CEDH · CASELAW;COMMUNICATEDCASES;ENG — 4 avril 2025

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .s379BC09C { margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s10950C61 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-indent:14.2pt; text-align:justify } .s5E1364CA { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14pt } .s339D85E6 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:14pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s665E407E { margin-top:66pt; margin-bottom:14pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sA1D3DA2E { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify }   Published on 22 April 2025   THIRD SECTION Application no. 5232/24 Luan DACI against Albania lodged on 13 February 2024 communicated on 4 April 2025 SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE On 3 February 2017 the applicant applied to be appointed a judge at the Special Appeal Chamber (SAC), attached to the Constitutional Court. His application was successful, and he was appointed by Parliament on 17   June   2017. In 2020 criminal proceedings were instituted against the applicant on charges of falsifying a document. On 1 December 2020 the First Instance Court on Anticorruption and Organised Crime found the applicant guilty as charged and sentenced him to six months’ imprisonment, suspended for one year. It was established that in an affidavit (self-declaration) included in his application for the position of SAC judge, the applicant had failed to disclose the fact that his previous mandate as a district court judge had been terminated in 1997 by the High Judicial Council, following disciplinary proceedings (on the grounds of breaches of the law and incompetence). This failure by the applicant had amounted to “intellectual falsification”, by presenting knowingly false and material data in his application for a senior position in the justice system. On 21 September 2023 the Constitutional Court dismissed the applicant’s constitutional complaints related to his criminal conviction, which had been upheld on appeal and by the Supreme Court. The applicant complains under Article 7 of the Convention that his conduct did not amount to the criminal offence at issue, and that such qualification had not been foreseeable to him.     QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES     Did the act or omission of which the applicant was convicted constitute a criminal offence under national law at the time when it was committed, as envisaged by Article   7 of the Convention (see Delga v. France , no. 38998/20, §§ 56-73, 9 July 2024; Pantalon v. Croatia , no. 2953/14, §§ 45-54, 19   November 2020; and Liivik v. Estonia , no. 12157/05, §§ 92-104, 25   June   2009)? In particular, given the wording of Article 186 of the Criminal Code and the relevant judicial practice, was it foreseeable for the applicant that (i) a private statement of interest filed with a State entity, for which the law required no particular formalities, would constitute a “document”; and that (ii) the content of such statement, made not under oath or penalty of perjury, would constitute “falsification” for the purposes of the relevant offence? Was the alleged falsity of the applicant’s statements on his prior disciplinary record a matter of arguable legal interpretation? The Government are requested to provide evidence of the state of the relevant judicial practice as it existed at the time of the alleged commission of the offence.