European Court of Human Rights

THIRD SECTION

Application no. 3658/10
Tariel BAKRADZE against Georgia
and 3 other applications
(see list appended)

STATEMENT OF FACTS

THE FACTS

The applicants are Georgian nationals. Their names are listed in the appended table.

The facts of the cases, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.

1.  Tariel Bakradze v. Georgia, application no. 3658/10

By a judgment of 20 November 2009, the Tbilisi City Court convicted the applicant of murder at first instance, sentencing him to twelve years in prison. The case file does not contain a copy of his conviction, nor is it clear whether the applicant availed himself of the right to lodge an appeal against it.

According to his medical file, the applicant suffers viral hepatitis C, certain mental disorders and cardiac problems.

2.  Dudashvili v. Georgia, application no. 13533/10

On 28 November 2008 the Tbilisi Court of Appeal convicted the applicant of burglary, sentencing him to six years and five months in prison, which period had started to run from the his arrest on 16 November 2007. The conviction, which was based on witnesses’ statements and the results of various crime detection examinations, was finally upheld by the Supreme Court of Georgia on 28 May 2009.

According to medical documents available in the case file, the applicant suffers from colitis, renal cholecystitis, damage of cohlear nerve (with the associated risk of deafness), intestinal atonia, phtoriasis (infectious skin disease) and certain mental disorders.

3.  Gujejiani v. Georgia, application no. 40123/10

The applicant has been serving a prison sentence for various offences in different custodial institutions since 22 March 2006.

According to his medical file, the applicant suffers from viral hepatitis B and C, a personality disorder and certain other less serious ailments (chronic haimoritis, nasal polyps and other otorhinolaryngological problems).

According to the applicant, he was beaten by prison officers on 4 April and 8 October 2009 (in Ksani prison no. 7 and the prison hospital respectively) and on 11 January and 13 May 2010 (in Rustavi prison no. 6 and Ksani prison no. 7 respectively). Whilst the applicant claims that a criminal probe has been launched into some of those incidents, the case file does not contain any documents related to this investigation.

4.  Tsivtsivadze v. Georgia, application no. 43098/10

On 30 June 2009 the Tbilisi City Court, having regard to the fact that six pills of Subutex[1] had been discovered on the applicant’s person by the police during his arrest on 8 November 2008, convicted him of unlawful possession of narcotic substance in large quantity, an offence prosecuted under Article 260 § 2 (a) of the Criminal Code of Georgia. The conviction was upheld by the Tbilisi Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Georgia on 15 December 2009 and 11 June 2010 respectively. He was sentenced to eight years and two months in prison, which period had started to run from the moment of his arrest.

One of the major arguments of the applicant’s defence before all three judicial instances was that since buprenorphine is considered to be a psychotropic substance under the United Nations Convention of 1971 on Psychotropic Substances, to which Georgia is a party, his prosecution for trafficking in narcotic substances was unlawful. The applicant also enquired with the domestic courts why, on the basis of which legal regulations, the seized pills of Subutex, which contained overall no more than 0,0263 gm of buprenorphine, was qualified as “a large quantity”.

According to medical documents available in the case file, the applicant suffers from, amongst others, an advanced form of hepatitis C and a brain damage of serious nature (toxic encelopathy).

COMPLAINTS

A.  Common complaint

Relying on Article 3 of the Convention, all four applicants claimed to have been denied adequate medical care in prison.

B.  Case specific complaints

1.  Tariel Bakradze v. Georgia, application no. 3658/10

Under Article 6 § 3 (b) of the Convention, the applicant complained that he had been denied a copy of the verbatim record of the trial at first instance.

2.  Dudashvili v. Georgia, application no. 13533/10

Relying on Articles 6 § 1 and 13 of the Convention, the applicant claimed his innocence, accusing the domestic courts of the erroneous assessment of the evidence in the criminal file against him.

3.  Gujejiani v. Georgia, application no. 40123/10

The applicant complained under Article 3 of the Convention that he had been beaten by prison officers on several occasions and that no meaningful investigation was conducted into those incidents.

4.  Tsivtsivadze v. Georgia, application no. 43098/10

Relying on Articles 6 § 1 and 14 of the Convention, the applicant complained that the domestic courts had failed to give a reasoned answer to his arguments about the qualification of the substance and quantity of the Subutex pills discovered in his possession.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

COMMON QUESTION

Have the responsible State agencies taken all necessary measures, including those constitutive of adequate medical treatment for the applicants’ various diseases, to safeguard the applicants’ physical well-being and health in prison, in accordance with their positive obligations under Article 3 of the Convention?

CASE SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

1.  Gujejiani v. Georgia, application no. 40123/10

1.  Has the applicant exhausted all effective domestic remedies for the complaint under Article 3 of the Convention concerning his alleged beating by prison staff, as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, has he filed complaints with the prosecution authority requesting the initiation of criminal proceedings for the alleged incidents?

2.  Did the applicant suffer ill-treatment in the hands of prison officers on 4 April and 8 October 2009 and 11 January and 13 May 2010, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention?

3.  Have the competent domestic authorities conducted an adequate investigation into the applicant’s allegations of ill-treatment, as required by the procedural obligation under Article 3 of the Convention?

2.  Tsivtsivadze v. Georgia, application no. 43098/10

Given the absence of any answer in the domestic courts’ decisions to the applicant’s arguments about the qualification of the substance and quantity of buprenorphine discovered in his possession, was the applicant’s right to a reasoned decision respected in the present case, within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see, for instance, Boldea v. Romania, no. 19997/02, § 30, 15 February 2007)?