Information Note on the Court’s case-law No.
December 1992
Edwards v. the United Kingdom - 13071/87
Judgment 16.12.1992
Article 6
Article 6-1
Fair hearing
Fairness of criminal proceedings in which police failed to disclose certain facts to the defence - defects not considered by Court of Appeal to render conviction unsafe or unsatisfactory: no violation
[This summary is extracted from the Court’s official reports (Series A or Reports of Judgments and Decisions). Its formatting and structure may therefore differ from the Case-Law Information Note summaries.]
I.ARTICLE 6 OF THE CONVENTION
Not necessary to examine relevance of Article 6 § 3 (d) to the case since the allegations amount, in any event, to a complaint that the proceedings were unfair - Court must consider proceedings as a whole including the decisions of the appellate courts - not within its province to substitute its own assessment of the facts for that of the domestic courts.
It is a requirement of fairness that the prosecution authorities disclose to the defence all material evidence for or against the accused. However, the Court of Appeal examined the transcript of the trial including the applicant's alleged confession and considered in detail the impact of the new information on the conviction - applicant's counsel had every opportunity to persuade the Court of Appeal that the conviction should not stand - they could have sought to call the police officers as witnesses or to apply for the production before the court of a police investigation report - defects of the trial were remedied by the subsequent procedure before the Court of Appeal.
Conclusion: no violation (seven votes to two).
II.ARTICLE 13 OF THE CONVENTION
Complaint abandoned by the applicant - not necessary for the Court to examine it (unanimously).
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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