CEDH · PRESS;GENERAL;ENG — 12 février 2004

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FRANCE   At a public hearing today the European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgment [1] in the case of Perez v. France (application number 47287/99).   The Court unanimously:   dismissed the Government’s preliminary objection that Article 6   § 1 (right to a fair trial) of the European Convention on Human Rights was not applicable; held that there had been no violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention   (The judgment is available in French and English).     1.     Principal facts   The applicant, Paule Perez, is a French national who was born in 1933 and lives at La Plaine des Cafres (La Réunion, France).   In July 1995 the applicant went to her local gendarmerie to file a complaint that she had been assaulted by her son and daughter.   She said her two children had come to see her about a lawsuit between them concerning the payment of maintenance. While all three were together in a motorcar driven by her daughter, her son had allegedly used a syringe to give her two injections of an unknown substance.   Soon afterwards injection marks were found on the applicant’s body, and the gendarmes later discovered a syringe containing traces of Valium.   A judicial investigation was opened on the grounds of assault with an offensive weapon.   During the investigation, the applicant joined the proceedings as a civil party.     On 14 March 1997 the investigating judge decided that there was no case to answer on the basis that there was insufficient evidence that anyone had committed an offence.   The applicant's appeal against that decision was dismissed on the ground that she had missed the legal deadline. Her appeal on points of law was also dismissed by the Indictment Division on 21 April 1998.     2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the European Commission of Human Rights on 5 October 1998 and transmitted to the Court on 1   November 1998.   It was declared admissible by chamber of the Court on 30 July 2003.   On 5 June 2003 that chamber relinquished jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber, neither of the parties having objected (Article 30 of the Convention and Rule 72 of the Rules of Court).   The judgment was delivered by the Grand Chamber of 17 judges, composed of:   Luzius Wildhaber (Swiss), P resident , Christos Rozakis (Greek), Jean-Paul Costa (French), Georg Ress (German), Nicolas Bratza (British), Giovanni Bonello (Maltese), Pranas Kūris (Lithuanian) Riza Türmen (Turkish), Françoise Tulkens (Belgian), Corneliu Bîrsan (Romanian), Peer Lorenzen (Danish), Karel Jungwiert (Czech), Boštjan Zupančič (Slovenian), Nina Vajić (Croatian), Kristaq Traja (Albanian), Anatoli Kovler (Russian), Javier Borrego Borrego (Spanish), judges ,   and Paul Mahoney , Registrar .     3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Complaints   The applicant alleged, in particular, that at the end of the investigation during which she was joined as a civil party, the procedure before the Court of Cassation had not been fair.     Decision of the Court   The Government’s preliminary objection   The French Government submitted that Article 6   §   1 was not applicable, because the applicant had failed to make a claim during the proceedings for compensation for the damage directly caused by the offence.   For the applicant, it was imperative for Article 6 to apply as soon as the civil party joined the proceedings, whether the case was pending or concluded.   The European Court of Human Rights recalled its case-law on the applicability of Article 6 § 1 to civil-party proceedings.   In the light of the drawbacks of that case-law, it wished to end the uncertainty surrounding the applicability of Article 6 § 1 to civil-party proceedings, particularly since a number of other High Contracting Parties to the Convention had similar systems.   The Court considered that a new approach should be adopted, based on a restrictive interpretation of derogations from the safeguards embodied in Article 6 § 1, and, after examining the relevant French legislation, held that a criminal complaint accompanied by an application to join the proceedings as a civil party came within the scope of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, except in certain specific cases (“private revenge” and actio popularis;   the right to have third parties prosecuted or sentenced for a criminal offence could not be asserted independently: it had to be indissociable from the victim’s exercise of the right under domestic law to bring proceedings which were civil by their nature, even if only to secure   symbolic reparation or to protect a civil right). That approach was consistent with the need to safeguard victims’ rights and their proper place in criminal proceedings.   The Court found that the applicant had lodged a civil-party complaint during the criminal investigation, exercised her right to claim reparation for the damage caused by the offence of which she was allegedly the victim, and had not waived that right.   The proceedings therefore came within the scope of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, and the Court dismissed the Government’s preliminary objection.   Article 6 § 1 of the Convention   The Court considered that the Court of Cassation could not be criticised on purely formal grounds for neglecting to mention all the domestic legislative provisions the applicant had invoked, noting moreover that some of them were plainly inapplicable.   It also found that the Court of Cassation had taken due account of and effectively addressed all of the applicant’s grounds of appeal.   The Court therefore held unanimously that there had been no violation of Article 6 § 1 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 Press 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 by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. Since 1 November 1998 it has sat as a full-time Court composed of an equal number of judges to that of the States party to the Convention. The Court examines the admissibility and merits of applications submitted to it. It sits in Chambers of 7 judges or, in exceptional cases, as a Grand Chamber of 17 judges. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe supervises the execution of the Court’s judgments. [1] Grand Chamber Judgments are final (Article 44 of the Convention). [2] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.