European Court of Human Rights

Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 163

May 2013

Petukhova v. Russia - 28796/07

Judgment 2.5.2013 See: [2013] ECHR 400 [Section I]

Article 5

Article 5-1-b

Lawful order of a court

Detention in police station of person required by unlawfully issued court order to undergo psychiatric examination: violation

 

Facts - In January 2006 the police requested a clinic to carry out a psychiatric examination of the applicant following complaints they had received from neighbours about her behaviour. Seven months later, relying exclusively on evidence from the police that the applicant had at the time refused to consent to a voluntary examination, a psychiatrist at the clinic filed an application with a district court for her involuntary examination. The request was granted in the applicant’s absence on 18 August 2006. On 1 December 2006, at the clinic’s request, the applicant was apprehended by the police and taken to a police station where she was held for four hours before being transferred to a psychiatric hospital where she was eventually informed of the court order. Her appeals against the decision authorising her involuntary examination were dismissed. In her application to the European Court, she complained of an unlawful deprivation of her liberty at the police station on 1 December 2006.

Law - Article 5 § 1 (b): The purpose of the district court’s order of 18 August 2006 was not to authorise the applicant’s involuntary hospitalisation as a person of “unsound mind” in accordance with Article 5 § 1 (e) but to ensure she submitted to a psychiatric examination she had allegedly refused. The restrictions on her rights had therefore relied on the exception set out in Article 5 § 1 (b), which allowed deprivation of liberty in order to ensure compliance with “a lawful order of a court”. Therefore, the Court had to determine whether the court order had been lawful and enforced in compliance with that provision.

Under Russian law, involuntary psychiatric examinations could only be conducted in exceptional circumstances, and only in the event that the refusal to have an examination was duly recorded by a psychiatrist, supported by evidence and reviewed by a judge. For her part, the applicant asserted that she had never refused consent. From the material before the Court, it could be seen that her alleged lack of consent had only been mentioned in the application for an involuntary examination and was substantiated solely on the basis of a conversation the psychiatrist had had with a police officer seven months earlier. Even more importantly, the district court had authorised her involuntary examination without duly verifying whether she had in fact objected to the examination in her conversation with the police officer or whether she had changed her mind since. The district court’s order of 18 August 2006 had therefore been unlawful.

As regards its enforcement by the Russian authorities, the Court reiterated that persons deprived of their liberty for non-compliance with a lawful order of a court had to have had an opportunity to comply and have failed to do so, either implicitly or explicitly. A refusal to undergo certain measures suggested by the authorities (a healthcare institution and the police in the present case) prior to such measures being ordered by a court, did not necessarily imply refusal to comply with an authoritative judicial decision. In fact, there was no evidence that the applicant had been informed of the order of 18 August 2006 or given an opportunity to comply with it. On 1 December 2006, whilst unaware of the order that had been issued three months earlier, she had unexpectedly been taken to a police station where, instead of being transferred directly to a psychiatric facility for examination, she had been detained for four hours. No reason had been given as to why her detention in the police station had been necessary for the enforcement of the order. Her detention had therefore been unlawful.

Conclusion: violation (unanimously).

Article 41: EUR 3,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.

 

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