European Court of Human Rights

Communicated on 28 August 2014

SECOND SECTION

Application no. 13312/12
Lajos GALAMBOS
against Hungary
lodged on 27 February 2012

STATEMENT OF FACTS

The applicant, Mr Lajos Galambos, is a Hungarian national, who was born in 1953 and lives in Budapest. He is represented before the Court by Mr L. Molnár, a lawyer practising in Budapest.

A.  The circumstances of the case

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

On 28 June 2011 the applicant, a retired army general, was apprehended on charges of spying. On 14 July 2011 his pre-trial detention was ordered for fear of absconding. His requests for release were to no avail, although he demonstrated that he could have absconded but had not. In the face of his arguments that he had no criminal history, was nearly 60 years old with a settled background and family situation, the court insisted on the argument that, because of his connections abroad, there was a risk that he might nevertheless abscond.

On 11 November 2011 the Military Bench of the Budapest Court of Appeal quashed a previous detention order of the Military Bench of the Budapest High Court and remitted the case to it. In the applicant’s view, this was procedurally incorrect, since the Court of Appeal should have decided on the merits, rather than remitting the case.

On 30 September 2011 the investigation was terminated and the case file presented to the applicant and his lawyer.

The applicant was in pre-trial detention until 6 April 2012. After that date, he was under house arrest until 13 March 2013. Subsequently, he was released but restricted to the village of Szada.

While detained, the applicant could make phone calls only to his lawyer, his correspondence and his receiving visitors was allowed only under the prosecutor’s supervision and he was not authorised to have contact with his diabetic son.

The applicant submits that all the orders prolonging the coercive measures reiterated, in a rather stereotypical manner, the risk of his absconding, although without specifying any particular risk other than his foreign connections. Moreover, the prosecution’s motions to have the detention prolonged were either not communicated to him or were communicated only very belatedly, depriving him of any real opportunity to produce counter-arguments.

On 5 July 2013 the applicant was convicted of spying and sentenced to two years and 10 months’ imprisonment. The appeal procedure appears to be currently pending.

The applicant’s requests to various authorities to have the confidentiality restrictions applying in his case lifted were to no avail.

COMPLAINTS

The applicant complains under Article 5 § 1 (c) about the allegedly unlawful coercive measures, under Articles 5 § 4 and 13 about the non-respect of the equality of arms in the adversarial proceedings concerning his requests for release.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1.  Was the length of the applicant’s pre-trial detention in breach of the “reasonable time” requirement of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention, having regard to the requirement of an individualised assessment of the detainee’s personal circumstances potentially warranting his deprivation of liberty (cf. Labita v. Italy [GC], no. 26772/95, § 152, ECHR 2000-IV) and of the possibility of applying less stringent measures (cf. Ambruszkiewicz v. Poland, no. 38797/03, §§ 32, 33, 4 May 2006)?

2.  Were the proceedings by which the applicant sought to challenge the lawfulness of his pre-trial detention in conformity with Article 5 § 4 of the Convention? In particular, was the principle of “equality of arms” (cf. Nikolova v. Bulgaria [GC], no. 31195/96, § 58, ECHR 1999‑II) respected, in light of the fact that the defence apparently could not get acquainted in time with the prosecutorial motions arguing for the continued detention?