Information Note on the Court’s case-law 37
December 2001
C.G. v. the United Kingdom - 43373/98
Judgment 19.12.2001 [Section III]
Article 6
Criminal proceedings
Article 6-1
Fair hearing
Frequent interruptions by judge during trial: no violation
Facts: The applicant was convicted of theft. She appealed on the ground that the trial judge had made frequent interruptions and persistently hectored her defence counsel. The transcript showed interventions on almost every page concerning the cross-examination of the main prosecution witness and on twenty two of the thirty one pages concerning the applicant’s examination-in-chief. The Court of Appeal accepted that there was some substance to the criticisms and that the interruptions had had a disconcerting effect on defence counsel. However, it dismissed the appeal, concluding that the conviction was entirely safe.
Law: Article 6 § 1 – The applicant’s complaint was examined in detail by the Court of Appeal, to whose assessment particular weight should be attached in view of its knowledge and experience of the conduct of jury trials. While the Court of Appeal found that there was some substance to the criticisms of the trial judge’s conduct, it did conclude that the conduct had resulted in unfairness as such, finding rather that the conviction was not unsafe. The question whether defence rights under Article 6 were secured cannot, in the absence of an inquiry into the issue of fairness, be assimilated to a finding that a conviction was safe. However, in the present case not only was such an inquiry at the heart of the appeal but the case-law of the Court of Appeal demonstrates the breadth of the safety test in the context of a complaint about judicial interventions: even where the evidence is strong and a jury would have been likely to convict, a conviction will be quashed if the Court of Appeal considers that the proceedings as a whole were unfair. In the present case, the interruptions during the examination of the main prosecution witness were excessive in number and on occasion unduly blunt, but a substantial number appeared to have resulted from misunderstandings or from the judge’s legitimate concern that the jury should not be confused by the line of questioning. As to the applicant’s examination-in-chief, the judge’s conduct seemed to have had the effect of putting the applicant and her counsel at least temporarily out of their stride at an important point in the trial, but the interruptions became less frequent after a short adjournment and the applicant then appeared to have been given a proper opportunity to present her version of events. On neither occasion was there any restriction on the line of defence. A further brief interruption during defence counsel’s closing speech appeared to have been justified and the judge’s summing up, although short and containing a few factual errors, portrayed the essential features of the applicant’s case. There was substance to the applicant’s criticisms of the trial judge’s conduct. However, the evidence at issue, while doubtless the most important oral evidence given, made up only part of the trial proceedings, and some of the interventions were justified. Moreover, defence counsel, while disconcerted, was not prevented from continuing any line of defence and was able to address the jury in a closing speech. Finally, the substance of the defence was reiterated in the judge’s summing up, albeit in a very abbreviated form. In conclusion, the judicial interventions, although excessive and undesirable, did not render the trial proceedings unfair.
Conclusion: no violation (6 votes to 1).
The Court further concluded that no separate issue arose under Article 6 § 2, 3 (c) or (d) or Article 13.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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