A selection of key paragraphs can be found below the judgment.
CASE-OF-UDALTSOV-v.-RUSSIA
122. TheCourt considers that, given the dispute over the key elements underlying the charge (namely, the time and place and the imputed actions) in a case in which the only evidence against the applicant came from the police officers who had played an active role in the contested events, it was indispensable for the domestic courts to exhaust every reasonable possibility of scrutinising their incriminating statements (see Kasparov and Others v. Russia, no. 21613/07, § 64, 3 October 2013).
126. The applicant’s conviction was based on his alleged refusal to comply with the police officers’ “request to get into a police vehicle for the purpose of compiling an offence record in the police station”. In so far as can be discerned, the offence record referred to the alleged breach of the traffic regulations. However, when taken to the police station, the applicant was not charged with any such offence. The courts did not actually establish any factual or legal elements pertaining to the applicant’s alleged crossing of a road at an unauthorised location. However, that aspect of the case was at the origin of the allegations that then formed the basis for the applicant’s ensuing prosecution.
127. Having said this, the Court notes that the applicant was convicted of refusing to comply with orders requiring him “to cease his actions in breach of public order”. Moreover, the appeal court stated that the applicant “[had] continued with those actions”. It remains unclear what this part of the charge referred to.
128. It is questionable whether the applicant’s refusal to surrender to the police’s wish to obtain his presence in the police vehicle and ultimately at the police station (while abstaining – at that point in time – from resorting to an escort or arrest procedure in relation to a reasonable suspicion of another offence) could reasonably constitute “disobedience” to a “lawful” order by the police under Article 19.3 of the CAO. In particular, there is not enough evidence that police officers had statutory powers to make an oral order requiring a person to accompany them to a police station (see paragraphs 64-66 above) in the context of that person having crossed a road in the wrong place.
129. Overall, it remains unclear what specific orders were given, whether they were lawful, and in what manner the applicant disobeyed them or impeded the officers in the exercise of their official duties, that is before being taken to the police station at 1.55 p.m. on 4 December 2011 (see also paragraphs 10 and 100-101 above). Taking account also of the problem with legal assistance at the trial and the courts’ superficial approach to the assessment of the applicant’s alibi, the Court concludes that the sentence of administrative detention was arbitrary and thus in breach of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention.
