European Court of Human Rights

FIFTH SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 10825/02
by Salamat Khamrayevna MATMURATOVA
against Ukraine

The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 24 March 2009 as a Chamber composed of:

Rait Maruste, President,
Karel Jungwiert,
Renate Jaeger,
Mark Villiger,
Isabelle Berro-Lefèvre,
Zdravka Kalaydjieva, judges,
Stanislav Shevchuk, ad hoc judge,
and Claudia Westerdiek, Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 5 November 2001,

Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant’s representative,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Ms Salamat Khamrayevna Matmuratova, is an Uzbek national who was born in 1974 and lives in Uzbekistan. She was represented before the Court by Mr Y. Fedorchuk, a lawyer practising in Dnipropetrovsk. The Ukrainian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Ms I. Shevchuk, the Head of the Government Agent’s Office.

The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.

On 3 January 2001 the applicant was arrested on suspicion of selling heroin.

On 14 May 2003 the Dnipropetrovs’k Amur-Nizhedneprovskiy District Court found the applicant guilty of concealing a crime committed by another person and sentenced her to two years and four months’ imprisonment. As she had already been held in detention for the indicated period she was released immediately. The applicant did not appeal against this decision and it became final.

Soon after her release the applicant left Ukraine for her home country Uzbekistan.

According to the applicant’s representative all his attempts to contact her thereafter have failed.

COMPLAINTS

The applicant complained that Articles 3, 5 §§ 2 and 4 and Article 13 of the Convention had been infringed.

THE LAW

As it appears from the correspondence with the applicant’s representative he has not been able to contact the applicant after she left Ukraine in 2003. The applicant herself has not contacted him or the Court in respect of the present application either.

By letter dated 11 December 2008, sent by registered post, the applicant’s representative was requested to find out whether the applicant herself wished to maintain her application. In reply to this letter, the representative informed the Court that he thought that she wished to maintain her application, without indicating, however, that the applicant had in any way confirmed such a wish recently or any time after her departure from Ukraine in 2003.

Given that the applicant has failed to demonstrate any interest in the present application for more than five years and that there is no information that she is in any way prevented from doing so, the Court considers that, in these circumstances, the applicant may be regarded as no longer wishing to pursue her application, within the meaning of Article 37 § 1 (a) of the Convention. Furthermore, in accordance with Article 37 § 1 in fine, the Court finds no special circumstances regarding respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols which require the continued examination of the case.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases.

Claudia Westerdiek Rait Maruste
Registrar President