The unjustified provisional detention of a journalist violated his right to freedom and security.
JUDGMENT
Haziyev v. Azerbaijan 6.12.2018 (no. 19842/15)
SUMMARY
The case concerned the detention of an Azerbaijani journalist and opposition activist following an altercation in the street. He was arrested in August 2014 and held in detention pending trial until his conviction for hooliganism in January 2015.The European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:
a violation of Article 5 § 1 (right to liberty and security) of the European Convention on Human
Rights because Mr Haziyev’s detention from 29 October to 11 November 2014 had not been based
on a court order, and a violation of Article 5 § 3 (entitlement to trial within a reasonable time or to release pending trial) of the European Convention because the authorities had failed to justify the need for Mr Haziyev’s
pre-trial detention. They had simply used a standard template when ordering the measure without
addressing the specific facts of his case and had failed to give any reasons at all when extending his
detention.
PROVISION
Article 5
PRINCIPAL FACTS
The applicant, Seymur Mashgul oglu Haziyev, is an Azerbaijani national who was born in 1982. He
used to write for the newspaper Azadliq and was the presenter of a TV show, “Azerbaijani Hour”,
which was critical of the government, winning an international award in 2016 for his work.
He is currently serving a five-year prison sentence following his conviction of hooliganism.
His conviction was based on an incident which occurred on his way to work on 29 August 2014 when
he alleges that a man assaulted him and he defended himself with a glass bottle. Both men were
taken to the police station.
Mr Haziyev was detained on suspicion of hooliganism and brought before a judge the next day. The
judge ordered his detention pending trial for two months on the grounds that he risked reoffending
and obstructing the investigation.
The courts, repeating the same grounds, dismissed his appeal against this decision and three
subsequent applications to be released on bail or put under house arrest. The courts dismissed the
last of these applications on 11 November 2014, finding his continued detention lawful.
The courts later decided at a preliminary hearing that the preventive measure of remand in custody
should remain unchanged. This decision constituted the legal basis for his continued detention until
his conviction on 29 January 2015.
THE DECISION OF THE COURT
Article 5 § 1 (unlawfulness of detention)
The Court noted that Mr Haziyev had been detained from 29 October 2014 (when the first order to
detain him had expired) to 11 November 2014 (when the courts had found that his detention had
been lawful, dismissing the last of his applications to be released) without any judicial order
authorising his detention.
It also pointed out that it had already examined the same complaint in numerous cases against
Azerbaijan. In those cases, it had found that the applicants’ detention had not been based on a court
decision and had therefore been unlawful under the European Convention. The Court saw no reason
to reach a different conclusion in Mr Haziyev’s case and held that there had been a violation of
Article 5 § 1.
Article 5 § 3 (failure to justify need for pre-trial detention)
The Court found that, when ordering Mr Haziyev’s pre-trial detention, the national courts had simply
repeated that there was a risk of him reoffending and obstructing the investigation. They did not
give any reasons why they considered those grounds relevant to the specific circumstances of his
case.
Similarly, the decision of 20 November 2014, which had constituted the legal basis for Mr Haziyev’s
continued detention until his conviction, had not specified why exactly the preventive measure of
remand in custody should remain unchanged.
The Court concluded that the authorities had failed to give “relevant” and “sufficient” reasons to
justify the need for his pre-trial detention.
Article 18 (limitation on use of restrictions on rights)
Given the above conclusions, the Court held that there was no need to examine separately the
complaint under Article 18 in conjunction with Article 5.
Article 41 (just satisfaction)
The Court held that Azerbaijan was to pay Mr Haziyev 13,000 euros (EUR) in respect of
non-pecuniary damage and EUR 1,500 in respect of costs and expenses(echrcaselaw.com editing).
