a choice between either bringing an accused to trial within a reasonable time or granting him provisional release pending trial. Until his conviction, the accused must be presumed innocent, and the purpose of the provision under consideration is essentially to require his provisional release once his continued detention ceases to be reasonable. A person charged with an offence must always be released pending trial unless the State can show that there are "relevant and sufficient" reasons to justify the continued detention (see, among other authorities, Castravet v. Moldova, No. 23393/05, §§ 30 and 32, 13 March 2007; McKay v. the United Kingdom [GC], No. 543/03, § 41, ECHR 2006-...; and {Jablonski} v. Poland, No. 33492/96, § 83, 21 December 2000). Article 5 § 3 of the Convention cannot be seen as unconditionally authorising detention provided that it lasts no longer than a certain period. Justification for any period of detention, no matter how short, must be convincingly demonstrated by the authorities (see Shishkov v. Bulgaria, No. 38822/97, § 66, ECHR 2003-I (extracts)).
112. It is incumbent on the domestic authorities to establish the existence of specific facts relevant to the grounds for continued detention. Shifting the burden of proof to the detained person in such matters is tantamount to overturning the rule of Article 5 of the Convention, a provision which makes detention an exceptional departure from the right to liberty and one that is only permissible in exhaustively enumerated and strictly defined cases (see Rokhlina v. Russia, No. 54071/00, § 67, 7 April 2005; and Ilijkov v. Bulgaria, No. 33977/96, §§ 84 - 85, 26 July 2001). The national judicial authorities must examine all the facts for or against the existence of a genuine requirement of public interest justifying, with due regard to the principle of the presumption of innocence, a departure from the rule of respect for individual liberty, and must set them out in their decisions dismissing the applications for release. It is not the Court's task to establish such facts and take the place of the national authorities who ruled on the applicant's detention. It is essentially on the basis of the reasons given in the domestic courts' decisions and of the established facts stated by the applicant in his appeals that the Court is called upon to decide whether or not there has been a violation of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention (see Korchuganova, cited above, § 72).
(b) Application to the present case
113. The Court observes that the applicant's detention pending trial lasted from 4 April 2004, the date of arrest, to 13 January 2006, the date of conviction. The overall duration thus amounted to one year, nine months and ten days.
114. It is not disputed by the parties that the applicant's detention was initially warranted by a reasonable suspicion of his involvement in the commission of drug-related offences. It remains to be ascertained whether the judicial authorities gave "relevant" and "sufficient" grounds to justify his continued detention and whether they displayed "special diligence" in the conduct of the proceedings.
115. The Government asserted that the length of the applicant's pre-trial detention was a result of the particular complexity of his criminal case. The Court readily accepts that when fighting organised crime the investigative authorities may indeed face serious obstacles that would cause delays in the course of an investigation. However, it is not persuaded that a criminal case concerning four instances of drug offences and involving two co-accused could be considered as one related to organised crime. Therefore, the alleged complexity of the criminal case cannot in itself justify lengthy detention pending trial.
116. During the entire period of the applicant's detention the district court ordered extensions of detention on the basis of the gravity of
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