CEDH · PRESS;FORTHCOMINGJUDGMENTS;ENG — 11 septembre 2009

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s40F41F73 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s3DC36BA9 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sC7EAD8B { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt }   642 11.09.2009   Press release issued by the Registrar   FORTHCOMING GRAND CHAMBER JUDGMENT   17 September 2009   The European Court of Human Rights will deliver its Grand Chamber judgment in the case of Scoppola v. Italy (application no. 10249/03) in a public hearing on Thursday 17 September 2009 at 10.30 a.m. (local time) in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg.   The press release and the text of the judgment will be available after the hearing on the Court’s Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).     Franco Scoppola is an Italian national who was born in 1940. He is currently in Parma Prison.   On 2 September 1999, after a fight with his children, the applicant killed his wife and injured one of the children. He was arrested on 3 September. At the end of the preliminary investigation the Rome prosecution service asked for the applicant to be committed to stand trial for murder, attempted murder, ill-treatment of his family and unauthorised possession of a firearm. At a hearing in February 2000 before the Rome preliminary hearings judge (“the GUP”) the applicant asked to be tried under the summary procedure, a simplified process which entailed a reduction of sentence in the event of conviction. The judge agreed to his request.   In the version in force at that time, Article 442 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (“the CCP”) provided that, if the crime committed by the defendant was punishable by life imprisonment, the appropriate sentence should be 30 years. On 24 November 2000 the GUP found the applicant guilty and noted that he was liable to a sentence of life imprisonment; however, as the trial had been conducted under the summary procedure, the judge sentenced the applicant to a term of 30 years.   However, Legislative Decree no. 341, which had entered into force that very day, had just amended Article 442 of the CCP. The latter now provided that in the event of trial under the summary procedure, life imprisonment was to be substituted for life imprisonment with daytime isolation if there were cumulative offences or a continuous offence.   The Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Rome Court of Appeal considered that, in view of the entry into force of the new version, the applicant’s sentence should have been life imprisonment rather than 30 years. Accordingly, it appealed against the GUP’s decision.   On 10 January 2002 the Rome Assize Court of Appeal sentenced Franco Scoppola to life imprisonment. Noting that Legislative Decree no. 341 of 2000 had entered into force on the very day of the GUP’s decision, it considered that, since its provisions were classed as procedural rules, they were applicable to all pending proceedings. The Assize Court of Appeal further observed that under the terms of Legislative Decree no. 341 the applicant could have withdrawn his request to be tried under the summary procedure and have stood trial under the ordinary procedure. As he had not done so, the first-instance decision ought to have taken account of the change in the rules introduced by the legislative decree.   After his appeal on points of law was dismissed, the applicant lodged an extraordinary appeal with the Court of Cassation on the ground of a factual error. He argued that he had been convicted in breach of the fair-trial principles guaranteed by Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and on the basis of retrospective application of the criminal law – in the form of Legislative Decree no. 341 – in breach of Article 7 of the Convention (no punishment without law). That appeal too was dismissed.   The application was lodged with the Court on 24 March 2003 and was declared partly admissible on 13 May 2008. The applicant’s complaints relate not only to the alleged violation of Article 7 but also to the compatibility with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (right to a fair trial) of the provisions introduced by Legislative Decree no. 341.   On 2 September 2008 the Chamber to which the case had been assigned relinquished jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber under Article 30 [1] of the Convention. A hearing was held in Strasbourg on 7 January 2009.     ***   Press contacts Stefano Piedimonte (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 04) or Tracey Turner-Tretz (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30) Kristina Pencheva-Malinowski (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 70) Céline Menu-Lange (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 58 77) Frédéric Dolt (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 53 39)   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. [1] Where a case pending before a Chamber raises a serious question affecting the interpretation of the Convention or the protocols thereto, or where the resolution of a question before the Chamber might have a result inconsistent with a judgment previously delivered by the Court, the Chamber may, at any time before it has rendered its judgment, relinquish jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber, unless one of the parties to the case objects.