Published on 17 June 2024
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 52689/20
Anna COBELEA
against Romania
lodged on 17 November 2020
communicated on 30 May 2024
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the alleged unfairness of the criminal proceedings against the applicant and several co-defendants.
By a final decision of the Suceava Court of Appeal of 2 March 2020 (delivered on 25 May 2020), the applicant was convicted of smuggling 200 packages of cigarettes and sentenced to a suspended penalty of two years of imprisonment.
Relying on Art. 6 § 1 of the Convention, the applicant complains that the trial against her was unfair because her conviction was based to a decisive degree on statements by two co-defendants and a witness involved in the commission of the same offence, who cooperated with the prosecution in exchange for certain benefits, and on evidence obtained by the unlawful surveillance of her telephone conversations. She also alleges that even though the case-file included 26 tapped telephone conversations, the judicial authorities selectively transcribed only those which incriminated her despite her repeated requests that all tapped conversations be transcribed.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of the criminal charges against her, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, on account of the domestic courts’ reliance on evidence given by her two co‑accused and a witness, who was allegedly involved in the commission of the offences (see, mutatis mutandis, Adamčo v. Slovakia, no. 45084/14, §§ 56‑71, 12 November 2019), and on the recordings of the applicant’s phone conversations allegedly obtained unlawfully and not integrally transcribed (Lysyuk v. Ukraine, no. 72531/13, §§ 67-76, 72531/13, 14 October 2021)? Was the applicants’ conviction based solely or to a decisive degree on that evidence? Were there sufficient counterbalancing elements, including adequate procedural safeguards, permitting a fair and proper assessment of the reliability of that evidence?