CEDH · PRESS;GENERAL;ENG — 18 décembre 2002

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .s5FFF0A77 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:1pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s94935B0F { width:389.85pt; display:inline-block } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s33165EBA { font-family:Arial; font-size:8pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .s3964C3A3 { width:1.36pt; display:inline-block } .s901C2590 { width:56.7pt; display:inline-block } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } .s3133A7C8 { font-family:Arial; color:#0069d6 }   EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS     649   18.12.2002   Press release issued by the Registrar   GRAND CHAMBER JUDGMENT IN THE CASE OF N.C. v. ITALY   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing a judgment in the case of N.C. v. Italy (application no. 24952/94). The Court held unanimously that there had been no violation of Article 5 § 5 (right to liberty and security) of the European Convention on Human Rights.   1.     Principal facts   The applicant, N.C., is an Italian national who was born in 1951 and lives in Velenzano (Bari).   The applicant was suspected of having committed the offences of abuse of official authority and corruption in the performance of his duties as technical director, technical and economic adviser and special representative and agent of a company, X. He was arrested on 3   November 1993. According to witness statements, he was alleged to have commissioned Y, the head of Brindisi District Council’s town-planning department, as chief engineer for a road-building project and as assistant project manager for the construction of a new detention centre in Lecce, in exchange for false declarations which Y had made to the X company’s advantage.   In a decision of 13 November 1993 Brindisi District Court dismissed an application by the applicant for his release, holding that there was “substantial evidence” of his guilt ( gravi indizi di colpevolezza ); however, noting that he had no criminal record, the court allowed the request he had made in the alternative and placed him under house arrest. The applicant applied to have the order placing him under house arrest revoked as he had resigned from his post as technical director of the X company, and on 20 December 1993 Brindisi District Court ordered his immediate release.   In a judgment of 15 April 1999 the Brindisi District Court acquitted the applicant on the ground that the alleged facts had never occurred ( perché il fatto non sussiste ). That judgment became final on 14 October 1999.   2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the European Commission of Human Rights on 28 April 1994 and transmitted to the Court on 1 November 1998. It was declared admissible on 15   December 1998, and on 11 January 2001 the Court delivered a Chamber judgment (Second Section) in which it held by four votes to three that there had been no violation of Article 5 § 5 of the Convention. On 4 April 2001 the applicant requested that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber under Article 43 (referral to the Grand Chamber) of the Convention, and on 5   September 2001 the panel of the Grand Chamber accepted that request.   Judgment was given by a Grand Chamber of 17 judges, composed as follows:   Luzius Wildhaber (Swiss), President Jean-Paul Costa (French), Georg Ress (German), Gaukur Jörundsson (Icelandic), Elisabeth Palm (Swedish), Lucius Caflisch [1] (Swiss), Pranas Kūris (Lithuanian), Ireneu Cabral Barreto (Portuguese), Corneliu Bîrsan (Romanian), Josep Casadevall (Andorran), Boštjan Zupančič (Slovenian), Matti Pellonpää (Finnish), Hanne Sophie Greve (Norwegian), András Baka (Hungarian), Snejana Botoucharova (Bulgarian), Anatoly Kovler (Russian), Vladimiro Zagrebelsky (Italian), judges , and also Paul Mahoney , Registrar .   3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Complaint   Relying on Article 5 § 5 of the Convention, the applicant complained that he had not been entitled under Italian law to claim compensation for the damage sustained on account of his pre-trial detention, which, in his view, had not complied with Article 5 §§ 1 (c) and 3 of the Convention.   Decision of the Court   The Court reiterated that the right to compensation set forth in Article 5 § 5 presupposed that a violation of one of the other paragraphs of Article 5 had been established by a domestic authority or by the Convention institutions. In the case in question the national authorities had not held that the applicant’s pre-trial detention or house arrest had been unlawful or contrary to Article 5 of the Convention. Although the applicant had submitted to the Court numerous arguments to show that the measures depriving him of his liberty had contravened Article 5 §§ 1 (c) and 3, the Court did not consider it necessary to examine whether those provisions had been infringed because, even supposing that they had been, there was no appearance of a violation of Article 5 § 5 in the applicant’s case.   The Court observed that Article 314 of the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure (“the CCP”) provided for the possibility of a claim for compensation by anyone who had been acquitted on the grounds that the alleged facts had never occurred, he had not committed the offence, no criminal offence had been committed or the facts alleged did not amount to an offence in law. In the present case the applicant could have made a claim under Article 314 of the CCP from the moment at which his acquittal had become final – that is, on 14 October 1999. The Italian legal system had therefore afforded him, with a sufficient degree of certainty, the right to compensation in respect of his detention pending trial.   The Court noted that, following his acquittal, the applicant had had the possibility of applying for compensation for having been held in pre-trial detention, without having to prove that the detention had been illegal or excessively long. In awarding compensation the national courts could have based their assessment on the fact that the applicant’s acquittal had rendered his pre-trial detention “unjust” ( ingiusta ) independently of any consideration of illegality. The Court considered that in those circumstances the compensation due to the applicant under the Italian CCP was indissociable from any compensation he might have been entitled to under Article 5 § 5 of the Convention. In that connection, it observed that Article 314 of the CCP made no distinction between the amount of compensation payable following an acquittal and the amount payable for unlawful pre-trial detention. The Court therefore held that there had been no violation of Article 5 § 5 of the Convention.     ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Registry of the European Court of Human Rights F – 67075 Strasbourg Cedex Contacts:   Roderick Liddell (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 24 92)   Emma Hellyer (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15)   Stéphanie Klein (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54) Fax: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 27 91   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. On 1 November 1998 a full-time Court was established, replacing the original two-tier system of a part-time Commission and Court. [1] .     Judge elected in respect of Liechtenstein. [2] .     This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.