CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 30 novembre 2010

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Poland - 23614/08 Judgment 30.11.2010 [Section IV] Article 6 Criminal proceedings Article 6-1 Independent tribunal Lack of guarantees of independence of assessors (assistant judges) sitting in district courts: violation   Facts – In 2006 a district court, composed of an assessor, convicted the applicants of failing to disclose their identity to the police and sentenced them to a fine. Their appeal was dismissed in 2007. Under Polish law, a candidate for the office of district-court judge must first serve a minimum of three years as an assessor. Assessors are legally qualified and appointed by the Minister of Justice. In October 2007 the Constitutional Court held that the vesting of judicial powers in assessors by the Minister of Justice (representing the executive) was unconstitutional since assessors did not offer the guarantees of independence that were required of judges. In particular, the Minister of Justice could effectively dismiss an assessor. The Constitutional Court ordered that the unconstitutional provision should be repealed within eighteen months. It did not order an immediate repeal as assessors constituted nearly 25% of the judicial personnel in the district courts and their immediate removal would have seriously undermined the administration of justice. That period was also necessary for Parliament to enact new legislation. In the interim the assessors were allowed to continue adjudicating. Having regard to the constitutional importance of the finality of rulings, the Constitutional Court held that its judgment could not serve as a ground for reopening cases which had been decided by the assessors. In 2009 the office of assessor was abolished. In their application to the European Court the applicants alleged that the district court that had heard their case was not an “independent tribunal”. Law – Article 6 § 1: The Court’s task in the present case was not to rule in abstracto on the compatibility with the Convention of the institution of assessors or other similar officers which existed in certain member States, but to examine the manner in which Poland regulated the status of assessors. The assessor who had heard the applicants’ case had lacked the independence required by Article 6 §   1, the reason being that she could have been removed by the Minister of Justice at any time during her term of office and there had been no adequate guarantees protecting her against the arbitrary exercise of that power by the Minister. The Government’s statistics indicating that the Minister of Justice had never exercised the power to remove an assessor did not, in the Court’s view, invalidate the reasons for the finding of unconstitutionality. Moreover, according to the Constitutional Court, review by the second-instance court could not remedy the initial lack of independence, as the second-instance court did not have the power to quash the judgment on the ground that the district court had been composed of an assessor. There had accordingly been a violation of Article 6 §   1. Having regard to the principle of legal certainty, the Court considered that in the present case there were no grounds which would require it to direct the reopening of the applicants’ case. It would, however, not exclude taking a different approach in a case where, for example, the circumstances gave rise to legitimate grounds for believing that the Minister had or could reasonably be taken to have an interest in the proceedings. Conclusion : violation (unanimously). Article 41: The finding of a violation constituted in itself sufficient just satisfaction in respect of any non‑pecuniary damage. The authorities of the respondent State had taken the requisite measures to remedy the deficiency underlying the instant case. Moreover, according to the Constitutional Court, there was no automatic correlation between that deficiency and the validity of each and every ruling given previously by assessors in individual cases. Accordingly, in this particular context, there was no call for reopening all proceedings in which the assessors had participated at the first-instance level. In the absence of any evidence to support the applicants’ claim as to costs and expenses, no award was made under this head. In the light of the reasons underlying the finding of a violation in the instant case and the fact that the authorities had taken adequate measures to address the deficiency at issue, there was no justification for awarding legal costs.   © 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