e 5 § 1.
98. The Court reiterates that the terms "lawful" and "in accordance with a procedure prescribed by law" used in Article 5 § 1 of the Convention essentially refer back to national law and state the obligation to conform to the substantive and procedural rules thereof. The Convention requires in addition that any deprivation of liberty should be in conformity with the purpose of Article 5, which is to prevent persons from being deprived of their liberty in an arbitrary fashion (see Erkalo v. the Netherlands, 2 September 1998, § 52, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998-VI).
99. It is in the first place for the national authorities, notably the courts, to interpret and apply domestic law. However, since under Article 5 § 1 failure to comply with domestic law entails a breach of the Convention, it follows that the Court can and should exercise a certain power to review whether this law has been complied with. A period of detention will in principle be lawful if it is carried out pursuant to a court order (see Douiyeb v. the Netherlands [GC], No. 31464/96, §§ 44 - 45, 4 August 1999). Given the importance of personal liberty, it is essential that the applicable national law should meet the standard of "lawfulness" set by the Convention, which requires that all law, whether written or unwritten, be sufficiently precise to allow the citizen - if need be, with appropriate advice - to foresee, to a degree that is reasonable in the circumstances, the consequences which a given action may entail (see Steel and Others v. the United Kingdom, 23 September 1998, § 54, Reports 1998-VII).
100. The Court reiterates that detention without a court order or other clear legal ground, regardless of the maximum length for it that might be established by national law, is incompatible with the standard of "lawfulness", enshrined in Article 5 § 1 since during the time of unauthorised detention an individual would be kept in a legal vacuum not covered by any domestic legal provision (see Khudoyorov v. Russia, No. 6847/02, § 149, ECHR 2005-X (extracts); and Lebedev v. Russia, No. 4493/04, § 57, 25 October 2007).
101. Further, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation condemned the practice of interpretation of Article 227 § 3 that would allow detention up to fourteen days without a court order as unconstitutional (see paragraph 70 above). In these circumstances the Court finds that the applicant's detention upon receipt of the case file by the district court was not "lawful" for Convention purposes.
102. The Court concludes that the applicant's detention between 4 and 16 August 2004 lacked a legal basis and was therefore "unlawful". Consequently, there has been a breach of Article 5 § 1 in this respect.
III. Alleged violation of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention
103. The applicant complained of a violation of his right to trial within a reasonable time and alleged that detention orders had not been founded on sufficient reasons. He relied on Article 5 § 3 of the Convention, which provides:
"Everyone arrested or detained in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 1 (c) of this Article shall be... entitled to trial within a reasonable time or to release pending trial. Release may be conditioned by guarantees to appear for trial."
A. The parties' submissions
104. The Government submitted that the applicant and his co-accused had been charged with four particularly serious criminal offences, which, in their view, meant that the two suspects had been involved in organised crime. Referring to the case of Contrada v. Italy (24 August 1998, § 67, Reports 1998-V), they submitted that the criminal proceedings against the applicant had been particularly complicated and time-consuming. The Government suggested that once at liberty, the applicant, a foreign national, could have absconded, in
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