District Court in Omsk rejected his application, pointing out that the “right to rehabilitation” only accrued to those who have been acquitted or exonerated which was not the applicant’s case. The applicant did not appeal against that decision. 11. The applicant also tried to initiate criminal proceedings against Judge B. who had given the judgment of 29 May 1995. His criminal-law complaint was rejected on the ground that the limitation period had expired. 12. Finally, the applicant filed a civil claim for compensation under the tort provisions of the Civil Code (see paragraph 14 below). On 20 December 2005 the Tsentralniy District Court in Omsk rejected his claim, finding that paragraph 1 of Article 1070 did not apply because the applicant had been found guilty rather than acquitted and that the special condition of applicability of paragraph 2 – the criminal conviction of the judge – was not fulfilled. On 14 June 2006 the Omsk Regional Court rejected an appeal against that decision.