CASE OF RYZHENKO v. UKRAINE
Violation of Article 2 - Right to life (Article 2-1 - Effective investigation) (Substantive aspect)
Aleš Pejchal;Helena Jäderblom
5. On 13 October 2008 the applicant’s son, Mr Ry., was found dead in the pond which he had been guarding as a night watchman. 6. On the following day a post-mortem examination was completed. It concluded that Mr Ry. had drowned. A number of bruises and sores were discovered on his chest. The expert assessed those injuries as insignificant and considered that they had been inflicted by blunt hard objects. 7. During the period from October 2008 to February 2013 the police refused to institute criminal proceedings in respect of the death fifteen times. All those rulings were quashed by the prosecution authorities or the courts for superficiality and incompleteness of the investigation undertaken. 8. On 7 February 2013, following the entry into force of the new Code of Criminal Procedure in November 2012, the case was registered in the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations. 9. Thereafter the police terminated the criminal investigation twice having found that there was no indication of a homicide. Both those decisions were quashed. 10. As of April 2014 the pre-trial investigation was ongoing.