CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 12 juin 2008

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Germany - 26771/03 Judgment 12.6.2008 [Section V] Article 6 Criminal proceedings Article 6-1 Impartial tribunal Granting lay judges access to the bill of indictment containing the essential findings of the investigation against the applicant: no violation   Facts : In 2000 the applicant, along with five other persons including his sister, was charged with human trafficking. In the bill of indictment the prosecution set out in detail the exact course of events for each charge against the accused and summarised testimonies of witnesses and the content of intercepted phone calls intended to prove the charges. In October 2000 the Berlin Regional Court, composed of three professional judges and two lay judges, opened the trial against the applicant and the other co-defendants, including his sister. Following the applicant’s sister’s confession, the court severed the proceedings against her from those against the applicant, but the two cases continued to be heard by the same professional and lay judges. Since she had made a general confession to the offences described in the bill of indictment while refusing to give more detailed information, the professional judges considered it necessary to give the lay judges a copy of the part of the bill of indictment containing the essential results of the prosecution’s investigation against all the defendants. The applicant then lodged a motion for bias against the lay judges arguing that they could no longer follow the trial without prejudice after having taken note of the entire pre-assessment of the evidence by the prosecution. His motion was dismissed as ill-founded after the three professional judges of the Regional Court found that there were no grounds to doubt the lay judges’ impartiality. Even though under domestic law the results of the investigation were in principle not to be disclosed to lay judges, in the present case the professional judges had explained to them that the bill of indictment expressed views taken by the prosecution and that it was not to be confused with the results of the main hearing on which the judgment should be based. The applicant was subsequently convicted and sentenced by the Regional Court to four and a half years’ imprisonment. His conviction was upheld on appeal. Law : The applicant complained that the lay judges sitting in his case had lacked impartiality since they had taken note of the essential results of the investigation containing the prosecution’s evaluation of the evidence against him. Domestic law did not expressly regulate the question of access by lay judges to case-files including the bill of indictment, but it did prohibit the disclosure to them of the part of the indictment that contained the results of the investigation. In the present case, however, that part of the bill of indictment had been given to the lay judges in order to speed up the proceedings in the applicant’s sister’s case, which had been severed from the applicant’s case because of her confession. Since she had made a general confession to offences as described in the essential results of the investigation, it had been necessary to clarify at the trial the full content of her confession. In these circumstances, the Court held the procedure whereby the impugned part of the bill of indictment had been disclosed to the lay judges objectively justified in the particular context of the proceedings in the applicant’s case. Moreover, the lay judges’ impartiality had been ensured by sufficient safeguards: it had been explained to them that the prosecution’s views expressed in the bill of indictment should not be the basis for the judgment in the applicant’s case, which needed to be based solely on the evidence taken in the main hearing. Also, the trial court had held further twenty hearings after the lay judges were given the bill of indictment. In view of the foregoing, it appeared that the lay judges had made their final assessment as to the applicant’s guilt on the basis of the evidence produced and arguments heard at those hearings. 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