European Court of Human Rights
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URL: http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/2010/204.html
Cite as: [2010] ECHR 204
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FIFTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no.
31085/05
by Vladilen Ignatyevich PANCHENKO
against Ukraine
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 26 January 2010 as a Chamber composed of:
Peer
Lorenzen,
President,
Renate
Jaeger,
Karel
Jungwiert,
Rait
Maruste,
Mark
Villiger,
Isabelle
Berro-Lefèvre,
judges,
Mykhaylo
Buromenskiy, ad
hoc judge,
and
Claudia Westerdiek, Section
Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 3 August 2005,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant, Mr Vladilen Ignatyevich Panchenko, a Ukrainian national, was born in 1938 and died on 10 September 2008. On 19 January 2009 Mrs Lyudmyla Ivanivna Pachenko, the applicant’s widow, expressed the wish to pursue the application.
The Ukrainian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr Yuriy Zaytsev.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
On 5 October 2001 the local prosecutors of Saint Petersburg (the Russian Federation) instituted criminal proceedings against the applicant on suspicion of having threatened by telephone in December 1997 to murder a Russian federal judge and her family.
On 17 December 2001 the criminal case was forwarded to the law-enforcement authorities of Ukraine. On 3 March 2002 the local prosecutors in Kharkiv instituted criminal proceedings against the applicant on the same charge.
After four remittals of the case for a fresh consideration and one remittal for further investigation, on 29 July 2008 the Kharkiv Regional Court of Appeal acquitted the applicant of the crimes he was charged with due to a lack of incriminating evidence.
On 2 December 2008 the Supreme Court upheld his acquittal.
THE LAW
The Court notes that the applicant died on 10 September 2008. On 19 January 2009 his widow informed the Court that she wished to pursue the application.
The Government submitted that the applicant’s widow had no locus standi to pursue the application, arguing that the issues falling under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention were so closely linked to the deceased applicant that they could not be regarded as transferrable.
The Court notes that it normally permits the next of kin to pursue an application provided he or she has sufficient interest, where the original applicant has died after the introduction of the application before the Court (Micallef v. Malta [GC], 17056/06, § 47, 15 October 2009).
In this respect, the Court recalls that relatives of a deceased person cannot be considered as victims for complaints concerning the length of proceedings and lack of effective remedies (see, mutatis mutandis, Biç and Others v. Turkey, no. 55955/00, § 22, 2 February 2006, and Georgia Makri and Others v. Greece (dec.), no. 5977/03, 24 March 2005). In particular, there is no evidence in the case file to conclude that the applicant’s widow was affected by the length of the criminal proceedings against him (see Biç and Others v. Turkey, cited above, § 23).
As a result, the Court finds that the applicant’s widow does not have a legal interest to pursue the application. It further concludes that the conditions in which a case may be struck out of its list, as provided in Article 37 § 1 of the Convention, have been satisfied.
In view of the above, it is appropriate to discontinue the application of Article 29 § 3 and to strike the case out of the list.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases.
Claudia Westerdiek Peer Lorenzen
Registrar President