Korneyeva v. Russia (Application no. 72051/17)

A selection of key paragraphs can be found below the judgment. 

35. As to recourse to the arrest procedure after the applicant’s arrival at the police station, the Court notes that the aim of compiling an offence record no longer justified, in terms of Russian law, the continued deprivation of liberty once that aim had been achieved. As to the aim of the “timely and correct examination of the case” referred to in the arrest record (see paragraph 10 above), it remains the case that the CAO required the measure to be justified with reference to “exceptional” circumstances. No such circumstances, beyond mere convenience, were adduced at the domestic level or, at the latest, before the Court. Nothing in the file suggests that there was a risk of the applicant reoffending, tampering with evidence, influencing witnesses or fleeing justice, which would plead in favour of her continued detention. Even if those considerations could be considered to constitute an “exceptional case” referred to in Article 27.3 § 1 of the CAO as part of the rationale for avoiding excessive and abusive recourse to the administrative‑arrest procedure, there is nothing in the file that could lead the Court to conclude that such considerations had been weighed and justified the applicant’s deprivation of liberty after 10 p.m. on 12 June 2017 until her release at around 8 p.m. on 13 June 2017 (see Navalnyy v. Russia [GC], nos. 29580/12 and 4 others, §§ 71-72, 15 November 2018, and Butkevich v. Russia, no. 5865/07, § 123, 13 February 2018; see also S., V. and A. v. Denmark [GC], nos. 35553/12 and 2 others, § 77, 22 October 2018).

36. There has accordingly been a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention, at least, after 2.50 p.m. on 12 June 2017 until the applicant’s release around 8 p.m. on 13 June 2017.