Legal summary
June 2025
Alakhverdyan v. Ukraine - 8838/20
Judgment 26.6.2025 [Section V]
Article 6
Article 6-1
Fair hearing
Deficient review by Supreme Court of applicant’s conviction following the Court’s finding of a violation in the initial proceedings on account of the use of his confession made in the absence of a lawyer: violation
Facts – On 12 December 2004, in the absence of a lawyer, the applicant was questioned as a witness in connection with a double murder investigation. Later that day, still without a lawyer, the applicant signed a formal confession to the murders and the wounding of another person, N. The applicant was convicted of double murder, of causing minor bodily injuries to N. and sentenced to life imprisonment.
In its judgment of 16 April 2019 (Alakhverdyan v. Ukraine; “the 2019 judgment”) the Court found a violation of Article 6 § 1 and 3 (c). In particular, the Court found that when the applicant made his confession on 12 December 2004 his right to legal assistance had been restricted.
The applicant lodged an application for review of his criminal case with the Supreme Court based on the Court’s 2019 judgment, requesting that his case be remitted for a rehearing. The Supreme Court, limiting itself to a review under exceptional circumstances, allowed the application in part, changing his conviction by excluding some pieces of previously admitted evidence, but concluding that the remaining body of evidence was sufficient to prove his guilt.
Law – Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (b) – (d):
(a) Admissibility – The Supreme Court had undertaken a re-examination of the applicant’s case and the proceedings therefore concerned the “determination of a criminal charge” within the meaning of Article 6. Those proceedings had been new in relation to the domestic proceedings forming the subject of the 2019 judgment and had been subsequent to them. The question of whether they fulfilled the guarantees of a fair trial under Article 6 could be examined separately from the aspects relating to the execution of the 2019 judgment.
Conclusion: admissible.
(b) Merits – The statements that the applicant had made in his confession had provided the domestic investigating authorities with the framework around which they had built their case, had directed them in their search for other corroborating evidence and had undoubtedly irreversibly affected his position. That defect had not been duly addressed at later stages of the proceedings. In the review proceedings the Supreme Court had taken note of the Court’s findings in Yaremenko v. Ukraine (no. 2) and had excluded not only the confession clearly obtained in breach of the applicant’s right to prepare and present his defence, but also other tainted evidence. However, the statement made by N., the surviving victim whom the authorities had become aware of after the applicant had mentioned her in his confession, had been found to have no direct relation to the tainted evidence. Her testimony, together with the statements of two other persons who had heard about the murder from her, had been the remaining evidence that had essentially formed the basis for upholding the applicant’s conviction. The Supreme Court had not explained why it considered that that evidence had not been tainted, even though there had been indications that it too had originated in the applicant’s confession. The Court did not consider that such an assessment could be safely made in the absence of a full rehearing of the case.
The Supreme Court had also found that modifying the judgment after excluding part of the evidence to be “a less intrusive” form of review which had been appropriate in the applicant’s case, would have no impact on the conclusiveness of the remaining evidence and would not lead to a restriction of his procedural rights. The Court found that the question of whether the remaining evidence had been sufficient to confirm the applicant’s guilt would in itself require a thorough examination of the entire body of evidence, which could only be ensured by a full rehearing and not by the very limited review as carried out by the Supreme Court. After such important evidence had been excluded, the applicant’s case had required a full rehearing and, as no such rehearing had been undertaken, the applicant had been deprived of the right to adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence. The applicant had been unable to predict the scope of the review that would be conducted by the Supreme Court or what evidence would be excluded or would remain. He therefore could not foresee how the overall assessment of the case would be affected by the review and therefore could not construct his line of argument.
Lastly, the Supreme Court in its interpretation of the Court’s 2019 findings had said in its judgment that the Court had based its conclusions as to the violation of the applicant’s rights on “particular serious procedural mistakes” but that those mistakes had not brought into question the results of the proceedings as a whole and had not meant that the applicant’s sentence had not been fair and not in conformity with the Convention. In that connection the Court reiterated its findings in paragraph 67 of the 2019 judgment that it had not been demonstrated convincingly why the overall fairness of the criminal proceedings against the applicant had not been irretrievably prejudiced by the restriction of his access to a lawyer on 12 December 2004. While the Court had formulated its conclusion in the negative, it must have been clear to any reader that it had considered that the overall fairness in the applicant’s case had indeed been irretrievably prejudiced. It also appeared that the official Ukrainian translation of the 2019 judgment correctly represented what had been said by the Court. The Supreme Court’s reading of the Court’s findings in the 2019 judgment had been, therefore, not entirely in line with the Court’s conclusions and might have been one of the reasons for not quashing the applicant’s conviction in its entirety and remitting the case for a rehearing. In the light of all the above considerations, the review of the applicant’s case as conducted by the Supreme Court had been marked by several deficiencies and failed to comply with the requirements of fair trial as provided for by Article 6.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41: EUR 3,600 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
(See Yaremenko v. Ukraine (no. 2), 66338/09, 30 April 2015; Shabelnik v. Ukraine (no. 2), 15685/11, 1 June 2017)
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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