CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 28 mars 2019

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Georgia - 39718/09 Judgment 28.3.2019 [Section V] Article 6 Criminal proceedings Article 6-1 Fair hearing Rectification of starting date of cumulative prison sentence without an oral hearing: violation Article 5 Article 5-1 Lawful arrest or detention Alteration of anticipated release date by procedure found to be in breach of Article 6: no violation Facts – The applicant had been convicted of murder and sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment (“the first conviction”). He was later convicted of attempting to escape and sentenced to four years and six months’ imprisonment (“the second conviction”). The first-instance court indicated that the cumulative sentence was to run from the date of the commission of the second offence. Following that decision, the provision of the Criminal Code regulating the imposition of cumulative sentences was amended and provided that a final sentence imposed should be calculated from the date of the imposition of the later sentence. In subsequent proceedings the Supreme Court reduced the applicant’s sentence for the first conviction to fifteen years’ imprisonment and held that the cumulative sentence would start running from the date of commission of the second offence. Accordingly the applicant’s sentence would have expired on 29   September 2010. The Court of Appeal upheld the applicant’s second conviction and ruled that he had to serve a cumulative sentence which had started to run on the date of the commission of the second offence. While the applicant’s appeal against that judgment on points of law was pending before the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal adopted, by means of a written procedure and without the parties’ involvement, a decision rectifying an error in its judgment. That decision corrected the starting date of the cumulative sentence to the later date of the imposition of the sentence. The Supreme Court granted the applicant’s appeal on points of law regarding his second conviction. It noted that the appellate court had failed to take account of the reduction of the applicant’s first sentence. It took note of the rectified appellate decision and stated that the re-calculated cumulative sentence had started to run on the date of the imposition of the sentence for the second offence. That sentence had been due to expire on 12   April 2013 but the applicant was released earlier, in January 2013. The applicant’s request for the rectification of the decision of the Supreme Court in respect of the starting date of his cumulative sentence was rejected. Law – Article 6 § 1 (a)     Applicability – The rectification of the applicant’s conviction by the appellate court, in respect of the starting date of his cumulative sentence, had had an impact on his anticipated release date. The question of whether the error made in the earlier judgments and decisions had been sufficiently obvious and had been capable of being remedied by means of the rectification procedure appeared, at the very least, to have been open to interpretation. Therefore, the rectification procedure, as applied in the applicant’s case, had been of such a nature as to affect the determination of the applicant’s sentence as part of the criminal proceedings pending against him. It followed that Article 6 §   1 was applicable. (b)     Merits – The applicant’s arguments regarding the particular circumstances of his case – such as the existence of an earlier decision of the Supreme Court, concerning the starting date of his cumulative sentence (a decision which had never been explicitly set aside), whether the appellate court had exceeded the scope of Article 615 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (which regulated the scope of rectifications), and whether the rectified appellate decision had amounted to a worsening of his legal situation in breach of that Code – rendered his case against the rectification at least arguable and called for it to have been considered by the domestic courts as part of adversarial proceedings. Against that background, the Court noted that the rectified appellate decision had not involved the applicant and had been served on him only after the Supreme Court had already reached a final decision. It was true that the Supreme Court had been aware of the rectified appellate decision and appeared to have endorsed it when expressly taking note of the corrected starting date of the applicant’s cumulative sentence. However, at the time that the rectified appellate decision had been delivered by the appellate court, the applicant’s appeal on points of law had already been sent to the Supreme Court. Furthermore, considering that the Supreme Court had decided the matter without holding an oral hearing, the applicant had effectively been precluded from becoming aware of the rectified appellate decision and from presenting his arguments, as part of his appeal or separately, regarding the revised starting date of his cumulative sentence and its compliance with domestic law. Whether the matter was considered from the perspective of the right of access to a court or the right to an oral hearing, the crux of the matter was that the manner in which the rectification procedure had been implemented in respect of the applicant, depriving him of the opportunity to present his arguments regarding the alteration of the starting date of his cumulative sentence, either orally or in writing, had rendered the criminal proceedings against him unfair. Conclusion : violation (unanimously). Article 5: The applicant had been deprived of his liberty after conviction by a competent court. The question was whether the earlier alteration of the starting date of the applicant’s cumulative sentence by an appellate court, by means of a procedure that the Court had already determined amounted to a breach of Article   6, was in breach of the “lawfulness” requirement under Article 5 §   1. What was in issue was whether the applicant’s detention, which, in effect, had been extended owing to the alteration of the starting date of the applicant’s cumulative sentence, had been “lawful”. The question was whether the error made by the domestic courts regarding the starting date of the cumulative sentence had been obvious and the rectification therefore both expected and permitted by law and practice in force at the material time, or whether the rectification had gone beyond the confines of the law in that respect. On the one hand, the Criminal Code, as it stood at the time that the applicant had committed the second offence, had not explicitly specified the starting date of a cumulative sentence. On the other hand, the subsequent rectification appeared to have been based, albeit implicitly, on the Criminal Code as amended, which clearly set the date of the imposition of the later sentence as the starting date for any cumulative sentence. In a decision in a different case the Supreme Court had clarified that the relevant provision could have retroactive effect. That decision had predated both the rectification decision of the appellate court and the final decision of the Supreme Court in the applicant’s case. Therefore, while the question regarding the foreseeability of the law in respect of the starting date of a cumulative sentence had not been addressed by the domestic courts, the rectification appeared to have followed a clarification offered by the Supreme Court in another case. In such circumstances, it was not for the Court to speculate on the legality of the applicant’s detention beyond 29   September 2010, which had been ordered by the Supreme Court in accordance with the law and practice in force at the material time. Therefore, the applicant’s detention was not ex facie in breach of the domestic law. The Court had already rejected the argument that every Article   6 violation resulted in a violation of Article 5 §   1. While the Court had found a violation of Article   6, it did not consider that the violation was of such a nature as to have destroyed the very essence of the right guaranteed by that Article. Accordingly, the violation of Article 6 did not amount to a flagrant denial of justice. It followed that the applicant’s detention had been justified under Article 5 §   1   (a) of the Convention. Conclusion : no violation (unanimously). Article 41: EUR 1,500 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.   © Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court. Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes