was sent for trial on 17 October 2002 and the authorised detention period expired six months later, that is on 17 April 2003. Since the second applicant was charged with a serious criminal offence, Article 255 of the Code of Criminal Procedure permitted the trial court to approve one or more extensions of his detention of no longer than three months each. However, no such extension was sought by the prosecutor or approved by the trial court before the expiry of the authorised detention period on 17 April 2003 or immediately thereafter. As it happened, a further extension was granted by the Miass Town Court only twenty-eight days later, on 15 May 2003. It follows that the applicant's detention in the intervening period, that is from 17 April to 15 May 2003, was not covered with any detention order, a situation that was incompatible with the Russian Constitution, the Code of Criminal Procedure and the requirements of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention.
49. Even though the Town Court's decision of 15 May 2003 purported to cover the three-month period starting from 17 April 2003 and ending on 17 July 2003, it could not have constituted a "lawful" basis for the second applicant's detention in the period preceding the date of its issue. The Russian Constitutional Court emphasised that Russian law did not contain "any provisions permitting the court to take a decision extending the defendant's detention on remand [some time] after the previously authorised time-limit ha[d] expired, in which case the person [would be] detained for a period without a judicial decision" (as cited in the Khudoyorov judgment, § 56). As the Court has already found in many similar cases, any ex post facto authorisation of detention is incompatible with the "right to security of person", as it is necessarily tainted with arbitrariness (see Lamazhyk v. Russia, No. 20571/04, § 70, 30 July 2009; Moskovets v. Russia, No. 14370/03, § 64, 23 April 2009; Belov v. Russia, No. 22053/02, § 81, 3 July 2008; Shukhardin v. Russia, No. 65734/01, § 69, 28 June 2007; Solovyev v. Russia, No. 2708/02, § 99, 24 May 2007; and Khudoyorov, cited above, § 142).
50. There has therefore been a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention on account of the second applicant's unlawful detention from 17 April to 15 May 2003.
III. Alleged violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention
on account of the excessive length of the first set
of criminal proceedings
51. The first applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the first set of criminal proceedings against him had been excessively long. The relevant parts of Article 6 read as follows:
"In the determination of... any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a... hearing within a reasonable time by [a]... tribunal..."
A. Admissibility
52. The Court notes that this complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention. It further notes that it is not inadmissible on any other ground. It must therefore be declared admissible.
B. Merits
1. Period to be considered
53. The Court notes that the first applicant was arrested on 14 January 1995. However, the period to be taken into consideration for the purposes of the present case began only on 5 May 1998, when the Convention entered into force in respect of Russia. In assessing the reasonableness of the time that elapsed after that date, account must nevertheless be taken of the state of the proceedings at that time. The period in question ended on 27 December 2002, when the Supreme Court upheld the first applicant's conviction on appeal. It had lasted, accordingly, a total of seven years eleven months and thirteen days, of which four years and almost eight months fall within the Court's jurisdi
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