Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 130
May 2010
Cortina de Alcocer and de Alcocer Torra v. Spain (dec.) - 33912/08
Decision 25.5.2010 [Section III]
Article 6
Criminal proceedings
Article 6-1
Fair hearing
Order of examination of grounds of appeal: inadmissible
Facts – In December 2000 the Audiencia Provincial found the applicants guilty of forgery of documents and fraud, but held that prosecution of the offences was time-barred. In March 2003 the Supreme Court ruled that the prosecution was not time-barred. Upholding the trial court’s findings as to the applicants’ guilt, it imposed prison sentences on them. The applicants lodged an amparo appeal, which was partly dismissed by the Constitutional Court in February 2008. In doing so the latter upheld the reasoning of the lower courts as to the existence of sufficient evidence that the offences in question had been committed. It then examined the question of limitation and found that there had been a breach of the right to a fair trial with regard to the right to liberty, and quashed the Supreme Court judgment. In the applicants’ submission, the Constitutional Court, in ruling that the decision to convict them had been correct before finding that the prosecution was time-barred, had breached their rights under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and their right to be presumed innocent.
Law – Article 6 § 1: The order in which the complaints raised before the Constitutional Court were examined – According to the Constitutional Court, the order of examination had been based on the same logical criterion it had adopted on previous occasions. Hence, it had started its consideration of the appeal with the complaint concerning the right to a fair trial. It had justified this choice on the grounds that, if the complaint were upheld, the proceedings would have had to be quashed and it would have been unnecessary to continue examining the amparo appeal. The Constitutional Court had given sufficient reasons for its reply, which could not be said to have been arbitrary, without foundation or liable to render the proceedings unfair. Nor could it be asserted that the Constitutional Court would have reached a different conclusion had the order of examination of the complaints been reversed. Furthermore, the Constitutional Court had quashed the Supreme Court’s judgment in its entirety. As the applicants had confined themselves to disputing an issue governed by the domestic legal arrangements of the respondent State, the Court wished to make it clear that the right to a fair trial did not encompass the right to have the grounds of appeal in a given case examined in a particular order.
Conclusion: inadmissible (manifestly ill-founded).
The Court also declared the complaint concerning the length of time taken by the Constitutional Court to consider the amparo appeal inadmissible for failure to exhaust domestic remedies. The complaint relating to the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the application of the statute of limitations was declared inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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