CCPR/C/122/D/3090/2017
CCPR/C/122/D/3091/2017
of Appeal endorsed the Regional Court’s judgment, ruling that the author had failed to
exhaust the remedies available to him under the law, and that the claim that his arrest was
the result of gross negligence on the part of the State was unjustified. 6 With regard to the
conditions governing his continued remand in custody, the Court of Appeal did not contest
the fact that the author was not interrogated within 24 hours of his arrest. It pointed out,
however, that the provisions of article 133 of the Code of Criminal Procedure that set the
time limit were not applicable at the material time. On 20 June 2012, the Court of Cassation
dismissed the author’s appeal, based on the Judicial Code, claiming compensation for
damage caused by the improper administration of justice. The Court noted that, at the time
of his arrest and when he appeared before the Criminal Court, the author had failed to
exercise all available legal remedies in order to establish the alleged unlawfulness of his
arrest. It found, in addition, that the divergent assessments of the court of first instance and
the Court of Appeal as to the advisability of maintaining him in custody demonstrated the
effectiveness of the principle of two-tier proceedings, which offered redress for alleged
maladministration of justice.
Proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights
2.15 On 12 April 2001, the author filed a complaint against France with the European
Court of Human Rights. Invoking article 6 (1) of the European Convention on Human
Rights, he complained that he had not received a fair and public hearing before the Court of
Cassation (see the end of paragraph 2.12 above).
2.16 Invoking article 5 (1) of the Convention, he complained of the arbitrary nature of his
detention between June and November 1997. He argued first that, given the duration of the
criminal proceedings, the request for remand detention pending extradition could not be
based on urgency and that this procedural defect rendered the subsequent detention
arbitrary. Secondly, he argued that his detention from 4 November 1997, the date on which
he was turned over to the French authorities, until 10 November 1997, the day of the
criminal court hearing, was legally permissible for a maximum of four days. Lastly, the
author argued that the decision by the Lille Criminal Court on 10 November 1997 to
maintain him in detention violated domestic law. Claiming that he had been denied the
possibility of applying for compensation for the damage caused by his detention, the author
requested compensation under article 5 (5) of the Convention.
2.17 Invoking article 6 (1) of the Convention, the author complained of the inequity of
the decisions taken during the legal proceedings. He questioned their grounds, argued that
the courts had not taken his arguments into account and had not responded to them, and
challenged their assessment of the facts. He also complained about the duration of the
criminal proceedings.
2.18 The author also claimed that article 13 of the Convention had been violated
inasmuch as he had been denied an effective remedy in the form of compensation for the
damages he had suffered as a result of the alleged violations of the Convention.
2.19 In a partial decision on admissibility delivered on 18 March 2003, the European
Court dismissed the complaint against his alleged arbitrary detention as late, and concluded
that the complaints concerning compensation for detention-related damages and the
inequity of the decisions were manifestly ill-founded inasmuch as the author had been
given the opportunity to present his arguments to the criminal courts, which had responded
by handing down rulings that contained the requisite statement of grounds. The Court also
ruled that the author had failed to exhaust domestic remedies in respect of his complaint
concerning the duration of the proceedings at issue, and that the complaint based on article
13 was manifestly unfounded, since the author had not filed any complaint to which article
13 was applicable.
2.20 By a judgment of 2 November 2004, the European Court declared manifestly
unfounded the author’s complaint concerning the impossibility of obtaining compensation
6
4
The Court also held that the request for arrest stemmed solely from the arrest warrant and that
responsibility for deciding whether it should be granted lay with the authority that received the
request, so that the author’s attempt to assign responsibility to the French State was unfounded.
GE.18-10755