Police abuse and the lack of effective investigations or remedies
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Kaverzin, Afanasyev groups, Karabet and Others, and Belousov v Ukraine (Appl. Nos. 23893/03, 38722/02, 38906/07 and 4494/07)
- Background memo by Vitalia Lebid, Attorney at the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union
- Case summary of the Kaverzin and Afanasiyev groupsby the Council of Europe's Department for the Execution of Judgments
- Action plan by the Ukrainian government
- Kaverzin, Afanasyev groups, Karabet and Others, and Belousov judgments by the ECtHR
This group of cases relates to torture and/or ill-treatment by police, the lack of effective investigations into such complaints and the absence of an effective remedy in this respect, in violation of Article 3 of the Convention. In some of the cases, the Court also found violations of Articles 5, 6, 13 and Article 1 of Protocol 1.
Vitalia Lebid, Attorney at the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, provided the CM with a comprehensive overview of the existing problems related to implementation of these judgments. She alerted the CM that ill-treatment still remains a widespread problem and is often used as a disciplinary method by police in Ukraine. Highlighting the lack of any effective remedies against ill-treatment by police, Ms. Lebid noted the need to speed up the establishment of the State Bureau of Investigation. This is because current investigations being conducted by the Prosecutor’s Office remain ineffective due to the lack of independence of the office and the current response to reported allegations, which results in the lose of evidence and more generally yields inadequate investigations. Additionally, there is still no effective mechanism in place to provide compensation for ill-treatment/torture.
Ms. Lebid provided the participants with a memo identifying key problems and recommendations, which can be found here.