CCPR/C/126/D/2570/2015 prisoners; prisoners convoyed to court hearings without a proper food supply; untimely and inefficient investigation of the instances of bodily harm being inflicted on prisoners; and cell toilets in improper conditions and with no flushes. 10 For the author, such violations do have per se a systemic character and affect every detainee of the SIZOs, irrespective of his status of political or common criminal, his race, nationality, religion etc. 3.5 SIZO No. 30 is particularly problematic. The European Court of Human Rights has already found Ukraine in violation of article 3 of the European Convention with regard to the detention conditions in that facility. 11 Although in that case the Court addressed the particular issue of medical assistance during detention rather than the conditions of SIZO No. 30 as such – and although the decision refers to the past – more recent judgments of the Court show that average conditions of detention in SIZOs have not improved since 2005 and that not only medical assistance is at issue. 12 3.6 Invoking article 10 (1) of the Covenant, the author emphasizes that the Committee has repeatedly found in similar cases that conditions of detention in Ukraine amount to inhuman treatment.13 Moreover, conditions of detention in Ukrainian SIZOs could actually be worse than a few years ago owing to the current military crisis and political unrest in the country. 3.7 Invoking article 9 (1), (3) and (4) of the Covenant, the author submits that his extradition to Ukraine would put him at real risk of suffering indefinite pretrial detention in SIZO No. 30 and of being deprived of the right to challenge the lawfulness of his detention. Reports indicate “the excessive use and length of pre-trial detention” in Ukraine.14 While the Italian judicial and executive authorities did not find an established risk in the case of extradition to Ukraine, the British courts consistently deny requests by Ukraine for this very reason.15 The author concedes that the new Ukrainian Code of Criminal Procedure, which entered into force on 20 December 2012, provides a remedy to challenge the legality of pretrial detention. However, it is not effective in practice, as upheld by OHCHR reports about lengthy pretrial detention. 16 3.8 Finally, the decision of inadmissibility delivered by the European Court of Human Rights does not amount to a real assessment of the substance of the author’s complaints. Accordingly, his case cannot be considered as having been “examined” under another procedure of international investigation or settlement. 17 State party’s observations on admissibility and the merits 4.1 In its submissions dated 14 May 2015, the State party recalls that the author’s case has been declared inadmissible by the European Court of Human Rights. It also recalls that extradition proceedings between Italy and Ukraine are regulated in accordance with the European Convention on Extradition and that Ukraine has been a member of the Council of Europe since 1995, having ratified the European Convention on Human Rights. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 See Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, “Monitoring of custodial settings in Ukraine. Current implementation of the national preventive mechanism: report 2012” (2013), pp. 80– 83, available from www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/OPCAT/NPM/AnnualReport 2012_Ukraine.pdf. See European Court of Human Rights, Ukhan v. Ukraine, application No. 30628/02, 18 December 2008. See European Court of Human Rights, Buglov v. Ukraine, application No. 28825/02, 10 July 2014, and Osakovskiy v. Ukraine, application No. 13406/06, 17 July 2014. See Zheludkova v. Ukraine (CCPR/C/76/D/726/1996) and Butovenko v. Ukraine (CCPR/C/102/D/1412/2005). See Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), “Report on the human rights situation in Ukraine” (15 April 2014), para. 43, and Zheludkova v. Ukraine, paras. 8.2– 8.3. See, for example, High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Decision, Government of Ukraine v. Igor Lutsyuk, judgment of 18 January 2013. OHCHR, “Report on the human rights situation in Ukraine”, para. 45. See Weiss v. Austria (CCPR/C/77/D/1086/2002), para. 8.3. 5