y for the protection of human rights that the Contracting Parties have agreed to establish. Accordingly, the Court has recognised that Article 35 § 1 must be applied with some degree of flexibility and without excessive formalism. The rule is neither absolute nor capable of being applied automatically. In reviewing whether it has been observed it is essential to have regard to the particular circumstances of each case. This means, amongst other things, that the Court must take realistic account of the general legal and political context in which the remedies operate, as well as the personal circumstances of the applicant (see Estrikh v. Latvia, No. 73819/01, §§ 92 and 94, 18 January 2007, with further references).
75. Although the applicant did not lodge appeals against the extension orders issued before April 2005, he appealed to the Supreme Court against the detention orders of 7 April, 29 June and 4 October 2005, and 2 October 2006. He thereby gave an opportunity to the Supreme Court to consider whether his detention was compatible with his Convention right to trial within a reasonable time or release pending trial. Indeed, the Supreme Court had to assess the necessity of further extensions in the light of the entire preceding period of detention, taking into account how much time had already been spent in custody.
76. As regards the subsequent period, the Court notes that after the applicant had appealed to the Supreme Court against four extension orders, arguing that they had been founded on insufficient reasons, and all of them had been rejected, it is understandable that in such circumstances doubts could arise in the applicant's mind as to the effectiveness of further appeals. Although mere doubts as to the prospects of success of national remedies do not absolve an applicant from the obligation to exhaust those remedies, in a situation where he had repeatedly and unsuccessfully used a remedy, his failure to have further recourse to it on assumption that it would offer little if any prospects of success cannot be said to have been unreasonable. The Court notes that in his appeal submissions against the extension order of 2 October 2006 the applicant argued that the risk of interference with the proceedings no longer existed, as all the witnesses for the prosecution had already been questioned by the trial court and the prosecution had finished submitting their evidence (see paragraph 31 above). Nothing in the case file indicates that the applicant's circumstances materially changed after the Supreme Court dismissed that appeal on 28 December 2006, or that any new factors emerged subsequently that could have altered the position of the Supreme Court. The Court finds that, having regard to the practical realities of the applicant's position, it could not be said that an appeal to the Supreme Court against the subsequent extension orders, which were based on the same reasons as the extension order of 2 October 2006, had any reasonable prospects of success.
77. The Court concludes, in light of the above, that the application cannot be rejected for failure to exhaust domestic remedies. It further notes that the application is not inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible.
B. Merits
1. Arguments by the parties
78. The Government argued that the applicant had been charged with many particularly serious criminal offences. He was moreover suspected of being an active member of an armed criminal gang committing crimes on a regular basis and presenting an increased danger to society. Referring to the case of Contrada v. Italy (24 August 1998, § 67, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998-V), they submitted that his membership of a mafia-type organisation with a rigid hierarchical structure and substantial power of intimidation had complicated and lengthened the criminal proceedings. It had
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