Постановление Европейского суда по правам человека от 30.07.2009 "Дело "Сорокин (Sorokin) против Российской Федерации" [рус., англ.]

ise obstruct the proceedings is often particularly high. These factors can justify a relatively longer period of detention. However, they do not give the authorities unlimited power to extend this preventive measure (see Osuch v. Poland, No. 31246/02, § 26, 14 November 2006, and Celejewski v. Poland, No. 17584/04, §§ 37 - 38, 4 May 2006). Taking into account that the applicant was suspected of being an active member of an organised criminal group, the Court accepts that the authorities could justifiably consider that the risk of pressure on witnesses and jurors was initially present. However, the Court is not persuaded that that ground could in itself justify the entire five-year period of the applicant's detention. Indeed, the domestic courts referred to the risk of hampering the proceedings in a summary fashion without pointing to any aspect of the applicant's character or behaviour in support of their conclusion that he was likely to resort to intimidation. In the Court's view, such a generally formulated risk may not serve as justification for the applicant's detention for a period of more than five years. The domestic courts failed to consider the fact that that ground inevitably became less and less relevant with the passage of time. The courts' reasoning did not evolve to reflect the developing situation or to verify whether at the advanced stage of the proceedings that ground retained its sufficiency. The Court is not therefore convinced that, throughout the entire period of the applicant's detention, compelling reasons existed for a fear that he would interfere with witnesses or jurors or otherwise hamper the examination of the case, and certainly not such as to outweigh the applicant's right to trial within a reasonable time or release pending trial.
64. Further, the domestic courts gauged the applicant's potential to reoffend by reference to his unemployment. In this respect, the Court reiterates that it cannot be concluded from this fact alone that the applicant was liable to commit new offences (see Pshevecherskiy v. Russia, No. 28957/02, § 68, 24 May 2007). In any event, the mere absence of permanent employment could not serve as justification for more than five years' detention pending trial.
65. The Court also finds it peculiar that during the period from 6 April 2004 to 31 July 2006, when the applicant was serving a sentence in an unrelated criminal case, the domestic courts continued to refer to the danger of his absconding, reoffending or interfering with witness and jurors in their extension orders. The Court accepts that it may be necessary to issue custody orders in respect of convicted prisoners, for example to make possible the person's transfer from the correctional colony where he is serving his sentence to a detention facility situated in the area where the investigation and trial are conducted. However, in the present case the domestic courts did not refer to such a necessity. Instead, they repeated the stereotyped formula without any assessment of whether, considering that the applicant was detained in a correctional colony, the risk of fleeing from justice, reoffending or intimidating witnesses or jurors was real. The Court considers that the extension orders issued between 6 April 2004 and 31 July 2006 attested to the domestic courts' perfunctory attitude to the applicant's detention, which was extended automatically without concrete relevant facts being addressed or the changing circumstances taken into account. Although it is true that the extension orders issued during that period did not affect the applicant's situation in practical terms, as he was in any event being held after conviction by a competent court, this fact is not decisive for the Court's assessment. The existence of a violation is conceivable even in the absence of prejudice or damage; the question whether an applicant has actually been pl

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