issued by the Registrar of the Court
ECHR 191 (2012)
03.05.2012
Judgments concerning Azerbaijan, Germany, Greece, Poland,
Russia, Slovakia, Turkey
The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing the following 14
judgments, of which 9 (in italics) are Committee judgments and are final. The others are
Chamber judgments1 and are not final.
Repetitive cases2 and length-of-proceedings cases, with the Court’s main finding
indicated, can be found at the end of the press release. The judgments available only in
French are indicated with an asterisk (*).
Nitsov v. Russia (no. 35389/04)
The applicant, Valentin Nitsov, is a Russian national who was born in 1964 and lives in
Goryunok, the Kirov Region (Russia). The case concerned his allegation that he had been
tortured by police officers for several hours in August 2003 when being held in custody
on suspicion of the attempted murder of one of their colleagues, despite the fact that he
had already voluntarily confessed to the offence. He was subsequently convicted and
sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment, later reduced to eight years. Relying in particular
on Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), he alleged that he had
been ill-treated by the police out of revenge for his shooting their colleague and that the
subsequent investigation into his allegation had been inadequate.
Violation of Article 3 (beatings inflicted on the applicant by the police after his arrest)
Violation of Article 3 (effective investigation)
Just satisfaction: EUR 15,000 (non-pecuniary damage) and EUR 350 (costs and
expenses)
Salikhov v. Russia (no. 23880/05)
The applicant, Valery Salikhov, is a Russian national who was born in 1965 and lived in
Novosibirsk before being arrested in June 2004 on suspicion of rape. The case concerned
his complaint that, while being held for questioning on that offence, police officers had
beaten him with truncheons and, pinning him down, forcibly removed his underwear and
cut his fingernails in order to obtain evidence of the rape. He was then paraded naked
from the waist down around the police station. He also claimed that officials
subsequently had attempted to take a blood sample from him by force. He complained of
further ill-treatment in October 2004 when taken to a hearing concerning the extension
of his detention, alleging that he had been beaten beforehand and presented to the
judge bloody, barefoot, wet and dirty. He also complained that the investigations into
both these allegations of ill-treatment had been ineffective. He relied on Article 3
1
Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, Chamber judgments are not final. During the three-month
period following a judgment’s delivery, any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber
of the Court. If such a request is made, a panel of five judges considers whether the case deserves further
examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a final judgment. If the referral
request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day. Under Article 28 of the Convention,
judgments delivered by a Committee are final.
Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for
supervision of its execution. Further information about the execution process can be found here:
2
In which the Court has reached the same findings as in similar cases raising the same issues under the
Convention.
