CASE OF LASHA TCHITCHINADZE v. GEORGIA
Violation of Article 5 - Right to liberty and security (Article 5-3 - Reasonableness of pre-trial detention)
Krzysztof Wojtyczek;Nona Tsotsoria;Gabriele Kucsko-Stadlmayer
6. The applicant was born in 1975 and lives in Tbilisi. 7. At 3.50 p.m. on 19 February 2005 the applicant was arrested as a suspect in a criminal case. On 21 February 2005 he was charged with multiple episodes of fraud. 8. On 22 February 2005 the First-Instance Panel of the Supreme Court of Georgia, rejecting the prosecutor’s request to place the applicant in pre-trial detention, ordered the applicant’s release under police supervision. The applicant was released at 4.00 p.m. on the same day. 9. On 25 February 2005 the Appeals Chamber of the Supreme Court of Georgia, reversing the lower-instance decision, placed the applicant in pre-trial detention for three months. It justified its decision solely by noting that the applicant had been charged with a serious crime carrying a possible penalty of more than five years’ imprisonment. This fact in itself, in the Supreme Court’s view, substantiated the risk of the applicant absconding, given that Article 151 § 3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (“the CCP”), as in force at the material time, provided that the seriousness of an offence could constitute grounds for the imposition of pre-trial detention. 10. On 25 March 2005 amendments were introduced to Article 151 §§ 1 and 4 of the CCP; those amendments, inter alia, provided that, subject to assessment by the national courts, pre-trial detention should in principle only be the last resort in cases where 11. On 18 May 2005 the Investigative Panel of the Tbilisi District Court, having heard the prosecutor’s argument that more time was needed to finalise the investigation, extended the applicant’s pre-trial detention for another two months, until 22 July 2005. The court did not address the question of whether the required investigative actions could be conducted without the applicant’s continued detention. The applicant’s reasons for his objection to any prolongation (his good reputation and family situation; the absence of previous convictions; and formal assurances from several public persons, including a member of parliament) were dismissed by the court. The court also refused an offer made by the Georgian Labour Union to post bail for the applicant in the form of bonds with an approximate value of 680,000 Georgian laris (GEL, approximately 248,300 euros (EUR)), reasoning that, under Article 168 § 3 of the CCP, persons being charged with serious offences were not subject to release on bail. 12. On 23 May 2005 the Appeals Chamber of the Tbilisi District Court upheld the order of 18 May 2005. Like the lower-instance court, the appellate court did not address the possibility of imposing a more lenient measure of restraint in order to ensure the aims of the investigation. 13. On 15 June 2005 the applicant requested that his pre-trial detention be replaced by a more lenient measure of restraint. The prosecutor agreed to the applicant’s request. 14. On 9 July 2005 the Tbilisi District Court released the applicant on bail on payment of a security of GEL 5,000 (approximately EUR 1,800). When ordering his release, the court took into consideration the applicant’s good references and the fact that he had fully compensated the injured party for the damage caused by his allegedly fraudulent activities. 15. At the time of submission of the present application, while the applicant contended that he was unable to have certain unspecified witnesses examined and to obtain expert opinions pertinent to his case, the criminal proceedings against him were still pending.