CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 19 décembre 2006

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France - 34043/02 Judgment 19.12.2006 [Section II] Article 6 Criminal proceedings Article 6-1 Fair hearing Reclassification by the appellate court of an offence as complicity in that offence at the stage of delivering judgment: violation   Article 6-3-a Information on nature and cause of accusation Reclassification by the appellate court of an offence as complicity in that offence at the stage of delivering judgment: violation   Article 6-3-b Adequate facilities Adequate time Reclassification by the appellate court of an offence as complicity in that offence at the stage of delivering judgment: violation   Facts : At the material time the applicant was the girlfriend of Corsican nationalist leader François Santoni. Following an attack carried out in December 1996 she was placed under investigation for “conspiracy to commit terrorist acts, reconstituting a dissolved organisation and attempted extortion, all related directly or indirectly to a terrorist undertaking”.   In March 2000 the applicant and Mr Santoni were sentenced to four years’ imprisonment for conspiring to commit terrorist acts and attempted extortion in connection with a terrorist undertaking. On appeal, the applicant was convicted of aiding and abetting attempted extortion and conspiring to commit terrorist acts and was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, one year of which was suspended. She lodged an appeal on points of law, contending among other arguments that, because on appeal the attempted extortion charges had been reclassified as aiding and abetting attempted extortion, she had been unable to submit a defence. The appeal was dismissed on 6 March 2002. Law : Article 6(3)(a) and (b) – The reclassification of the offence from attempted extortion to aiding and abetting attempted extortion had occurred during the deliberations of the Court of Appeal; this in itself could raise doubts as to whether the guarantees laid down in Article 6 had been complied with. That said, in the earlier stages of the proceedings, and in particular in the first-instance judgment, the question whether the terms aiding and abetting applied to the applicant’s conduct had been raised and even discussed. However, the first-instance judgment had also referred to the applicant’s active involvement in the planned terrorist operation, and the notion of complicity as such did not feature in the earlier stages of the proceedings. Accordingly, it was not established that the applicant had been aware that the offence might be reclassified as aiding and abetting attempted extortion. In view of the “the need for special attention to be paid to the notification of the ‘accusation’ to the defendant” and of the decisive role played by the bill of indictment in criminal proceedings, the provisions of Article 6(3) had not been complied with. Furthermore, in the instant case the Court of Cassation had taken the view that “the reclassification of the offence from attempted extortion to aiding and abetting attempted extortion did not alter the nature and substance of the charge, of which the defendants had been fully informed when they appeared before the criminal court”. It could not be argued that aiding and abetting merely represented a degree of involvement in the offence; likewise, the principle that criminal statutes must be strictly construed meant that it was not possible to avoid having to make out the specific elements of aiding and abetting. As in Pélissier and Sassi v. France , it was therefore plausible to argue that the defences the applicant could have relied on would have been different from the defence to the substantive charge. It could not be argued that reclassification had had no effect on the sentence imposed on the applicant, as one could only speculate as to the sentence she might have received had she been able to prepare an effective defence against the reformulated charge. Admittedly, the sentence passed by the court of appeal following reclassification had been more lenient than that handed down by the criminal court; however, the Court emphasised that the reasons given for the sentence imposed on appeal had been the applicant’s state of health at the time and the fact that she had not been convicted of any offences in the previous five years. Accordingly, there had been interference with the applicant’s right to be informed in detail of the nature and cause of the accusation against her, and with her right to have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of her defence. There had therefore been a violation of Article 6(3) (a) and (b) of the Convention taken in conjunction with Article 6(1). Conclusion : violation (unanimously). Inadmissible under Article 13, as the applicant could have raised her complaint concerning reclassification of the offence at the appeal stage before the Court of Cassation, which had examined her appeal on the merits. Article 41 – The finding of a violation constituted in itself sufficient just satisfaction for the non-pecuniary damage sustained by the applicant.   © 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