Chapter 5 • Human Rights and Arrest, Pre-Trial and Administrative Detention The case of Assenov In the case of Assenov, the applicant had been charged with sixteen or more burglaries and it was feared that he would re-offend if released, but the European Court concluded that he had been denied a “trial within a reasonable time” in violation of article 5(3); while it had taken two years for the case to come to trial, the Court noted that during one of those years “virtually no action was taken in connection with the investigation: no new evidence was collected and Mr. Assenov was questioned only once”.151 The Court added, moreover, that, “given the importance of the right to liberty, and the possibility, for example, of copying the relevant documents rather than sending the original file to the authority concerned on each occasion, the applicant’s many appeals for release should not have been allowed to have the effect of suspending the investigation and thus delaying his trial”. An additional consideration was the fact that, since the applicant was a minor, it was “more than usually important that the authorities displayed special diligence in ensuring that he was brought to trial within a reasonable time”.152 Danger of absconding: With regard to the danger of an accused person’s absconding, the European Court has emphasized that this danger “cannot be gauged solely on the basis of the severity of the sentence risked”, but “must be assessed with reference to a number of other relevant factors which may either confirm the existence of a danger of absconding or make it appear so slight that it cannot justify detention pending trial”.153 For this reason to be given credit, the domestic courts must explain why there is a danger of absconding and not simply confirm the detention in “an identical, not to say stereotyped, form of words, without in any way explaining why there was a danger of absconding”,154 and why they have not sought to “counter it by, for instance, requiring the lodging of a security and placing him under court supervision”.155 Suspected involvement in serious offences: In a case involving pre-trial detention of a person accused of drug trafficking, the European Court agreed “that the alleged offences were of a serious nature” and that “the evidence incriminating the applicant was cogent”; it emphasized, nonetheless, that “the existence of a strong suspicion of the involvement of the person concerned in serious offences, while constituting a relevant factor, cannot alone justify a long period of pre-trial detention”.156 151 Ibid., p. 3301, paras. 157-158. 152 Ibid., p. 3301, para. 157. 153 Eur. Court HR, Case of Ya?ci and Sargin v. Turkey, judgment of 8 June 1995, Series A, No. 319-A, p. 19, para. 52. 154 Ibid., loc. cit. In this case there was a breach of article 5(3) of the Convention, ibid., p. 19, para. 55. 155 Eur. Court HR, Case of Tomasi v. France, judgment of 27 August 1992, Series A, No. 241-A, p. 37, para. 98. 156 Eur. Court HR, Case of Van der Tang v. Spain, judgment of 13 July 1995, Series A, No. 321, p. 19, para. 63. Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers 193