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issued by the Registrar of the Court ECHR 355 (2013) 04.12.2013 Forthcoming judgments The European Court of Human Rights will be notifying in writing 16 judgments on Tuesday 10 December 2013 and nine on Thursday 12 December 2013. Press releases and texts of the judgments will be available at 10 a.m. (local time) on the Court's Internet site (www.echr.coe.int) Tuesday 10 December 2013 Hunvald v. Hungary (application no. 68435/10) The applicant, Gy. Hunvald, is a Hungarian national who was born in 1965 and lives in Budapest. He is the former Mayor of the Budapest 7th District Municipality. The case concerns his pre-trial detention, after being arrested in February 2009 and charged with a number of crimes, including aggravated fraud. For almost all of the period from 12 February 2009 until his release on 29 October 2011, Mr Hunvald was detained on remand. The Hungarian courts justified his continued pre-trial detention on the grounds that there was a risk that Mr Hunvald would interfere with the investigation, or that he would abscond. Mr Hunvald opposed and appealed his detention on numerous occasions, arguing that the courts' fears were unsubstantiated. All of these applications failed. He was partially convicted at first instance, and his appeal of this decision is still pending. Relying on Article 5 (right to liberty and security) of the European Convention on Human Rights, Mr Hunvald complains that his pre-trial detention was unjustified, because the Hungarian courts failed to present any concrete reasons for it. Nekvedavicius v. Lithuania (no. 1471/05) The applicant, Christian Nekvedavicius, is a Lithuanian and German national who was born in 1946 and lives in M�nster (Germany). The case concerns the ownership of a plot of land with two houses on it in the city centre of Kaunas, Lithuania. The plot was nationalised following the Soviet occupation in the 1940s. Ownership of the houses was attributed to Mr Nekvedavicius' father's former wife, who continued living there until ownership was transferred to third persons in the 1960s. After Lithuania regained independence in 1990, Mr Nekvedavicius started proceedings to regain ownership. The administrative and civil suits he brought attempting to repossess the buildings were unsuccessful, but he did obtain a judgment in his favour in relation to ownership of the plot of land in November 2001. However, the Lithuanian courts held that it was not possible to return the original land to him because it was being used by other people. Since then there have been a number of investigations and court hearings but Mr Nekvedavicius has not been compensated for the loss of the land. Relying on Article 6 � 1 (right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time) and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) to the Convention, Mr Nekvedavicius complains that the court judgment of November 2001 ordering the authorities to restore his ownership rights to the land has not been enforced, and the Lithuanian authorities have failed to provide him with either the plot of land in its original form or equivalent compensation. Ceachir v. the Republic of Moldova (no. 50115/06) The applicant, Tamara Ceachir, is a Moldovan national who was born in 1941 and lives in Chiinu. On 17 October 2000 she had a dispute with a woman selling goods at Chiinu central market, which degenerated into a violent altercation during which blows were exchanged. Ms Ceachir was taken to hospital, where she was diagnosed with a head injury and concussion. The applicant complains of the fact that the proceedings in her case were discontinued by a judgment of 28 December 2005 on the ground that the prosecution was time-barred. Murray v. the Netherlands (no. 10511/10) The applicant, James Clifton Murray, is a Dutch national who was born in 1953. He is officially detained in a Correctional Institution on the island of Aruba, part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the southern Caribbean. As far as the Court is aware, however, he is currently in a nursing home on the island of Cura�ao due to health issues. The case concerns the legality and conditions of Mr Murray's imprisonment, which began following his conviction for murder in March 1980. Finding that he had killed a 6 year-old niece of a former girlfriend as revenge for her ending of their relationship, the court of the Netherlands Antilles imposed a life sentence on Mr Murray. He launched an appeal, filed a request for revision, and has submitted repeated requests for pardons; however, all of these have been unsuccessful. Mr Murray served his sentence in a state prison on Cura�ao until around 2000, when he was transferred to the Aruba Correctional Institution. In September 2012 the Aruba courts submitted Mr Murray's sentence to periodic review. Taking into account a number of psychological reports, which found that he suffers from mental health problems, the court decided that Mr Murray's imprisonment should continue as it still served a purpose after 33 years. Mr Murray complains that the imposition of a life sentence without possibility of regular review by a court and without hope of release violates Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) and Article 5 � 4 (right to have lawfulness of detention decided speedily by a court). He also relies on Article 3 to complain of the conditions of his detention; in particular, that the prison authorities did not protect inmates from inter-prisoner violence (which he had to witness), that he himself had been ill-treated by other prisoners, that he had not been placed in a special regime on account of his life sentence or mental condition, and that in late 2010 and early 2011 rainwater had flooded the prisoners' cells. Lastly, Mr Murray relies on Article 5 � 1 (right to liberty and security) to complain that he is no longer a danger to society, that he has fulfilled the punitive part of his sentence, and that there is therefore no reason for his detention to continue. Botea v. Romania (no. 40872/04) The applicant, tefan Lucian Botea, is a Romanian national who was born in 1973 and lives in Bucharest. Mr Botea, a former police officer, complains about the fairness of his trial for conspiracy to commit bribery. In January 2004, Mr Botea was convicted and sentenced to two years' imprisonment for facilitating bribery, in an incident where a prosecutor was offered a bribe in order to revoke an international arrest warrant. Prior to his trial, Mr Botea had opposed the use of transcripts of phone conversations as evidence, because he claimed that the recordings had been made unlawfully. After the trial court had attempted and failed to obtain an expert report to establish the recordings' authenticity, it held that they should not be given in evidence. The transcripts were nevertheless included in the case file, and the trial court's judgment indicated that they provided firm evidence of the defendants' guilt. Mr Botea appealed the judgment, but this was dismissed in May 2004. Relying on Article 6 � 1 (right to a fair trial), Mr Botea complains that his conviction was based mainly on material that should not have been admitted as evidence, and that though he raised this issue in his grounds of appeal, the appeal court had not addressed this problem in its decision to dismiss his complaint. Oprea v. Romania (no. 26765/05) The applicant, Constantin Oprea, is a Romanian national who was born in 1952 and lives in Strasswalchen (Austria). In October 1994 he was sentenced in absentia by a Romanian court to two years and ten months' imprisonment for theft; he did not serve the sentence because he was living in Austria. In October 2006 the Romanian court found that enforcement of the sentence had become time-barred and revoked the writ of execution. On 23 December 2006 the applicant was arrested at the Romanian border on his way to visit his family in Romania and was imprisoned with a view to enforcement of the sentence passed in October 1994. He was released four days later and claims to have returned to Austria immediately in a state of shock. Relying on Article 5 � 1 (right to liberty and security), Mr Oprea alleges that he was detained from 23 to 27 December without any legal basis. Krsti v. Serbia (no. 45394/06) The applicant, Branimir Krsti, is a Serbian national who was born in 1939 and currently lives in Pirot (Serbia). The case concerns the non-enforcement of a judgment in his favour. In September 1990 Mr Krsti began to receive a pension from the Serbian authorities. In May 1994 the Serbian Pensions Fund awarded an increased pension to him retroactively and ordered the authorities to pay him supplementary pension payments on the basis of the difference between the pension received as of 1990 and the new pension granted retroactively by this decision. The Serbian authorities failed to pay the supplementary pensions. Mr Krsti attempted to obtain outstanding money in civil and enforcement proceedings before the civil courts, but the Serbian courts declined their jurisdiction. They instructed Mr Krsti to initiate administrative enforcement proceedings before the administrative authorities, that being the appropriate legal avenue for enforcement of the decision in question. Relying on Article 6 � 1 (right to a fair hearing/access to court), Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) and Article 13 (right to an effective remedy), Mr Krsti complains that Serbia failed to enforce the decision made in May 1994 to provide him with outstanding pension payments, and that he had no effective remedy for this in the national courts. Gamze Uluda v. Turkey (no. 21292/07) The applicant, Gamze Uluda, is a Turkish national who was born in 1975 and lives in zmir. She was arrested on several occasions and placed in pre-trial detention on suspicion of involvement in drug trafficking. Relying on Article 5 � 3 (right to liberty and security), the applicant complains of the length of her pre-trial detention and of the prosecuting authorities' failure to finalise the investigation phase promptly. Relying on Article 5 � 4 (right to a speedy review of the lawfulness of detention), she further maintains that her inability to consult the investigation file deprived her of the effective exercise of her defence rights during her detention, and complains that she was not brought before a judge at any point during her detention. Hakan Tokta v. Turkey (no. 45336/08) The applicant, Hakan Tokta, is a Turkish national who was born in 1969 and lives in zmir. In 1999 he purchased two plots of land in the municipality of Menemen which were designated as building land under the land-use plan in force at the time. In October 2000 the municipal authorities adopted a new urban development plan and classified the two plots of land as "green space". The District Court, followed by the Supreme Administrative Court, rejected Mr Tokta' application to have the authorities' decision set aside. Mr Tokta alleges an infringement of his right to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property). Relying on Article 6 � 1 (right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time), he alleges that the length of the proceedings before the domestic courts � more than seven years over two levels of jurisdiction � was in breach of the reasonable-time requirement. Leyla Alp and Others v. Turkey (no. 29675/02) The 20 applicants, all women, are Turkish nationals who were being held in �anakkale Prison in October 2000, when a hunger strike was staged in prisons to protest against plans to make prisoners' cells smaller. Some prisoners had embarked on a "death fast" and were refusing medical treatment. On 19 December 2000 the security forces intervened in around 20 prisons. Violent clashes occurred during the operation, known as "Back to life". A gendarme and four prisoners died in �anakkale Prison. Relying in particular on Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), the applicants complain notably of having been injured during the operation and allege that the use of force was excessive and disproportionate. Tek�i and Others v. Turkey (no. 13660/05) The applicants, Halit Tek�i, Ayan Tek�i, S�leyman Tek�i, Sara Tek�i, Havva Tek�i, Lokman Tek�i, Osman Tek�i, Salime Tek�i, Abdurrahman Tek�i, Asya Tek�i, Mehmet Tek�i and �mer Tek�i, are Turkish nationals who live in Hakkari (Turkey). They are the father, mother, brothers and sisters of Nezir Tek�i, who disappeared following a military operation carried out on 28 April 1995 in an area close to the village of Yukari�l�ek. He and other individuals were allegedly apprehended by soldiers and held prisoner in a stable. The others were released but Nezir Tek�i was reportedly handed over to a military unit based in the village of Muan. Relying on Articles 2 (right to life), 6 (right to a fair hearing), 5 (right to liberty and security) and 13 (right to an effective remedy), the applicants allege that their relative Nezir Tek�i disappeared while being detained by military personnel. Repetitive cases The following cases raise issues which have already been submitted to the Court. Dkd-Union Doo v. Serbia (no. 42731/06) This case concerns the non-enforcement of an order issued against a socially/State-owned company to pay an invoice owed to the applicant company. The applicant company relies on Article 6 � 1 (right to a fair hearing). Zarkov v. Serbia (nos. 65437/10 and 65443/10) This case concerns the applicants' complaints about the non-enforcement of a decision given in his favour against a socially/State-owned company. The applicant relies on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property), Article 6 � 1 (right to a fair hearing / access to court) and Article 13 (right to an effective remedy). Tanbay T�ten v. Turkey (no. 38249/09) The case concerns the applicant's complaint that Turkish law allows married men but not married women to use their own surname after marriage and that this amounts to discrimination based on sex. She relies in particular Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) and Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination). Length-of-proceedings cases In the following cases, the applicants complain in particular about the excessive length of (noncriminal) proceedings. Limata and Others v. Italy (nos. 16412/03, 16413/03, 16414/03, 16415/03, 16416/03, 16417/03, 22294/03, 22351/03, 22353/03, 22354/03, and 22355/03) In these cases, in addition to complaining about the length of the proceedings, the applicants allege that the compensation awarded to them under the "Pinto" Act was inadequate. Vilotijevi v. Serbia (no. 26042/06) Thursday 12 December 2013 Zagrebacka banka d.d. v. Croatia (no. 39544/05) The applicant bank, Zagrebacka banka d.d., is a joint stock company incorporated under Croatian law whose office is based in Zagreb. The case concerns enforcement proceedings leading to the seizure of a substantial amount of money from the applicant bank's account. In 1992 the company Textil brought civil proceedings before commercial courts against the applicant bank seeking repayment of the sum it had contributed to founding the bank, plus statutory default interest. In June 1995 the Croatian courts ruled for the plaintiff and ordered the applicant bank to pay 1,100 Croatian kunas (approximately 311,61 German marks at the time), plus statutory default interest. The applicant bank's appeal was dismissed in October 1995 and the judgment became final. The ensuing enforcement proceedings instituted by Retag (the company to which Textil later assigned its claim against the applicant bank) essentially concerned the exact calculation of the statutory default interest on the principal sum the applicant bank had been ordered to pay and resulted in it having to pay some 21,215,000 euros. In parallel bankruptcy proceedings brought against Retag, the applicant bank attempted, unsuccessfully, to delay the distributions of funds seized from it in the enforcement proceedings. Relying on Article 6 � 1 (right to a fair hearing), the applicant bank complains that the enforcement proceedings were unfair: firstly, because the applicant bank had not been able to comment on the final statutory default interest calculated by the domestic payment agency (FINA) at the request of the first-instance court as it had never been communicated to the bank; and, secondly, because the High Commercial Court's judges were not impartial (primarily on account of statements made to the media by one of the judges). The applicant bank also complains under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) and Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) about the seizure itself and/or the subsequent distribution of the sum seized in the bankruptcy proceedings opened against Retag as well as the fact that it had no remedy in the Croatian legal system to recover the sum seized from it in the enforcement proceedings. Kanakis v. Greece (no. 2) (no. 40146/11) The applicant, Vassilios Kanakis, is a Greek national who was born in 1952. He is currently being held in Larissa Prison (Greece). Mr Kanakis was arrested in February 2001 on suspicion of organising international drug trafficking together with an accomplice. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in a first-instance judgment of April 2002 and by a further judgment of December 2008 following appeal and cassation proceedings. Relying on Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), Mr Kanakis complains of the conditions of detention � and in particular of overcrowding � in the four prisons where he has been detained. Khuroshvili v. Greece (no. 58165/10) The applicant, Besik Khuroshvili, is a Georgian national who was born in 1970. The case concerns the applicant's unlawful residence in Greece. The applicant was detained on three occasions over a three-month period but was released each time as the order for his deportation could not be enforced since he had no identity papers. Relying on Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), Mr Khuroshvili complains mainly of his conditions of detention in the Aspropyrgos detention centre for illegal immigrants. Relying on Article 5 �� 1 and 4 (right to liberty and security and right to a speedy decision on the lawfulness of detention), he complains that no steps were taken by the authorities to enforce the deportation order. Lastly, he complains of the fact that no authority ruled on the lawfulness of his detention. Donohoe v. Ireland (no. 19165/08) The applicant, Kenneth Donohoe, is an Irish national who was born in 1978 and has a permanent address in Dublin. The case concerns the fairness of Mr Donohoe's trial and conviction before Ireland's Special Criminal Court for being a member of the IRA. He was found guilty in November 2004 with the help of evidence given by a Chief Superintendent of the Irish police, who stated that it was his belief � based on confidential sources � that Mr Donohoe was a member of the IRA. The defence and prosecution were not allowed to see the material that this belief was based on, but the Special Criminal Court did have access to it. Mr Donohoe sought leave to appeal against his conviction. However, he was refused permission to appeal twice, the final decision being made in October 2007. Relying on Article 6 � 1 (right to a fair trial), the applicant complains that the nondisclosure made his trial unfair as it seriously restricted his defence rights. Khmel v. Russia (no. 20383/04) The applicant, Aleksandr Khmel, is a Russian national who was born in 1960 and lives in Murmansk (Russia). The case concerns the taking and broadcasting of footage of Mr Khmel drunk in a police station when he was a member of the Murmansk regional legislature, and the subsequent legal proceedings. On the afternoon of 27 April 2003, Mr Khmel was taken to a police station on suspicion of drunk driving. He refused to give his name, behaved in an unruly manner and would not leave the building when asked to do so. The police chief invited television crews to the station, and that afternoon Mr Khmel was filmed whilst in a dishevelled state and acting inappropriately. Some of the footage was broadcast on public television the next day. In May 2003 administrative proceedings were brought against Mr Khmel for his actions on the day he was filmed. He was found guilty of various offences, including refusing to take an alcohol test and committing minor disorderly acts. He was fined 1,500 Russian roubles (RUB). In August 2005 he was also found guilty in criminal proceedings of threatening and insulting a public official on the day he was filmed, and fined RUB 7,500. The administrative and criminal judgments against him were upheld on appeal in 2003 and 2005 respectively. Relying on Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life), Mr Khmel complains of the filming of him at the police station and the broadcasting of the footage, which he claims to be unlawful. He also relies on Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 (right not to be tried or punished twice) to complain that the bringing of both the administrative and criminal proceedings against him amounted to double jeopardy. Latipov v. Russia (no. 77658/11) The applicant, Abdulvosi Khakimovich Latipov, is a Tajik national who was born in 1968. He is currently missing. The applicant stated that he had worked as a bodyguard for a Tajik opposition leader between 1992 and 2001, after the outbreak of civil war in Tajikistan in 1992. He entered Russian territory in May 2001. In August of that year the Tajik authorities issued a warrant for his arrest. He was accused of organising a criminal gang which had operated between July 1998 and May 2001. Mr Latipov was arrested at his home in Volgograd in November 2010 and was placed in detention by the Russian authorities pending his extradition. In October 2012 the applicant disappeared in mysterious circumstances. In his application to the Court, Mr Latipov alleged in particular that the enforcement of the Russian authorities' decision to extradite him to Tajikistan would place him at risk of treatment contrary to Article 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment). After Mr Latipov's disappearance in October 2012 his lawyer claimed that he had been abducted and that the Russian security forces had been involved. The Court then requested the Government to submit observations regarding their positive obligation to protect the applicant against the risk of transfer to Tajikistan, their obligation to conduct an effective investigation into the applicant's abduction and the existence of a domestic remedy by which to have the alleged risk of ill-treatment in Tajikistan examined. Repetitive cases The following cases raise issues which have already been submitted to the Court. Andrianova and Others v. Ukraine (no. 10319/04) Malakhova and Others v. Ukraine (no. 35995/09 and 249 other applications) Makara and Others v. Ukraine (no. 40934/06 and 249 other applications) The applicants in these cases complain mainly of the lengthy non-enforcement of decisions in their favour and of the lack of effective domestic remedies in respect of those complaints. They rely on Article 6 � 1 (right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time), Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property). This press release is a document produced by the Registry. It does not bind the Court. Decisions, judgments and further information about the Court can be found on www.echr.coe.int. To receive the Court's press releases, please subscribe here: www.echr.coe.int/RSS/en or follow us on Twitter @ECHRpress. Press contacts [email protected] | tel: +33 3 90 21 42 08 Tracey Turner-Tretz (tel: + 33 3 88 41 35 30) Nina Salomon (tel: + 33 3 90 21 49 79) Denis Lambert (tel: + 33 3 90 21 41 09) Jean Conte (tel: + 33 3 90 21 58 77) The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. 7