ing upon the procedural and substantive conditions which are essential for the "lawfulness", in the sense of the Convention, of their deprivation of liberty. This means that the competent court has to examine "not only compliance with the procedural requirements set out in domestic law but also the reasonableness of the suspicion grounding the arrest and the legitimacy of the purpose pursued by the arrest and the ensuing detention". A court examining the lawfulness of detention must provide guarantees of a judicial procedure. The proceedings must be adversarial and must always ensure "equality of arms" between the parties, the prosecutor and the detained person. Equality of arms is not ensured if counsel is denied access to those documents in the investigation file which are essential in order effectively to challenge the lawfulness of his client's detention (see Nikolova v. Bulgaria [GC], No. 31195/96, § 58, ECHR 1999-II, and Lamy v. Belgium, 30 March 1989, § 29, Series A No. 151). While national law may satisfy the requirement of "equality of arms" in various ways, whatever method is chosen should ensure that the other party will be aware that observations have been filed and will have a real opportunity to comment thereon (see Garcia Alva v. Germany, No. 23541/94, § 39, 13 February 2001).
103. The applicant in the present case did not allege that he had not received copies of the prosecutor's requests for extension. Nor did he claim that he had been denied an opportunity to comment on them. The thrust of his complain was directed against the domestic court's alleged refusal to grant him access to the materials which formed the basis for the prosecutor's requests for extension. The Court is, however, not convinced by the applicant's allegation. It was examined and rejected by the Regional Court which noted that it had at its disposal only the materials from the criminal case file and that that file had been studied by the applicant (see paragraph 38 above). The applicant did not submit any evidence to the contrary. There is no indication that the prosecutor relied on any documents which were not included in the criminal case file or that at any stage of the proceedings the applicant was denied access to the file. The Court is satisfied that the applicant was able to consult the documents in the criminal file and to comment on the prosecutor's requests for extension (see, by contrast, Nikolova, cited above, § 63, and Garcia Alva, cited above, §§ 40 to 43). Accordingly, he had an effective opportunity to challenge the reasons for his detention.
104. It follows that this complaint is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
2. The alleged failure to examine the appeal
of 14 April 2005
105. The Government submitted that the appeal had been examined on 8 June 2005, while the applicant had lodged his application on 14 February 2006. Therefore, the Government invited the Court to reject this complaint for non-compliance with the six-month rule.
106. The Court reiterates that, according to Article 35 § 1 of the Convention, it "may only deal with [a] matter... within a period of six months from the date on which the final decision was taken". The Commission and the Court consistently interpreted this rule to the effect that the six-month period begins to run from the moment when the applicant has learned or should have learned of the final domestic decision or, if no remedy is available, of the act of which he complains (see Sutyazhnik v. Russia (dec.), No. 8269/02, 2 March 2006, and Hilton v. the United Kingdom (dec.), No. 12015/86, 6 July 1988).
107. The Court notes that the Government did not produce any evidence showing that the applicant or his counsel had been notified about the date of the appeal hearing or that a copy of the appeal decision of
> 1 2 3 ... 14 15 16 17 ... 18
Zaki.ru законы и право
поиск по сайту
каталог документов
добавить сайт Zaki.ru в избранное
Правовые акты международные
Правовые акты Российской Федерации
