The Court must, in addition, be satisfied that, during the period under consideration, the detention was compatible with the purpose of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention, which is to prevent persons from being deprived of their liberty in an arbitrary manner (see Yeloyev v. Ukraine, no. 17283/02, §§ 41-42, 6 November 2008).

He referred in that connection to the judgment in the case of Yeloyev v. Ukraine (no.17283/02, § 50, 6 November 2008), in which the Court noted that it had already examined and found a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention in a number of cases concerning the practice of holding defendants in custody solely on the basis of the fact that a bill of indictment had been submitted to the trial court.

In their absence, the criminal proceedings had not been stayed, unlike in Smirnova v. Russia (nos. 46133/99 and 48183/99, § 35, ECHR 2003-IX (extracts)); Yeloyev v. Ukraine (no. 17283/02, §§ 14-15, 6 November 2008); and Girolami v. Italy (19 February 1991, § 9, Series A no. 196-E).

According to the settled case-law of the Court, an accused person cannot rely on a period of being a fugitive when he was seeking to avoid being brought to justice in his home country (see, for example, Smirnova v. Russia, nos. 46133/99 and 48183/99, § 84, ECHR 2003-IX (extracts), and Yeloyev v. Ukraine, no. 17283/02, § 70, 6 November 2008, where the periods when the applicants had absconded were excluded from the overall length of the proceedings).

The Court must, in addition, be satisfied that the detention, during the period under consideration, was compatible with the purpose of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention, which is to prevent persons from being deprived of their liberty in an arbitrary manner (see Yeloyev v. Ukraine, no. 17283/02, §§ 41-42, 6 November 2008).

Thus, the applicant's detention between 2 September and 2 November 1999 is covered by the relevant reservation of Ukraine valid at that time and falls outside the scope of the Court's assessment of the lawfulness of the applicant's detention (see Nevmerzhitsky v. Ukraine, no. 54825/00, § 112, ECHR 2005-II (extracts), and Yeloyev v. Ukraine, no. 17283/02, § 45, 6 November 2008).

In those cases it has held that the practice of keeping defendants in detention without a specific legal basis or clear rules governing their situation - with the result that they may be deprived of their liberty for an unlimited period without judicial authorisation - is incompatible with the principles of legal certainty and the protection from arbitrariness, which are common threads throughout the Convention and the rule of law (see Korchuganova v. Russia, no. 75039/01, § 57, 8 June 2006; Nakhmanovich v. Russia, no. 55669/00, §§ 67-68, 2 March 2006; Khudoyorov v. Russia, no. 6847/02, §§ 146-48, ECHR 2005-X; and Yeloyev v. Ukraine, no. 17283/02, § 50, 7 October 2008).