CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 4 octobre 2007

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France - 16290/04 Judgment 4.10.2007 [Section III] Article 6 Criminal proceedings Article 6-1 Fair hearing Equality of arms Presence of a member of the State prosecutor’s office at an information meeting for members of the jury: no violation   Facts : The applicant, having been convicted by the Assize Court, obtained the re-examination of his case. A meeting was held for jurors drawn by lot to inform them about proceedings before an Assize Court and of their role in those proceedings.   The meeting was conducted by the President of the Assize Court, a member of the Bar and a member of the prosecution service, who was also to represent the prosecution at the applicant’s trial. The public prosecutor concerned did not challenge of any of the jurors. At the opening of the proceedings the applicant’s lawyers submitted pleadings and a statement by their colleague who had attended the information meeting for the jury members. The Assize Court rejected the claim that the fact that the public prosecutor had addressed the members of the jury might have violated the equality of arms principle, and found the applicant guilty. In an appeal on points of law the applicant based one of his arguments on an alleged violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, claiming that the fact that the public prosecutor responsible for his prosecution had participated in an information meeting for the jury must have given the prosecutor an opportunity to form an initial impression of the jurors and to establish a natural authority over them, as he had explained the Assize Court procedure to them. Furthermore, his presence at the meeting had given him an unfair advantage, by giving him an opportunity to reject certain jurors and constitute a more sympathetic jury, and giving added credence to his authority over the jurors in the court proceedings. The Court of Cassation dismissed the applicant’s appeal on the ground that his lawyers had not submitted their pleadings concerning the prosecution before the start of the proceedings. The applicant further claimed that the manner in which the record of the proceedings had been drafted had not enabled the Court of Cassation to determine whether the parties had exercised their right to challenge jury members. The Court rejected that claim on the ground that the applicant had failed to raise an objection, prior to the commencement of the proceedings, concerning any irregularity allegedly committed by the defence or the prosecution in the jury selection process. Law : Rejection of the preliminary objection of non-exhaustion of domestic remedies : The Government did not establish that the applicant had been aware, prior to the start of the proceedings before the Assize Court, that the public prosecutor had attended the information meeting organised for the jury whereas the lawyer who had attended the meeting was not the one defending the applicant’s interests. The applicant had requested that formal note be taken that the fact that the public prosecutor had spoken to the jurors, who had been drawn by lots, might have violated the equality of arms principle. However, the Assize Court had used its power to decline to take note of facts it had not witnessed itself to refuse the applicant’s request. The applicant had subsequently raised the same allegation before the Court of Cassation. Furthermore, the Government did not show that the procedure applicable gave the applicant an opportunity to present his arguments effectively. Accordingly, it would be   excessively formalistic to consider that the applicant had failed to exhaust the domestic remedies because he had failed to follow the prescribed procedural rules, when it was uncertain, to say the least, whether it had been possible in practice for him to do so. Merits : No instructions had been given to the jury members by the legal officers present at the information meeting in question. The President of the Assize Court had conducted the meeting and ensured its neutrality. It was his duty to supervise the information exchanged and make sure that no comments were made about the case, the defendant’s personality or his possible guilt. The meeting had been held simply to inform jurors about the organisation of proceedings before the Assize Court. The Court stressed the benefits of such information for jury members, who were not legal professionals but ordinary citizens unfamiliar with the complexities of the legal system. The presence at these meetings of a member of the State prosecutor’s office and a member of the Bar was clearly useful since they played an important part in the proceedings and were therefore well placed to answer any questions the jurors might have about their respective roles. Furthermore, the fact that these meetings were attended by all the jurors on jury duty during the assize court session made it difficult to appoint a member of the State prosecutor’s office who would not be pleading in any of the cases heard during the session. Likewise, requiring all the lawyers who would be pleading in the different cases to attend the meetings would make the process unnecessarily unwieldy, when its sole purpose was to present the procedure and address general questions, and certainly not the specific circumstances of the different cases or the personalities of the defendants. That being so, the compromise solution adopted by the Assize Court, which was to invite one member of the Bar to represent the defence lawyers, seemed satisfactory. So the presence at these information meetings of a representative of the State prosecutor’s office and a member of the Bar struck a fair balance in terms of the information given to the jurors. As to the allegation that the representative of the State prosecutor’s office had been placed at an advantage when it came to challenging jury members, there was no evidence that the information meeting on the procedure had given him an opportunity to forge an opinion about the personality of any particular juror, especially when, at the time of the meeting, the member of the prosecutor’s office had not known which of the jurors present would eventually be drawn by lot or to which cases they would be assigned. It would not appear, therefore, that the public prosecutor was given any real advantage over the applicant in the instant case when it came to exercising the right to challenge jury members. Conclusion : no violation (unanimously)   © 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