n which ended on 14 March 2002. They pointed out that her only application for release in this period was dismissed on 22 August 2001, and the applicant did not lodge an appeal against that decision. As to her complaint about the delay in the examination of her request of 9 December 2002, they contested the date on which the request had been lodged with the court. According to the Government, the copy of the request submitted by the applicant did not indicate any date and had been made by the applicant at the court hearing on 20 January 2003, where it had been immediately examined.
93. The applicant maintained her complaints. In reply to the Government's allegation that no request had been submitted by her on 9 December 2002, she provided a copy of that request, endorsed and signed by the recipient, allegedly a court official, on that date. She claimed that this application had been ignored, as had her earlier application lodged on 20 November 2002
B. The Court's assessment
1. Admissibility
94. The Court notes the Government's objection as to the exhaustion of domestic remedies in relation to the first period of her pre-trial detention, that is, before 14 March 2002. It notes that the applicant claimed that she had lodged an application for release by sending a cable to the Tambov Regional Court on 10 December 2001. It observes, however, that following this request, on 19 December 2001 the court took a decision authorising the applicant's further detention. As the Court found above (see paragraph 62), this was the last decision concerning the lawfulness of the applicant's detention during the first set of proceedings and it was taken more than six months before the applicant lodged her application with the Court. Accordingly, the Court has competence to examine only the complaint related to the release application which was determined on 20 January 2003.
95. The Court notes that the latter complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention and is not inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible.
2. Merits
(a) General principles
96. The Court reiterates that Article 5 § 4, in guaranteeing to persons arrested or detained the right to take proceedings to challenge the lawfulness of their detention, also proclaims their right, following the institution of such proceedings, to a speedy judicial decision on the lawfulness of the detention and the ordering of its termination if it proves unlawful. Although it does not compel the Contracting States to set up a second level of jurisdiction for the examination of the lawfulness of detention, a State which institutes such a system must in principle accord to detainees the same guarantees on appeal as at first instance (see Navarra v. France, 23 November 1993, § 28, Series A No. 273-B, and Toth v. Austria, 12 December 1991, § 84, Series A No. 224). The requirement that a decision be given "speedily" is undeniably one such guarantee and Article 5 § 4, concerning issues of liberty, requires particular expedition (see Hutchison Reid v. the United Kingdom, No. 50272/99, § 79, ECHR 2003-IV). In that context, the Court also observes that there is a special need for a swift decision determining the lawfulness of detention in cases where a trial is pending, because the defendant should benefit fully from the principle of the presumption of innocence (see {Ilowiecki} v. Poland, No. 27504/95, § 76, 4 October 2001).
(b) Application of the general principles to the present case
97. The Court observes that the Government did not comment on the applicant's allegation that counsel Kh. had lodged an application for release on 20 November 2002, but they contested the one allegedly filed by lay representative R. on 9 December 2002. According to the Go
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