after the communication of the present application to the Government. Furthermore, no effective measures were taken to establish what had happened to Kazbek Vakhayev and the other three detainees. The officers of the Urus-Martan VOVD who had held them in custody had not been questioned. The investigation had been repeatedly suspended and resumed, which had only added to the delay. Finally, the applicants had not been properly informed of the most important investigative steps.
145. The Government submitted that a considerable number of investigative actions had been conducted and that persons having victim status in the proceedings had been duly informed of them.
2. The Court's assessment
146. The Court reiterates that the obligation to protect the right to life under Article 2 of the Convention, read in conjunction with the State's general duty under Article 1 of the Convention to "secure to everyone within [its] jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in [the] Convention", also requires by implication that there should be some form of effective official investigation when individuals have been killed as a result of the use of force (see, mutatis mutandis, McCann and Others, cited above, p. 49, § 161, and Kaya v. Turkey, 19 February 1998, § 86, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998-I). The essential purpose of such investigation is to secure the effective implementation of the domestic laws which protect the right to life and, in those cases involving State agents or bodies, to ensure their accountability for deaths occurring under their responsibility. This investigation should be independent, accessible to the victim's family, carried out with reasonable promptness and expedition, effective in the sense that it is capable of leading to a determination of whether the force used in such cases was or was not justified in the circumstances or otherwise unlawful, and afford a sufficient element of public scrutiny of the investigation or its results (see Hugh Jordan v. the United Kingdom, No. 24746/94, §§ 105 - 109, 4 May 2001, and Douglas-Williams v. the United Kingdom (dec.), No. 56413/00, 8 January 2002).
147. The Court notes at the outset that all the documents from the investigation were not disclosed by the Government. It therefore has to assess the effectiveness of the investigation on the basis of the few documents submitted by the parties and the information about its progress presented by the Government.
148. Turning to the facts of the case, the Court notes that, according to the applicants, the first applicant applied to the authorities asking for assistance in establishing the whereabouts of Kazbek Vakhayev on 15 August 2000. On 20 August 2000 she received a prosecutor's reply to her query. This information is not contested by the Government. However, an official investigation was not opened until 18 October 2000, that is, approximately two months later. This delay, for which no explanation has been provided, was in itself liable to affect the investigation into a disappearance in life-threatening circumstances, where crucial action must be taken in the first days after the events complained of.
149. The Court observes that on 31 October 2000 the second applicant and on 11 November 2000 the first applicant were granted victim status in the proceedings. However, it appears that a number of crucial steps were subsequently delayed and were eventually taken only after the communication of the complaint to the respondent Government, or not at all.
150. In particular, according to the information available to the Court, between October 2000 and September 2006 the investigating authorities questioned the first and second applicants. However, the Government did not furnish the transcripts of these interviews. Accordingly, it is impossible to establish conclusively whether they were actually conducted.
> 1 2 3 ... 13 14 15 ... 21 22 23
Zaki.ru законы и право
поиск по сайту
каталог документов
добавить сайт Zaki.ru в избранное
Правовые акты международные
Правовые акты Российской Федерации
