CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 20 décembre 2005

.s3ABFC313 { font-size:10pt } .sEB86A30B { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:14pt; page-break-after:avoid } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .sA241FE93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:18pt; text-align:justify; page-break-after:avoid; border-bottom:0.75pt solid #000000; padding-bottom:1pt } .s2EF62ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:12pt } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s8F2B0B1B { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:12pt } .s9FF10068 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .s5F48796F { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify } .s5CB9E8AB { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify; border-bottom:1pt solid #000000; padding-bottom:1pt } .sDF790F1E { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s3DC36BA9 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 81 December 2005 P.D. v. France - 54730/00 Judgment 20.12.2005 [Section II] Article 6 Criminal proceedings Article 6-1 Fair hearing Applicant who lodged his grounds of appeal on points of law out of time complained that the procedure in the Court of Cassation had not been fair: no violation   Facts : The applicant appealed on points of law against an appeal-court judgment upholding his conviction and requested a copy of the judgment so that he could lodge his appeal within the time-limit. In the meantime he filed provisional pleadings in the registry of the Court of Appeal, explaining that he was unable to submit pleadings on the merits within the ten-day time-limit provided for in the Code of Criminal Procedure as he had not received a copy of the judgment. He subsequently received the copy and filed his pleadings on the merits a few days later. The Court of Cassation found that it had received the applicant’s pleadings out of time and that no exemption had been granted by the president of the criminal division. After observing that the judgment appealed against contained no procedural defect, it dismissed the applicant’s appeal. The applicant complained that he had not been provided with the submissions of the advocate-general and had been unable to reply to them because he had not been informed of the date of the hearing in the Court of Cassation. Law : Article 6(1) – The criminal division of the Court of Cassation had confined itself to declaring the applicant’s pleadings inadmissible, under Article 585-1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, on the ground that he had failed to request an extension of the time-limit for filing pleadings with that court. Consequently, the Court of Cassation had not addressed the merits of the case, but, before dismissing the appeal, had merely ensured that there was no procedural defect in the judgment appealed against. In the circumstances, the submission of a memorandum for the deliberations, in response to the oral submissions of the advocate-general, would have made no difference to the outcome of the proceedings in the Court of Cassation. Accordingly, the Court considered that, as it had found in the case of Stepinska v. France (no.   1814/02, 15 June 2004), the legal approach followed in the present case could not be called into question. In short, having regard to the specific circumstances of the case, the applicant could not argue that his inability to attend the hearing in the Court of Cassation, because he had not been informed of the date, and to “defend himself” by submitting a memorandum for the deliberations, entailed a breach of Article 6(1). Such a right, were it to have been recognised, would have had no meaningful or substantive effects. 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