Me THUAN Dit DIEUDONNÉ, with the agreement of his clients, makes available a number of cases successfully handled before the European Court, the CJEU and the UN.
Following the attempted coup of July 2016, hundreds of prosecutors and judges of the Supreme Courts of Turkey (Court of Cassation and Council of State) were dismissed, arrested, provisionally detained and convicted of membership of a terrorist organisation.
In the TURAN and Others v. Turkey judgment of November 23, 2021, the European Court found a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the ECHR for lack of a legal basis and an overly broad interpretation of the concept of “flagrante delicto” which had allowed the detention of the said magistrates, and ordered Turkey to pay just satisfaction of €2,135,000.
Several judges were represented by Mr Thuan Dit Dieudonné, including Ms Mine KAYA, former President of the Turkish Court of Cassation.
On November 23, 2020, the United Nations Committee on Arbitrary Detention adopted a decision n° 62/2020, published on December 9, 2020, on the situation of Mr. Benoit Faustin MUNENE, represented by Mr. Thuan Dit Dieudonné. Mr. Benoit Faustin Munéné, former Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces and Minister of Defense of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who actively participated in the fall of the Mobutu regime alongside Laurent-Désiré Kabila, was illegally detained in Congo-Brazzaville since 2010.
The conclusions of the Committee are without appeal, the United Nations :
Mr. MUNENE is now released and has been able to return to live in Kinshasa, DRC.
The case opposed, to the French State, 11 activists, defended by Mr. Gregory Thuan Dit Dieudonné, who had led actions calling for a boycott of Israeli products in a supermarket in Alsace in 2009 and 2010, in protest against the policy of this state that they considered in flagrant violation of international public and humanitarian law. Relaxed in first instance by the criminal court of Mulhouse in 2011, they had been convicted by the Court of Appeal of Colmar in 2013, before the Court of Cassation rejected their appeals in October 2015. An appeal had been filed with the ECHR in March 2016.
In this case of principle that concerns all European states, the call to consumers to boycott the products of a state, in protest of its policy, is protected by the European Convention on Human Rights (Article 10).
This is the first time that the European Court of Human Rights has found such a violation against France and the failure of the child protection system (§ 175 of the judgment).
In this case the Court recognized the interest to act of the applicant association and condemned France for multiple violations of article 3 of the ECHR (deficiencies of the criminal investigation, wrongful inertia of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, decision to close the case, deficiencies of the social and medico-social services, absence of communication between protection services, in spite of the knowledge of serious and numerous elements of maltreatment.
The applicant association was represented by the firm Thuan Dit Dieudonné.
The petitioner, Mr. Ivanko, was represented by the firm.
The case is one of a series of typical petitions concerning the abuse of detainees in custody and the lack of any effective investigation to put an end to it and identify and punish the perpetrators.
By a judgment of February 15, 2018 (GHEDIR v. FRANCE, req. 20579/12), the European Court of Human Rights ordered France to pay the applicant, Abdelkader Ghedir, represented by Mr. THUAN Dit DIEUDONNÉ and Mr. Ursulet, the total sum of 6,539,950 euros for all the damages suffered.
Never before has a member state of the Council of Europe (let alone the French state) been so heavily condemned by the EDH Court for this type of grievance (Article 3)!
It is therefore a historic decision made by the Strasbourg Court vis-à-vis France.
This decision follows a previous decision of the Court in the same case, on 16 July 2015, in which it found that Article 3 of the ECHR had been violated in its material component, as a result of the violent conditions of arrest and care by the applicant’s police at Mitry-Mory RER station, now under guardianship and diminished to the extreme, physically and intellectually.
Since the question of the application of Article 41 of the Convention was not in good condition, the Court had reserved it.
It is discussed in the press (attached a selection of press articles):
By a judgment of January 18, 2018 (OLLER KAMINSKA v. POLAND, request 28481/12), the European Court of Human Rights has again condemned Poland for violating Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to respect for family life).
In this case, relating to international child abduction from Ireland to Poland, Mr. THUAN Dit DIEUDONNÉ defended the interests of the victim parent, Mrs Oller Kaminska, mother of the abducted child, who now resides permanently by her side. Ireland.
In its judgment, the Court ordered Poland, for violating the positive obligations under Article 8 of the ECHR, to pay 25,000 euros in fair satisfaction under Article 41 of the ECHR.
Attached is the English-language judgment for details.
By a judgment of October 17, 2017 (AMIROV v. RUSSIA, No. 56220/15), the European Court of Human Rights has condemned the Russian Federation for violating Article 3 of the ECHR (prohibition of torture).
Former Prime Minister of the Republic of Dagestan and former Mayor of the capital Makhatchkala, Said AMIROV, represented by Mr. THUAN Dit DIEUDONNÉ, is currently being held in the Orenbug Prison Colony No. 6 in Central Asia, infamous as name “Black Dolphin” (the Black Dolphin).
Severely handicapped and suffering from multiple debilitating conditions, he was sentenced to life imprisonment following an unfair trial in which the evidence was obtained under torture; a motion is pending before the Court to complain about it.
In its judgment, the Court condemned the Russian Federation for violating Article 3 in that the material conditions of detention were undignified and adequate medical assistance was lacking. The judgment is being implemented before the Committee of Ministers.
Attached is the judgment for more details.
By judgment of September 21, 2017 (SÉVÈRE v. AUSTRIA, No. 53661/15), the European Court of Human Rights condemned Austria for violating Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to respect for family life).
In this case, relating to international child abduction to Austria, Mr. THUAN DIT DIEUDONNÉ defended the interests of Mr Michel Sévère, a French national who was the victim of the abduction.
The French State, in an exceptional way, intervened in the proceedings in support of the applicant as a third party, taking into account the attitude of the Austrian authorities.
In its judgment, the Court ordered Austria, for breach of the positive obligations under Article 8 of the ECHR, to pay 33,000 euros in damages to the applicant under Article 41 of the ECHR.
For more details, you will find a copy of the judgment, in English only.
By a judgment of February 28, 2017 (BIVOLARU v. ROMANIA, application 28796/04), the European Court of Human Rights has condemned Romania for violating Article 5 -1 of the Convention for arbitrary detention.
In this case, Mr. THUAN Dit DIEUDONNÉ defended the interests of the applicant Gregorian Bivolaru, a political refugee in Sweden, founder of the first yoga school in Romania under the communist regime, and now leader of the spiritual movement MISA, considered subversive and a long-standing political opponent of the regime, even today. Its members are regularly persecuted by national authorities.
In its judgment, the Court condemned Romania for the arbitrary detention because the applicant was untitled, despite a decision to extend the applicant’s decision to the Bucharest Court of Appeal. The Court also dismissed the remainder of the grievances relating to the violation of the presumption of innocence, the illegality of telephone searches and interceptions.
For more details, you will find a copy of the French-language judgment.
Criminal proceedings. Article 6-1. Fair Trial – Conflicting Procedure – Equality of Arms
Refusal to allow defence access to documents relating to discussions in which “repentants” agreed to testify for the prosecution: non-violation
In fact – The applicants were tried in the Court of Assizes for the fatal robbery of an armoured van. The indictment included references to certain “testimonies” from “repentant” indicators, the applicants criticized its probative value by arguing that their cooperation with the justice system would have been negotiated against granting benefits. In this regard, they reported the non-disclosure of prior exchanges between these witnesses and the prosecution or investigative authorities, seeing it as a hindrance to their defence. The Court of Assizes responded in detail to their arguments in an interlocutory decision. At the end of the trial, the applicants were convicted and sentenced to 15 and 25 years’ imprisonment respectively.
Law – Article 6 (fairness of procedure): Despite the absence of such a status in Belgian law, there is no reason to consider in this case that the witnesses at issue were “repentants”. They came from the criminal community and had received financial benefits. The chronology of the facts also suggests that one of them had benefited from certain criminal benefits in return for his statements.
In considering the chronology of the facts and in view of the accumulation of informer and witness statuses as well as the profiles of the two witnesses at issue, related to banditry, the applicants were able to legitimately consider whether their charge and conviction were not based allegations that had not been fully verified, coming from persons who were not necessarily disinterested. In any event, the fact remains that these testimonies were of particular weight. It is therefore necessary to consider whether the applicants’ defence was affected or whether the difficulties that might arise from the circumstances of their collection were taken into account.
As the fairness of the trial as a whole appreciated, the Court noted, however, other factors which were likely to compensate for the difficulties that might result in the applicants’ defence. Accordingly, the limitations on the disclosure of certain parts of the record were, in this case, sufficiently compensated by the oral and adversarial proceedings followed before the court of judgment. Thus, the procedure as a whole was surrounded by sufficiently strong safeguards and did not lack fairness.
Conclusion: non-violation (unanimity).
For more details, see : https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#{%22fulltext%22:[%22001-170384%22],%22itemid%22:[%22001-170384%22]}
In a judgment of 17 November 2016, the Court decided to remove the case from the role in view of Romania’s unilateral declaration to recognize the violation of Article 6-1 of the ECHR (excessive length of criminal proceedings).
For more details, see : https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-169706%22]}
By a judgment of July 19, 2016 (G. N. c. Poland, 2171/14), the European Court of Human Rights has condemned Poland for violating Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to respect for family life).
In that case, Mr. THUAN Dit DIEUDONNÉ defended the interests of the applicant G. N. against Poland, following the illegal international displacement of his son to that state, and the arbitrary refusal of the Polish national courts to order his return. Canada, the place of his usual residence prior to his abduction.
In its judgment, the Court considers that Poland has clearly breached its international obligations arising from the applicant’s right to respect for family life, both materially and procedurally.
On the merits, the Court takes the exact opposite view of the assessment made by the Polish courts, which it considers to be incorrect, concerning the interpretation of exceptions to the immediate return of abducted children, under Article 13 (b) of the Convention on 25 October 1980, and the assessment of the best interests of the child.
For more details, you will find a copy of the judgment in English.
By a judgment of 16 June 2016 (Soltanov et al. Azerbaijan, No. 66684/12), the European Court of Human Rights condemned Azerbaijan for violating Article 3 of Protocol 1 (right to free elections) and Article 34 of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to appeal) unhindered individual).
In this case, Mr. THUAN Dit DIEUDONNÉ defended the interests of the applicant Intigam ALIYEV, a human rights lawyer considered a political prisoner by the international community, now released under judicial supervision.
In its judgment, the Court condemned Azerbaijan for the impossibility of applicants running in the November 2010 parliamentary elections on arbitrary and unfounded grounds, as well as for the unlawful search and seizure of the AliYEV (and all of its files). It awards 54,100 euros in damages under Article 41 of the ECHR.
For more details, you will find a copy of the judgment, in English only.
By a judgment of March 1, 2016 (K.J. v. Poland, No. 30813/14), the European Court of Human Rights has condemned Poland for multiple violations of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In that case, Mr. THUAN Dit DIEUDONNÉ defended the interests of the applicant K. J against Poland, following the illegal international displacement of his daughter to that state and the arbitrary refusal of the Polish national courts to order his immediate return. United Kingdom, the place of his usual residence.
In its judgment, the Court considers that Poland has clearly breached its international obligations arising from the applicant’s right to respect for family life, both materially and procedurally.
On the merits, the Court takes the exact opposite view of the assessment made by the Polish courts, which it considers to be incorrect, concerning the interpretation of exceptions to the immediate return of abducted children, under Article 13 (b) of the Convention on The Hague of 25 October 1980.
For more details, you will find a copy of the judgment and press releases written in English and French.
July 16, 2015 press release:
On 30 November 2004, 21-year-old Adbelkader GHEDIR was brutally arrested by the officers of the French National Railway Company (“SUGE”) at Mitry-Villeparisis station, in the presence of police officers arrived on the spot
He was violently pinned to the ground, while he was not resisting, and was hit in the head.
Abdelkader arrived at the premises of custody at Mitry Mory police station at about 20:00 and fell into a coma.
He is now irreversibly suffering from double hemiplegia, must be assisted by a third party in all acts of everyday life, and is handicapped to the tune of 95% of the serious injuries inflicted by state agents.
Following a lengthy judicial investigation of 7 years, the investigating judge issued a restraining order on 15 February 2010, upheld by the Paris Court of Appeal on 3 September 2010, and whose appeal for cassation was dismissed by the Court of Cassation on 27 September 2010. September 2011.
The French justice considered that there were not sufficient charges against anyone for having committed an offence against Abdelkader’ person, despite the contradictory statements of the state agents, the direct testimony in favour of Abelkader and two consistent assessments of the origin of the beatings and injuries.
As a result, the amount of his provisional allowance amounting to 490,000 euros (covering the costs of hospitalization, health and equipment and permanent assistance) was claimed by the Victims of Crime Guarantee Fund.
In a judgment of 16 July 2015, the Strasbourg Court condemned France for violating the prohibition of torture. It concluded that the internal investigations led to the meeting of contradictory and troubling elements, and that there was a sufficient bundle of evidence to hold that the source of the applicant’s injuries was the source of the direct lying public officials.
The Court called on the parties to reach an agreement on the encryption of the material and moral harm suffered.
Abdelkader’s lawyers, Alex Ursulet of the Paris Bar, and Grégory THUAN Dit DIEUDONNÉ (former Senior case-lawyer to the European Court of Human Rights) welcomed the Court’s decision, which recognised the direct responsibility of law enforcement in the damage inflicted and sustained.
The case concerned the fact that the Hungarian authorities had failed to enforce a father’s right to see his two daughters, despite being granted sole custody in Italy, in connection with an international child abduction.
The applicants in this case are Francesco Cavani, an Italian national born in 1971, and his two daughters, Ester Cavani and Anna Maria Cavani, who were born in 2003 and 2004 respectively and both hold Hungarian and Italian nationalities. Mr. Cavani resides in Formigine, Italy.
In 2004, the mother took Ester and Anna Maria out of Italy, where the family was staying at the time, to take them to Hungary. After the mother refused to return to Italy with her daughters, Mr. Cavani took the case to both Hungarian and Italian justice. In November 2005, the Hungarian courts ordered the return of Mr. Cavani’s daughters to Italy. This decision has still not been implemented: in July 2010, the mother was arrested under a European arrest warrant but was quickly released without being able to reunite Mr. Cavani and his daughters or establish their whereabouts; in October 2011, she was sentenced in her absence to a 200-day fine. In the meantime, the Italian courts granted Mr. Cavani sole custody of his daughters and annulled the marriage between mr. Cavani and his ex-wife. Mr. Cavani later withdrew a criminal complaint for child abduction in the Italian courts, in the hope of calming the situation and allowing his ex-wife to travel freely to Italy with her daughters.
Invoking Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights, Mr Cavani and his daughters complained that the Hungarian authorities were repeatedly failed to implement the legally binding decision of November 2005, so they hadn’t seen each other since 2005, even occasionally.
Violation of Article 8
The applicant, Laura Panetta, is a French and Italian national, born in
1968 and resident in Wickerschwihr ,High Rhine, represented by Mr.THUAN Dit DIEUDONNÉ.
The case concerns the non-payment of alimony due by her ex-husband who settled in Italy after the divorce. Ms. Panetta was married to an Italian national, M.N., and the couple had a child. On 24 February 1998, the high court divorced the couple and set a monthly maintenance contribution of 1,200 French francs at the husband’s expense. In April 1998, M.N. left France and returned to live in Italy. He stopped paying child support in December 1998. Ms. Panetta attempted to enforce the judgment of February 24, 1998 and filed a complaint for abandonment of the family. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs forwarded the file to the Italian Ministry of the Interior for the purpose of activating the procedure to provide assistance under the 1956 New York Convention on the Recovery of Food Abroad. M.n. stated that it did not question the judgment of the French court but stated that it was not in a position to pay the pension. In a judgment of 27 January 2010, the Italian Court of Appeal declared that the conditions necessary for the recognition in Italy of the judgment of the French court of 24 February 1998 had been met. The Italian Interior Ministry then requested the forced execution of the judgment. The applicant has so far received no payment from her ex-husband.
Invoking Article 6-1 of the Convention, the applicant complains of the inaction of the authorities
Italy in response to its demands for the payment of child support due by the her ex-husband. She says she is a single mother, a French state official and says have to repay a home loan and have had to use family solidarity to ensure decent living conditions for their child.
Violation of Article 6 – 1
Fair satisfaction: EUR 18,750 for moral damage, as well as EUR 2,500 for costs and costs.
The applicant company, East/West Alliance Ltd., is an Irish company based in Dublin with a office in Ukraine. She was represented before the Court by Mr. THUAN Dit DIEUDONNÉ.
The case involved the seizure of 14 commercial aircraft which it owned in March 2001 as part of criminal investigations in Ukraine into another company belonging to the same consortium as it. Several of these aircraft were later sold to third parties while the legal proceedings concerning their property were ongoing and they had been placed in receivership as an interim measure to guarantee the debts of third parties.
In particular, the applicant company complained of a violation of its rights under Article 1 (protection of property) of Protocol 1 to the Convention resulting in particular from the seizure of the aircraft, their subsequent sale, the damage suffered by certain and the failure to enforce final court decisions ordering their return to her. It further invoked Article 13 (right to an effective remedy), arguing that it had no effective recourse in Ukraine to assert its grievances.
Violation of Article 1 of Protocol 1
Violation of Article 13
Fair satisfaction: EUR 5,000,000 for material and moral damages, as well as EUR 8,000 for costs and costs.
Press release from the Registrar of the European Court:
In his house arrest, in C.A.S. and C.S. C. Romania (request No. 26692/05) the European Court of Human Rights unanimously says that there has been: Violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment and effective investigation) and Article 8 (right to privacy and (domestic and home) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The case concerns the grievances of a young man, who was seven years old at the time of the events, who complained that it took the authorities five years to investigate the repeated rapes he had suffered in the family apartment from January to April 1998. , while he was alone on his return from school, a man who had broken into his home and was eventually acquitted.
In that case, the European Court clearly recognises that States have an obligation under Articles 3 and 8 to ensure that an effective criminal investigation is carried out in cases of child abuse. In addition, it expressly refers to Romania’s international obligations2 to protect children from all forms of abuse, including the rehabilitation and social reintegration of victims, and it regrets in particular that C.A.S. did not receive any assistance and was not accompanied by a qualified psychologist during the proceedings concerning the rapes he had suffered or subsequently.
For more details, see: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng-press#{%22fulltext%22:[%2226692/05%22]}
In a particularly important house judgment, rendered that day in Shaw v. Hungary, (request No. 6457/09) the European Court of Human Rights unanimously says that there has been: Violation of Article 8 (right to privacy and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In this case, the Hungarian authorities had not ensured that a child removed from French territory by her mother for four and a half years, returned to Paris with her father, making it impossible to visit him while the custody of the child was divided.
The case is part of a particularly complex international child abduction, which required the deployment of extraordinary resources. In the end, only one month after the publication of the Court’s judgment, the child was found, in August 2012, hidden in the basement of his grandparents, in the basement, out of school and suffering from physical affection because of his forced clandestineity!
On 28 January 2015, Mr. THUAN Dit DIEUDONNÉ was heard, together with Mr Leslie SHAW, by the Gender Equality Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on international child abductions and respect for the rights of fathers in Europe.
The applicant, Sezgin Hacioglu, has dual Turkish and Bulgarian nationality. He was born in 1968 and resides in Istanbul. When he attempted to leave the country in August 1999, he was arrested at the Romanian border on suspicion of theft of documents and industrial espionage, offences for which he was convicted in February 2000.
In particular, invoking Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), he complained about the poor conditions of his detention.
Violation of Article 3 of the ECHR.