Judgment concerning Ukraine
In the case of Kaganovskyy v. Ukraine (no. 2) the Court held that there had been a violation of the right to liberty and security.
The case concerned the stay of a man, with a long history of psychiatric conditions and who had been found to lack capacity, in a State-run social care home.
The Court found that the applicant had been deprived of his liberty, that his detention had not been accompanied by sufficient guarantees against arbitrariness and it did not fall within the terms of the Convention. International standards required that the detention of people who lack capacity should be accompanied by appropriate procedural safeguards, namely judicial authorisation. No formal decision had ever been issued in relation to the applicant’s deprivation of liberty, and the absence of such a decision was incompatible with the principles of legal certainty and protection against arbitrariness. Additionally, no psychiatric assessment had been carried out during the period in question, making it impossible to ascertain whether, at that time, his mental disorder had been of a kind or degree warranting compulsory confinement. The Court also held, unanimously, that there had been violations of the right to have lawfulness of detention decided speedily by a court and of the enforceable right to compensation in case of contravention of above provisions.