European Court of Human Rights

THIRD SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 44200/06
Victor SIRBU
against Moldova

The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 6 March 2012 as a Chamber composed of:

Josep Casadevall, President,
Corneliu Bîrsan,
Alvina Gyulumyan,
Ján Šikuta,
Luis López Guerra,
Nona Tsotsoria,
Mihai Poalelungi, judges,
and Marialena Tsirli, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 18 October 2006,

Having regard to the declaration submitted by the respondent Government on 28 September 2011 requesting the Court to strike the application out of the list of cases and the applicant’s reply to that declaration,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr Victor Sirbu, is a Moldovan national who was born in 1960 and lives in Dobrogea. The Moldovan Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr V. Grosu.

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

In 1998 the applicant was convicted and sentenced to twenty-four years’ imprisonment. Between 1998 and the date of lodging of this application the applicant was detained in Prisons nos. 3, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13, 16, 15 and 17. It appears that currently the applicant is no longer detained.

According to the applicant the conditions of detention in all the detention facilities amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment. In particular, the applicant takes issue with the material conditions of detention such as, inter alia, the lack of adequate food, the lack of conditions of hygiene, including the presence of vermin, the detention and transportation of healthy inmates with persons suffering from contagious diseases and the lack of adequate medical assistance.

COMPLAINTS

The applicant complained under Article 6 of the Convention about the refusal of the Prosecutor’s Office to initiate criminal proceedings against police officers who had allegedly ill-treated him. He also complained under Article 8 of the Convention taken alone and in conjunction with Article 13 about the rejection of his request to be seen by a psychiatrist and about the breach of his right to receive visits from family. He further complained under Article 10 of the Convention about the lack of newspapers in the prison and under Article 14 of the Convention that the prosecutors had called him a criminal. He finally complained under Article 3 of the Convention about the poor conditions of detention.

THE LAW

A.  The complaint under Article 3 of the Convention

After the communication of the complaint under Article 3 of the Convention to the respondent Government, and after receiving the Government’s observations on the admissibility and merits of the case, the Court invited the applicant to submit his comments together with his just satisfaction claims under Article 41 of the Convention before 4 June 2010. The applicant was informed that a failure to submit Article 41 claims within the time allowed would have the consequence that the Court would either make no award of just satisfaction or else reject the claim in part.

On 31 May 2010 the applicant submitted comments in respect of the Government’s submissions but no claims under Article 41 of the Convention.

On 17 September 2010 the Government submitted their final observations in which they noted that the applicant had not submitted just satisfaction claims. These observations were sent to the applicant on 24 September 2010. No reaction followed from him or his representative.

On 28 September 2011 the Government informed the Court that they proposed to make a unilateral declaration with a view to resolving the issues raised by the application. The text of their letter to the Court read as follows:

“The Government acknowledge that there has been a breach of the applicant’s rights guaranteed by Article 3 of the Convention because of the inhuman and degrading conditions in which the applicant had been detained...

Making their own assessment of the circumstances of the present case, [the Government] propose a global sum of 3,000 euros (three thousand euros) for pecuniary, non-pecuniary damages, as well as for costs and expenses incurred.

In the light of the above, the Government invite the Court to take note of the terms of the above mentioned unilateral declaration, to decide that there are no reasons to justify a continued examination of the application and to strike it out in accordance with Article 37 § 1 (c) of the Convention”

The above declaration was forwarded to the applicant on 30 September 2011. Since the Court did not receive an answer from the applicant to its letter within the time-limit imparted for that, on 9 December 2011, he was contacted by telephone by a member of the Registry. The applicant informed the Court that he disagreed with the Government’s proposal to strike-out the case and insisted that the Government should pay him some 65,000 euros (EUR) in compensation.

The Court notes that Article 37 of the Convention provides that it may at any stage of the proceedings decide to strike an application out of its list of cases where the circumstances lead to one of the conclusions specified under (a), (b) or (c) of paragraph 1 of that Article. Article 37 § 1 (c) enables the Court to strike a case out of its list in particular if:

“for any other reason established by the Court, it is no longer justified to continue the examination of the application”.

Article 37 § 1 in fine includes the proviso that:

“However, the Court shall continue the examination of the application if respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and the Protocols thereto so requires.”

The Court also notes that under certain circumstances, it may strike out an application or part thereof under Article 37 § 1 (c) of the Convention on the basis of a unilateral declaration by a respondent Government even if the applicant wishes the examination of the case to be continued. To this end, the Court will examine the declaration carefully in the light of the principles emerging from its case-law, in particular the Tahsin Acar judgment (see Tahsin Acar v. Turkey, [GC], no. 26307/95, §§ 75-77, ECHR 2003-VI, and Melnic v. Moldova, no. 6923/03, §§ 22-25, 14 November 2006).

Having regard to the nature of the admissions contained in the Government’s unilateral declaration of 28 September 2011 and to the amount of compensation proposed by the Government as well as to the applicant’s less than vigorous pursuit of the case including his failure to submit observations in respect of just satisfaction, the Court considers that it is no longer justified to continue the examination of this part of the application (Article 37 § 1 (c)) (see, for the relevant principles, Tahsin Acar, cited above, and Meriakri v. Moldova (striking out), no. 53487/99, 1 March 2005). In so doing, the Court takes due note of the fact that the issues raised in the present case are similar to those examined in Ostrovar (no. 35207/03, 13 September 2005) and does not find any compelling reasons to reiterate the findings in that case in a new judgment.

In the light of all the above considerations, the Court is satisfied that respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and the Protocols thereto does not require it to continue the examination of this part of the application (Article 37 § 1 in fine).

Accordingly it should be struck out of the list.

B.  Remaining complaints

In so far as the applicant’s remaining complaints are concerned, the Court considers them to be unsubstantiated and notes that there is nothing in the file to suggest that the provisions invoked by the applicant have been violated. Accordingly, this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention and must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Takes note of the terms of the respondent Government’s declaration;

Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases in so far as it relates to the complaint under Article 3 of the Convention;

Declares the remainder of the application inadmissible.

Marialena Tsirli Josep Casadevall
Deputy Registrar President