First section

.  The Court reiterates that the persistence of reasonable suspicion that the person arrested has committed an offence is a condition sine qua non for the lawfulness of the continued detention. However, after a certain lapse of time it no longer suffices. In such cases, the Court must establish whether the other grounds given by the judicial authorities continued to justify the deprivation of liberty. Where such grounds were “relevant” and “sufficient”, the Court must also ascertain whether the competent national authorities displayed “special diligence” in the conduct of the proceedings (see Labita v. Italy [GC], no. 26772/95, §§ 152-53, ECHR 2000-IV).

.  The presumption is in favour of release. As the Court has consistently held, the second limb of Article 5 § 3 does not give judicial authorities a choice between either bringing an accused to trial within a reasonable time or granting him provisional release pending trial. Until his conviction, the accused must be presumed innocent, and the purpose of the provision under consideration is essentially to ensure his release once the continuation of his detention has ceased to be reasonable. A person charged with an offence must always be released pending trial unless the State can show that there are “relevant and sufficient” reasons to justify the continued detention (see, among other authorities, Castravet v. Moldova, no. 23393/05, §§ 30-32, 13 March 2007; McKay v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 543/03, § 41, ECHR 2006-X; Jabłoński v. Poland, no. 33492/96, § 83, 21 December 2000; and Neumeister v. Austria, 27 June 1968, § 4, Series A no. 8).

.  It is incumbent on the domestic authorities to establish the existence of concrete facts relevant to the grounds for continued detention. Shifting the burden of proof to the detained person in such matters is tantamount to overturning the rule of Article 5 of the Convention, a provision which makes detention an exceptional departure from the right to liberty and one that is only permissible in exhaustively enumerated and strictly defined cases (see Rokhlina v. Russia, no. 54071/00, § 67, 7 April 2005; and Ilijkov v. Bulgaria, no. 33977/96, §§ 84-85, 26 July 2001). The national judicial authorities must examine all the facts arguing for or against the existence of a genuine requirement of public interest justifying, with due regard to the principle of the presumption of innocence, a departure from the rule of respect for individual liberty and set them out in their decisions dismissing the applications for release. It is not the Court’s task to establish such facts and take the place of the national authorities who ruled on the applicant’s detention. It is essentially on the basis of the reasons given in the domestic courts’ decisions and of the true facts mentioned by the applicant in his appeals, that the Court is called upon to decide whether or not there has been a violation of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention (see Korchuganova v. Russia, no. 75039/01, § 72, 8 June 2006; Ilijkov, cited above, § 86; and Labita, cited above, § 152).

.  The applicant was placed in custody on 14 December 2004. On 8 December 2005 the trial court convicted him of a criminal offence and immediately released him on probation. The period of detention to be taken into consideration lasted, accordingly, almost twelve months.

.  The Court observes that the applicant was apprehended on the premises on which the impugned offences had allegedly been committed. It accepts therefore that his detention could have initially been warranted by a reasonable suspicion of his involvement in these offences. It remains to be ascertained whether the judicial authorities gave “relevant” and “sufficient” grounds to justify the applicant’s continued detention and whether they displayed “special diligence” in the conduct of the proceedings.

.  While the investigation was pending the domestic courts consistently relied on the gravity of the charges as the main factor for their assessment of the applicant’s potential to abscond, re-offend or obstruct the course of justice. They did not demonstrate the existence of concrete facts in support of their conclusions.

.  The Court has repeatedly held that, although the severity of the sentence faced is a relevant element in the assessment of the risk of an accused absconding or reoffending, the need to continue the deprivation of liberty cannot be assessed from a purely abstract point of view, taking into consideration only the gravity of the offence. Nor can continuation of the detention be used to anticipate a custodial sentence (see Letellier v. France, 26 June 1991, § 51, Series A no. 207; also see Panchenko v. Russia, no. 45100/98, § 102, 8 February 2005; Goral v. Poland, no. 38654/97, § 68, 30 October 2003; and Ilijkov, cited above, § 81).

.  This is particularly true in cases, such as the present one, where the characterisation in law of the facts – and thus the sentence faced by the applicant – was determined by the prosecution without judicial examination of whether the evidence collected supported a reasonable suspicion that the applicant had committed the imputed offence. Indeed, the initial charge of the violent overthrow of State power, which was a particularly serious criminal offence according to the domestic classification, had been accepted by the District Court on 7 February 2005 without any inquiry having been carried out, although this was later amended to a lesser charge of participation in mass disorder. Nevertheless, when the same court extended the applicant’s pre-trial detention on 14 April 2005, its reasoning remained unaffected by such re-classification (compare Dolgova, cited above, § 42).

.  After the case had been submitted for trial in June 2005 the trial court used the same summary formula to refuse the petitions for release and extend the pre-trial detention of the thirty-nine defendants, notwithstanding the defence’s express request that each detainee’s situation be dealt with individually. The Court has already found that the practice of issuing collective detention orders without a case-by-case assessment of the grounds for detention in respect of each detainee was incompatible, in itself, with Article 5 § 3 of the Convention (see Shcheglyuk v. Russia, no. 7649/02, § 45, 14 December 2006; Korchuganova, cited above, § 76; and Dolgova, cited above, § 49, 2 March 2006). By extending the applicant’s detention by means of a collective detention order the domestic authorities had no proper regard to his individual circumstances. It is even more striking that the extension order of 20 June 2005 only stated that “all defendants should remain in custody” without giving any grounds for their continued detention.

.  The Court further observes that when deciding whether a person should be released or detained, the authorities have an obligation under Article 5 § 3 to consider alternative measures of ensuring his or her appearance at trial. This Article of the Convention provides not only for the right to “trial within a reasonable time or to release pending trial” but also lays down that “release may be conditioned by guarantees to appear for trial” (see Jabłoński, cited above, § 83). In the present case the authorities did not consider the possibility of ensuring the applicant’s attendance by the use of a more lenient preventive measure.

.  The Court has frequently found a violation of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention in cases brought against the Russian Federation where the domestic courts extended an applicant’s detention by relying essentially on the gravity of the charges and by using formulaic reasoning without addressing the concrete facts of the case or considering alternative preventive measures (see Belevitskiy, cited above, §§ 99 et seq., 1 March 2007; Khudobin v. Russia, no. 59696/00, §§ 106 et seq., ECHR 2006XII (extracts); Mamedova v. Russia, cited above, §§ 72 et seq.; Dolgova, cited above, §§ 38 et seq.; Khudoyorov, cited above, §§ 172 et seq.; Rokhlina, cited above, §§ 63 et seq.; Panchenko, cited above, §§ 101 et seq.; and Smirnova v. Russia, nos. 46133/99 and 48183/99, §§ 65 et seq., ECHR 2003-IX (extracts)).

.  The Court further notes that it has previously examined similar complaints lodged by the applicant’s co-defendants and found a violation of their rights set out in Article 5 § 3 of the Convention (see Dolgova, cited above, §§ 38-50, and Lind, cited above, §§ 74-86). Having regard to the materials in its possession, the Court notes that the Government have not put forward any fact or argument capable of persuading it to reach a different conclusion in the present case.

.  In view of the above, the Court considers that by failing to address concrete facts or consider alternative “preventive measures” and by relying essentially on the gravity of the charges, the authorities extended the applicant’s detention on grounds which, although “relevant”, cannot be regarded as “sufficient”. In these circumstances it is not necessary to examine whether the proceedings were conducted with “special diligence”.

.  There has therefore been a violation of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention.

III.  APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION

.  Article 41 of the Convention provides:

“If the Court finds that there has been a violation of the Convention or the Protocols thereto, and if the internal law of the High Contracting Party concerned allows only partial reparation to be made, the Court shall, if necessary, afford just satisfaction to the injured party.”