CEDH · CASELAW;JUDGMENTS;CHAMBER;ENG — 9 octobre 2025

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vertical-align:top } .s22472DF0 { border-top:0.75pt solid #949494; border-bottom:0.75pt solid #949494; padding-right:5.4pt; padding-left:5.4pt; vertical-align:top } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s85226119 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify; font-size:10pt } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } FIFTH SECTION CASE OF CHAYKOVSKYY v. UKRAINE (Application no. 48879/19)   JUDGMENT   Art 6 § 1 (criminal) • Fair hearing • Upholding of some of the applicant’s convictions by the Supreme Court in extraordinary review proceedings on the basis of evidence given by his co-defendants found by the Court in their previous cases to be in violation of Art   6 §§   1 and   3 • Review proceedings involved a fresh examination of the evidence on which the applicant was convicted, amounting to an extension of the original criminal proceedings against him • Lack of detailed reasons and strong justification for accepting evidence as admissible in respect of applicant whilst rejecting it as inadmissible in respect of co-defendants in criminal proceedings with the same underlying facts • Mere referral to principle of “individualisation of criminal responsibility” without further explanation • Fair trial guarantees not fulfilled Art 6 § 1 (criminal) • Reasonable time • Delay in examining the applicant’s request for review due to the case file being stored in occupied territory outside the Government’s control • Given objective obstacles, the domestic authorities did all in their power in the circumstances to address the applicant’s situation   Prepared by the Registry. Does not bind the Court.   STRASBOURG 9 October 2025 FINAL   09/01/2026   This judgment has become final under Article 44 § 2 of the Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Chaykovskyy v. Ukraine, The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of:   Kateřina Šimáčková , President ,   María Elósegui,   Gilberto Felici,   Diana Sârcu,   Mykola Gnatovskyy,   Vahe Grigoryan,   Sébastien Biancheri , judges , and Victor Soloveytchik, Section Registrar, Having regard to: the application (no.   48879/19) against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by a Ukrainian national, Mr   Vitaliy Viktorovych Chaykovskyy (“the applicant”), on 7 September 2019; the decision to give notice of the application to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”); the parties’ observations; Having deliberated in private on 9 September 2025, Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date: INTRODUCTION 1.     The case concerns the alleged unfairness and excessive length of the proceedings before the Supreme Court for the review of the applicant’s conviction based on the Court’s findings in his previous case. The applicant complained under Articles 6 and 13 of the Convention. THE FACTS 2.     The applicant was born in 1967 and is serving a life sentence in Berdychiv. The applicant was represented by Mr M.M. Fedash, a lawyer practising in Kyiv. 3.     The Government were represented by their Agent, Ms M. Sokorenko. 4.     The facts of the case may be summarised as follows. Background information 5.     According to the findings of the domestic courts, in early 2000 Mr A.B. formed an armed gang which included the applicant, Mr Zakshevskiy, Mr   Sitnevskiy (together – “the co-defendants”) and several other persons, and which committed a few attacks in four regions of Ukraine. 6.     The attacks were initially investigated by the authorities as unrelated crimes committed by unidentified people. Eventually, the criminal proceedings instituted in the four regions were consolidated into a single case. A description of all the attacks is set out in seven episodes in the appended table. 7.     The members of the gang, including the applicant, were tried and convicted in the same set of proceedings in the Donetsk Regional Court of Appeal, acting as a first-instance court. The evidence considered by that court in respect of each charge is described in the appended table. 8 .     All three co-defendants applied to the Court alleging various violations of their Convention rights. The Court examined those complaints and delivered judgments Zakshevskiy v. Ukraine (no. 7193/04, 17 March 2016) [1] and Sitnevskiy and Chaykovskiy [2] v. Ukraine (nos. 48016/06 and 7817/07, 10   November 2016) [3] in which it found violations particularly of Article   6   §§   1 and 3 of the Convention on account of the admission of incriminating statements made in the absence of the lawyer and of untested witness statements (for the short summary, see the appended table). In Sitnevskiy and Chaykovskiy the Court rejected as manifestly ill-founded the applicants’ complaints under Article 6 that the domestic courts had relied on pre-trial confessions that they and their co-defendants had made as a result of ill-treatment, in breach of their right not to incriminate themselves. The Court found that those allegations were not supported by any evidence (see   paragraphs 129-31 of that judgment). Moreover, in Zakshevskiy (cited above, §§ 126 and 129) the Court also dismissed that applicant’s complaint of ill‑treatment. 9.     Following the Court’s judgments in their cases, all three co-defendants applied, on various dates, to the Supreme Court of Ukraine to have their cases reopened by way of a review under exceptional circumstances as provided by the domestic legislation (see paragraph 49 below). Their applications for review were eventually heard by the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court in consolidated proceedings. The Supreme Court decision of 17 April 2019 10 .     On 17 April 2019 the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court delivered its decision in the review proceedings. It noted at the outset that   “according to the conclusions [reached by the Court in its judgments] the findings of violations were based on serious procedural mistakes in dealing with particular [charges against the co-defendants] in this case. Therefore (...), the violations found by [the Court] put the results of the court proceedings as to [each co-defendant] in relation to each separate charge into doubt, taking into consideration the principle of individualisation of criminal responsibility.” 11.     The Supreme Court went looking at each count separately to establish whether any of the violations found by the Court in respect of the conviction of any of the co-defendants required the conviction to be reviewed. Conclusions following the review of convictions 12.     As to the applicant’s conviction on the first charge, the Supreme Court held that the Court had found no violations in that respect. It further observed that the evidence used to convict the applicant in the domestic courts had included Mr Sitnevskiy’s confession of 14 February 2002 and Mr   Zakshevskiy’s testimony of 12 November 2001 (neither of them having participated in the offence but both of them knowing about it from conversations with other gang members) and that the Court had found those statements to have been obtained in breach of those defendants’ rights to defence. 13 .     The Supreme Court observed, however, that the Court’s findings only related to the self-incrimination of those two defendants on the charges of murder on which they had later been convicted and that they did not relate to any other charges. It further stated that the Court had given its judgment in Sitnevskiy and Chaykovskiy (cited above) after that in Zakshevskiy (cited above), and that, therefore, “during the examination of the second case [the Court] was taking into account its conclusions in Zakshevskiy and it did not find any violation [of the applicant’s] rights in the use made by the domestic courts of Mr Zakshevskiy’s testimony”. The Supreme Court therefore concluded that “the applicant’s conviction [on that charge and its criminal ‑ law qualification] had to remain unchanged”. 14.     As to the second episode (the “Luhansk murder”), in which the applicant and Mr Sitnevskiy had been convicted, among other, of aggravated murder, the Supreme Court observed that the evidence relied on by the trial court included i) Mr Sitnevskiy’s denial of guilt throughout the proceedings but admission in court that A.B. had told him that he had committed the murder together with G. because the victim and the members of his gang had been threatening A.B. and his sister; ii) Mr Zakshevskiy’s pre-trial testimony regarding his own crimes, in which he also said that he had learned about A.B. and Mr Sitnevskiy having committed the murder from conversations among the gang members; and iii) an admission in court by the applicant that on the day and at the time of the murder the victims had been using his lorry. 15.     The Supreme Court observed that two violations had been found by the Court as regards Mr Sitnevskiy: that his early admissions on other charges, even if they played a limited role in his conviction, had contributed to the undermining of his overall defence in relation to the Luhansk murder and that the trial court had admitted the statements of absent witnesses and used them to corroborate pre-trial statements by other co-defendants which had been later retracted. In view of those violations, the Supreme Court considered that Mr Sitnevskiy’s conviction of the offences that took place during that episode required “application of additional individual measures ( restitutio in integrum ) and sending of [the charges arising out of the second episode] for a fresh examination”. 16.     However, the Supreme Court found no reason to apply the same measures to the applicant’s conviction, that is to send it for fresh examination, as neither of the violations found by the Court in relation to that episode concerned the applicant. 17.     As to the attack described in Episode 4 in the appended table, for which the applicant and Mr Sitnevskiy had been convicted, the Supreme Court observed that the evidence admitted by the trial court included: i) statements made by the victims of that attack; ii) the applicant’s pre-trial confession, that was later retracted; and iii) Mr Sitnevskiy’s statements obtained in breach of his right to defence. 18.     In the light of the Court’s conclusions that the statements of the victims, the only eyewitnesses to the crime, had likely been decisive for the conviction (all the other evidence in the case being circumstantial) but they were not directly examined during the trial, the Supreme Court quashed the applicant’s and Mr Sitnevskiy’s convictions as to this attack and sent it for fresh examination. 19.     The applicant and Mr Sitnevskiy had also been convicted in relation to the events described in Episode 5 below. The Supreme Court observed that the evidence admitted by the trial court included a confession made by the applicant in the presence of his lawyer and repeated at other times during the investigation. No violations of the applicant’s rights had, however, been found by the Court in respect of his conviction on those charges.   As to Mr   Sitnevskiy, the Supreme Court referred to the Court’s findings that, while he had mentioned his involvement in that attack (in a minor role) in his early statements and those statements had not been clearly relied on by the trial court, they had not been clearly rejected either. Taking that into account, the Supreme Court ruled that Mr Sitnevskiy’s conviction had to be quashed and sent for fresh examination. 20.     All three co-defendants were convicted on various counts in relation to the events described in Episode 7 below. The evidence admitted by the trial court included: i) Mr Zakshevskiy’s pre-trial confession; ii) the applicant’s and Mr Sitnevskiy’s denial of guilt, but admission in court that they had been visiting Yevpatoria as tourists at A.B.’s invitation at the relevant time and had helped him to buy a motorcycle; iii) Mr Sitnevskiy’s testimony in court that while he was in Moscow with A.B., A.B. had told him that he had invited them to Yevpatoria to deflect attention from himself while he committed the crime; iv) the applicant’s pre-trial confession, which had been confirmed in the course of a videotaped reconstruction of events with Mr Zakshevskiy. The applicant had confessed to shooting at R.M. The trial court, having examined the video-recordings, was satisfied that the defendants had spoken and acted of their own free will, and had commented and responded to questions freely and without any prompting; and v) untested statements of victim R.M. 21.     The Court had found that Mr Zakshevskiy’s confessions had been obtained in breach of his right to defence. The Supreme Court therefore quashed his conviction on the charges relating to the events of Episode 7 and sent it for re-trial.   The Supreme Court reached the same conclusion about the applicant’s conviction given the Court’s finding that there had been no reason to admit the untested statement of the victim R.M.   As to Mr Sitnevskiy, given that the Court did not find any violation of his rights in relation to the events of Episode 7, there was no reason to quash his conviction. The Supreme Court observed in that connection that the Court in its judgment in Sitnevskiy and Chaykovskiy (cited above) had found that the applicant had carried out the attack on R.M. and his bodyguard alone, Mr Sitnevskiy’s role being limited to the preparations for that attack. There had therefore been nothing to suggest that R.M. had had any contact with Mr Sitnevskiy or that he had known he was involved. R.M.’s statement therefore could not be considered a decisive or weighty element in Mr Sitnevskiy’s conviction. 22.     The Supreme Court went on to examine the charges arising from the events of the third and sixth episodes. The trial court hearing the case against the co-defendants for those attacks had admitted the confession of Mr   Zakshevskiy, which had been obtained in breach of his right to defence and in which he had not only provided information about his own participation in the crimes but also given the investigator general information about the preparation of various attacks and the roles played by other members of the gang and had provided the prosecution with other important information. The Supreme Court reiterated that the Court had found the obtaining of that confession, as well as the testimony of Mr Sitnevskiy, to have been in breach of Article 6 guarantees “only as regards those crimes which required the defendant to be represented by a lawyer [under the legislation in force at the material time] during the conduct of investigative actions.” The Supreme Court further reiterated that in so far as the waivers of legal assistance on charges of armed robbery were concerned, the Court had found nothing to show that they had been invalid; they had therefore been the free choice of those defendants. The violations found by the Court, in the Supreme Court’s view, related exclusively and solely to those statements which had been used to convict Mr Zakshevskiy and Mr Sitnevskiy of murder. Once again, the Supreme Court emphasised that that had been in line with the principle of the individualisation of criminal responsibility and with the requirements of legal certainty ( res judicata ). In view of the above, the Supreme Court found that there were no grounds for a review of the defendants’ convictions arising from the events of the third and sixth episodes. 23.     The Supreme Court further observed that quashing the convictions in part and sending the respective charges for fresh examination would have been an appropriate way of restoring the co-defendants to the position they had been in before the violations later found by the Court had been committed. In a new trial, “the principle of the presumption of innocence will renew its operation and [the co-defendants] will be able to make use of their right to defence according to the procedure established by law”. 24 .     The Supreme Court concluded that:   “the [trial] court must properly evaluate the admissibility, adequacy and sufficiency of all the evidence gathered in the case as a whole in order to reach a conclusion about [the co-defendants’] guilt or innocence of the crimes that they are charged with”. 25.     The Supreme Court recalculated the terms of imprisonment that each co-defendant had to serve so as to make them commensurate with the partial quashing of the convictions. It decided that Mr Sitnevskiy’s and Mr   Zakshevskiy’s new sentences would be fifteen and ten years’ imprisonment respectively, and as they had already served those terms, those defendants were released in the courtroom. The charges against the applicant, however, even as reduced following the partial quashing of his conviction, still entailed life imprisonment. Dissenting opinion to the Supreme Court’s decision 26 .     Five judges of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court out of fourteen gave a joint dissenting opinion. They observed at the outset that the Grand Chamber itself had explained that its conclusions were based on the principle of the individualisation of penalty and had been informed by the Court’s findings of violations of the Convention in respect of certain of the charges brought against certain of the defendants, which essentially amounted to severing those charges from the case overall. In the judges’ view that approach could not be justified. Firstly, they observed that the jurisdiction of the Court and that of the Supreme Court as a higher court in the domestic judicial system were different. The Supreme Court (or its Grand Chamber) had to deal with a wider array of issues when examining a case and should not “mimic” the Court’s conclusions but make its own analysis of how those conclusions might affect the safety of the conviction. 27.     Secondly, the judges observed that where a case was reviewed under exceptional circumstances following a judgment of the Court, the Supreme Court would be acting as a court of cassation subject to the specific rules in Chapter 33 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (“the CCP”). That meant, in the judges’ view, that the Supreme Court could go beyond the limits of a cassation appeal if that was not to the detriment of the convicted person (Article 433). If a cassation appeal was allowed on grounds that would also affect other persons convicted but who had not brought their own cassation appeals, a court of cassation was obliged to adopt a relevant decision. 28.     The judges cited in support two examples from the Grand Chamber’s case law on review under exceptional circumstances. Following Yaremenko v.   Ukraine (no. 2) (no. 66338/09, 30 April 2015), the Grand Chamber had quashed not only Mr Yaremenko’s conviction but also that of another person who had taken part in the same offences. The same occurred following the Court’s judgment Zyakun v. Ukraine (no. 34006/06, 25 February 2016). The applicant in that case had been convicted together with an accomplice and the Supreme Court stated directly that quashing only the conviction of Mr   Zyakun would be contrary to the CCP and might be grounds for further findings of violations of the guarantee of a fair trial. 29.     The judges thus concluded that the Grand Chamber was not prevented from quashing the conviction of the other persons, and was actually obliged to do so. 30 .     The judges further stated that the Grand Chamber had to consider the use of any evidence obtained in breach of proper procedure (as established by the Court) to be a serious breach of criminal procedure against all co ‑ defendants. They observed in that respect that, for example, when convicting the applicant on the charges related to the events of the first episode, the trial court had relied on, inter alia , Mr Zakhevskiy’s confession, which had been obtained in breach of his right to defence. That confession was inadmissible in evidence in its totality, whatever its contents, that is to say, whether or not it contained only self-incriminatory statements or if it also included incriminating information about other persons. The judges emphasised that one and the same piece of evidence could not be considered inadmissible as to one person and admissible as to another. The same considerations were true for other charges, even more so given that all the co ‑ defendants were charged with banditry, which presupposed the participation of all the members of a gang in all the crimes committed by that gang. 31 .     Lastly, the judges said that despite its own conclusions the Grand Chamber had nevertheless stated that the trial court should evaluate all the evidence gathered in the case (see paragraph 24 above). In fact, however, the Grand Chamber, when sentencing the co-defendants, had already ruled on the evidence in the case and had found, in particular, Mr Zakhevskiy’s confession (obtained in breach of his right to defence) to be inadmissible. 32 .     The dissenting opinion concluded that the right way to deal with the case would have been to quash the convictions as to all the co-defendants and send the case for fresh examination in its entirety. Recapitulation of the Supreme Court’s conclusions 33 .     Given the Supreme Court’s findings as described above, the applicant’s convictions on the charges arising out of the events described in Episodes 4 and 7 were quashed and remitted for rehearing. The applicant’s convictions on all other charges remained unchanged. Timeline of examination of the applicant’s request for review 34.     The applicant lodged his request for review with the Supreme Court on 27 April 2017. 35.     In their observations the Government informed the Court that the Supreme Court had opened the proceedings and requested the case file by its rulings of 25 October 2016 (as regards the request for review of Mr   Zakshevskiy) and 9 June 2017 (as regards the requests of the applicant and Mr Sitnevskiy). 36.     The proceedings had to be suspended, however, because the case file was held in storage at the former premises of the Donetsk Regional Court of Appeal, in territory which had been outside Ukrainian Government’s control since 2014. The suspension was ordered by the Supreme Court on 16   November 2016 (as to Mr Zakshevskiy’s request) and on 7 August 2017 (as to the applicant’s and Mr Sitnevskiy’s requests). 37.     On 20 October 2017 the proceedings were resumed by the Supreme Court after one of the co-defendants informed the court that certain documents from the case file had been restored by a ruling of 20 September 2017 of the Donetsk Regional Court of Appeal (then relocated to the town of Bakhmut). From the text of that ruling it appears that the three co-defendants had asked for the restoration of the case file saying it was needed for the examination of their case by the Supreme Court. One of the co-defendants attached to his request for restoration documents on more than 1,900 pages. The Donetsk Regional Court of Appeal ruled to restore those documents which were “procedural documents” and the origin of which could be established, and if they were readable. It appears that among the documents restored were documents from both the pre-trial investigation stage, including the co-defendants’ confessions, and the trial stage of the case. 38.     On 26 January 2018 the restored part of the case file was transferred to the newly established Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court, which on 29   January 2018 opened proceedings and scheduled a hearing for 27 February 2018. 39.     On 27 February 2018, during the hearing, the prosecutor contended that the majority of the documents from the case file were still unavailable and asked for a further suspension of the proceedings in order to allow the prosecution to try to obtain them under the procedure provided for in Chapter VII of the CCP (for the description of that procedure see, Fasolko and Matych v.   Ukraine [Committee], nos. 30256/15 and 59524/15, §§ 57-58, 21   January 2021). The Supreme Court dismissed that request. It nevertheless adjourned the hearing to 25 April 2018 so that the defendants had to be given time to familiarise themselves with some additional submissions from other parties. 40.     On 25 April 2018 the court hearing was adjourned for technical reasons, since the applicant had been unable to participate via video ‑ conference. 41.   The next hearing was held on 11 July 2018. The prosecutor requested a further adjournment, until the case file had been fully restored. In particular, out of forty-three volumes of the criminal case, the Donetsk Regional Court of Appeal had restored only eleven. Another four volumes were received by the Supreme Court from the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. However, most of the evidence collected in the case and used by the trial court in reaching the verdict was still missing. The Supreme Court adjourned the case to 3   October 2018. 42.     On 3 October 2018 the Supreme Court applied to the International Committee of the Red Cross for assistance in obtaining the case file located in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine, and suspended the proceedings until the issue of the restoration of the case file was resolved. 43.     On 17 January 2019, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court resumed the proceedings. It recited in its relevant ruling that on 13 December 2018 the case file had been received by the Donetsk Regional Court of Appeal “in the context of the process of transferring convicts who had been serving their sentences in the territories temporarily outside the control of the Ukrainian Government”. On 15 January 2019 the documents were received by the Supreme Court. The next hearing was scheduled for 13 March 2019. 44.     On 13 March 2019 the hearing was adjourned to 17 April 2019 because it had proved impossible to set up a video-conference of good quality between the court and the defendants, who were held in different penal institutions. 45.     On 17 April 2019 the Supreme Court gave its decision. Other relevant facts 46 .     It appears from the latest information available to the Court that the charges against the applicant arising from the events of Episodes 4 and 7 are pending in the domestic trial court. 47.     The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (“the Committee of Ministers”) examined the measures taken by Ukraine to execute the Court’s 2016 judgment in Chaykovskiy , cited above, under Article   46 § 2 of the Convention which gives it power to supervise the execution of judgments of the Court. In particular, in the applicant’s case the Ukrainian Government in their consolidated Action Report of 12 November 2019 (document DH-DD(2019)1371 [4] ) explained that the individual measures required were the full payment of the just satisfaction awarded by the Court and an opportunity for the applicant to lodge an application for the reopening of his case following the Court’s judgment, an opportunity which he had taken up. 48.     The Committee of Ministers took note of the individual measures taken by the respondent State; it also took note that the general measures in response to violations of Article 6 are still being examined in the Balitskiy group of cases. In view of that, in its Resolution CM/ResDH(2020)15 [5] of 22   January 2020 the Committee of Ministers declared that it had exercised its functions under Article 46 § 2 and decided to close the examination of the applicant’s case. RELEVANT LEGAL FRAMEWORK 49.     The relevant provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure (2012), as in force at the material time, provided as follows: Article 433. Scope of a review by the court of cassation “1. The court of cassation shall ascertain whether the courts of the first and appellate instances correctly applied the rules of substantive and procedural law and made an appropriate legal assessment of the circumstances of the case, and shall not have the right to examine evidence, find facts or recognise as proven anything that was not established in the contested court decision nor to resolve the question of the credibility of any particular piece of evidence. 2. The court of cassation shall review the judgments of the courts of the first and appellate instances within the scope of the cassation appeal. The court of cassation has the right to go beyond the scope of the cassation appeal, if that does not worsen the situation of the convicted person (...). If the [cassation appeal] is allowed and that would provide grounds to make a decision in favour of other convicted persons from whom no appeals have been received, the court of cassation is obliged to make such decisions.” Article 436. Powers of the court of cassation following examination of a cassation appeal “1. The court of cassation has power to: 1) leave the court decision unchanged, and not to allow the cassation appeal; 2) quash the court decision and refer the case for rehearing in the court of first instance or an appeal court; 3) quash the court decision and terminate the criminal proceedings; 4) change the court decision.” Article 438. Grounds for the court of cassation to quash or change a court decision “1. Grounds for quashing or changing court decisions following the examination of a case by the court of cassation are: 1) serious violation of the requirements of criminal procedure; 2) incorrect application of the law of Ukraine on criminal responsibility; 3) inconsistency of the sentence given with the severity of the criminal offence and the personality of the person convicted. 2. When deciding whether there are grounds as specified in the first section of this article, the court of cassation shall be guided by Articles 412-414 of this Code.” Article 463. Procedure for submitting an application for review of a court decision based on newly discovered or exceptional circumstances “... 3. An application for review of a court decision under exceptional circumstances based on the findings of an international court, the jurisdiction of which is recognised by Ukraine, of a violation of Ukraine’s international obligations in court proceedings shall be submitted to the Supreme Court for it to be considered by the Grand Chamber.” Article 467. Court decisions following criminal proceedings based on newly discovered or exceptional circumstances “1. The court shall have power to quash a judgment or ruling and to give a new judgment or ruling, or to dismiss a request for a court decision to be reviewed in the light of newly discovered or exceptional circumstances. When delivering a new judgment, the court will exercise the powers of a court of the relevant level of jurisdiction. As a result of reviewing a court decision in the light of newly discovered or exceptional circumstances, the Supreme Court may also quash a court decision (or decisions) in whole or in part and remit the case to the first‑instance court or to an appeal court for rehearing.” THE LAW ALLEGED VIOLATIONs OF ARTICLE 6 OF THE CONVENTION as regards fairness of the proceedings 50.     The applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 that the Supreme Court was not a “tribunal established by law” because, instead of referring the case to a trial court for rehearing, it had reassessed the facts and evidence itself when it had no jurisdiction to do so. He also complained that the Supreme Court had erred in its assessment of the impact that the admission of improperly obtained evidence leading to the conviction of any co-defendant had on other defendants and the case generally. Relying on Article 6 § 3 (a) and (b) he also complained that, given that the Supreme Court had “unexpectedly” conducted the reassessment of evidence, he had had no adequate knowledge of the charges against him and no opportunity to prepare his defence. The relevant provisions of Article 6 read as follows: “1. In the determination of ... any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair ... hearing ... by [a] ... tribunal established by law... 3.     Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights: (a)     to be informed promptly, in a language which he understands and in detail, of the nature and cause of the accusation against him; (b)     to have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence; ...” Admissibility Complaints made in relation to the events of Episodes 4 and 7 51.     The Court observes at the outset that a distinction should be made between any complaints the applicant may have raised in respect of his convictions on charges arising from the events of Episodes 4 and 7 (those convictions were quashed and sent for a fresh examination) and his complaints regarding his convictions on the remaining charges (which were upheld by the Supreme Court). 52.     The Court observes that the proceedings for the determination of the charges arising from the events of Episodes 4 and 7 were reopened and the case was sent for rehearing after the Supreme Court had reviewed it and that, according to the latest information available to the Court, those proceedings are still pending in the trial court (see paragraph 46 above). 53.     In accordance with the Court’s established case-law, the question of whether or not court proceedings satisfy the requirements of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention can only be determined by examining the proceedings as a whole, that is, once they have been concluded (see, for example, Dimech v.   Malta , no. 34373/13, § 43, 2 April 2015). The applicant claims that the Supreme Court’s conclusions on the admissibility of certain pieces of evidence, as set out in its judgment of 17 April 2019 quashing his convictions on Episodes 4 and 7 and referring the case for rehearing, prejudiced the outcome of the reopened proceedings as they set a framework for the trial court’s assessment of the evidence. However, the fact remains that, if he is convicted by the trial court, the applicant will be free to raise any issues of unfairness on appeal. It has not been alleged by the applicant that the higher court would not have jurisdiction to deal with such issues. 54.     It follows that the applicant’s complaints regarding the Supreme Court review are premature in so far as they concern the events of Episodes 4 and 7, in respect of which the determination of the criminal charges is pending in the trial court. This part of the application must therefore be declared inadmissible and rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3(a) and 4 of the Convention. The parties’ submissions on the remaining complaints 55.     The Government submitted that Article 6 did not apply to the review proceedings in the applicant’s case. They emphasised that Article 6 does not normally apply to proceedings concerning extraordinary remedies, such as the reopening of a case. A person whose sentence has become final and who applies for his or her case to be reopened is not “charged with a criminal offence” within the meaning of that Article; only the new proceedings, after the request for reopening has been granted, can be regarded as concerning the determination of a criminal charge. In that connection they referred to Moreira Ferreira v. Portugal (no. 2) [GC], no. 19867/12, §§ 60-61, 11   July 2017); Fischer v. Austria ((dec.), no. 27569/02, 6 May 2003); Löffler v.   Austria (no. 30546/96, §§ 18-19, 3 October 2000), and Öcalan v. Turkey ((dec.), no. 5980/07, 6 July 2010). The Government asserted that in the present case the proceedings before the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court were not “new” in the meaning of the Court’s case law, but were limited to the restoration of the applicant’s rights to the state that existed before the violation of the Convention ( restitutio in integrum ). They maintained that there had been no rehearing in the applicant’s case and that Article 6 of the Convention therefore did not apply. 56.     The Government further submitted that the applicant’s case was different from Yaremenko (no. 2) (cited above) and Shabelnik v. Ukraine (no.   2) (no. 15685/11, 1 June 2017) in that, firstly, in those cases the Court had found that the Convention violation had been repeated because the Supreme Court, while excluding the applicants’ confessions, had re-admitted other inadmissible evidence thus perpetuating the violations previously found by the Court. Secondly, in Yaremenko (no. 2) the Supreme Court had not quashed the applicant’s conviction (either in full or in part) but had excluded some tainted evidence and upheld his conviction overall. In the present case, however, the Supreme Court had quashed part of the applicant’s conviction and sent that part for a fresh examination. 57.     The Government also referred to Shabelnik v. Ukraine (no.   3) (no.   54806/18, 4 November 2021), in which the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court had taken an approach similar to that in the present case, that is to say, it had partially quashed the conviction on certain charges and remitted the case for a rehearing of those charges. As to the remaining charges, it had allowed the conviction to stand but had adjusted the final sentence, which, in any case, was life imprisonment. Mr Shabelnik complained under Article 7 of the Convention that that approach constituted the imposition of a new punishment for a crime committed seventeen years earlier and which had become time-barred, but the Court found no violation of that provision. In the Government’s view that conclusion meant that the Court “had no doubts as to the power of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court to partially quash a verdict against a person and remit that part to be reheard and to uphold the verdict and conviction in relation to the other part”. 58.     The applicant submitted no comments as to admissibility. The Court’s assessment (a)    General principles 59.     The Court reiterates that under its well-established case-law, Article   6 § 1 does not guarantee a right to the reopening of proceedings (see, inter alia , Zawadzki v. Poland (dec.), no. 34158/96, 6 July 1999, and Sablon v. Belgium , no.   36445/97, § 86, 10 April 2001) and is not normally engaged by extraordinary appeals seeking the reopening of judicial proceedings that have already been determined. In particular, the Court has found that Article 6 does not apply to applications for the reopening of criminal proceedings, given that a person who has been convicted with final effect is not “charged with a criminal offence” within the meaning of that Article. Likewise, Article 6 does not apply to a plea of nullity for the preservation of the law, brought with the aim of quashing a final conviction following a finding by the Court of a violation, as the person concerned is likewise not “charged with a criminal offence” in such proceedings (see, for example, Fischer v. Austria (dec.), no.   27569/02, ECHR 2003-VI, and Öcalan v. Turkey (dec.), no. 5980/07, 6   July 2010). 60.     Nevertheless, in criminal law, the requirements of legal certainty are not absolute (see Moreira Ferreira (no. 2) , cited above, § 62). The Court has held that that a conviction ignoring key evidence constitutes a miscarriage of justice, and that leaving such errors uncorrected may seriously affect the fairness, integrity and public reputation of judicial proceedings (see Lenskaya v.   Russia , no. 28730/03, §§ 39 and 40, 29 January 2009, and Giuran v.   Romania , no. 24360/04, § 39, ECHR 2011 (extracts)). The Court has also considered other stages in criminal proceedings where the applicants were no longer “persons charged with a criminal offence” but had been convicted. Given that “criminal charge” is an autonomous notion and having regard to the impact which the procedure for examining an appeal on points of law may have upon the determination of a criminal charge, including the possibility of correcting errors of law, the Court has found that such a procedure is covered by the safeguards of Article 6 (see Meftah and Others v. France [GC], nos.   32911/96, 35237/97 and 34595/97, § 40, ECHR 2002‑VII). 61.     As the Court stated, in particular, in Moreira Ferreira (no. 2) (cited above, § 60), the nature, scope and specific features of proceedings on a given extraordinary appeal in a particular legal system may bring those proceedings within the ambit of Article 6 § 1 and engage the safeguards of a fair trial that it affords to litigants. The criminal limb of Article 6 of the Convention applies to criminal proceedings concerning remedies classified as extraordinary remedies in domestic law where the domestic court is called upon to determine the charge. The Court therefore examines whether Article 6 applies to extraordinary remedies by seeking to establish whether, during the consideration of the remedy in question, the domestic court was required to determine the criminal charge (ibid., § 65). In the specific context of the reopening of criminal proceedings following a judgment of the Court, the Court has already found Article 6 applicable in various scenarios such as: a refusal to reopen proceedings (see Moreira Ferreira (no. 2), cited above, and Repeşco and Repeşcu v. the Republic of Moldova , no. 39272/15, 3   October 2023); the reopening of a case coupled with the reassessment of evidence without sending the case for rehearing (see Yaremenko (no. 2) , cited above, and Alakhverdyan v. Ukraine , no. 8838/20, 26 June 2025, not yet final); the partial reopening of a case leading to the quashing of convictions on some charges (sending them for fresh examination) and the upholding of convictions on others (see Serrano Contreras v. Spain (no. 2) , no.   2236/19, 26   October 2021); and a procedure combining the determination of the admissibility of the application for the