Communicated on 10 December 2018
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 35772/09
Ferit FİLİTOĞLU
against Turkey
lodged on 18 June 2009
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the validity of the applicant’s waiver of his right to lawyer and his alleged inability to confront certain individuals whose incriminatory statements in respect of him were relied on by the trial court to convict him (see Simeonovi v. Bulgaria [GC], no. 21980/04, 12 May 2017; Schatschaschwili v. Germany [GC], no. 9154/10, ECHR 2015; and Gökbulut v. Turkey, no. 7459/04, 29 March 2016).
The Government are invited to submit copies of all the relevant documents concerning the applicant’s case, including but not limited to the minutes of all the hearings, the reasoned judgment of the trial court, documentary evidence against the applicant, and the written submissions of the applicant and his lawyer throughout the proceedings.
QUESTIONS tO THE PARTIES
1. Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of the criminal charges against him, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?
Has there been a breach of Article 6 § 3 (c) of the Convention, as a result of the lack of legal assistance available to the applicant during the preliminary investigation? In particular, could the applicant be considered to have waived his right to legal assistance when giving statements to the police and the investigating judge? (see Simeonovi v. Bulgaria [GC], no. 21980/04, 12 May 2017)?
2. Was the applicant able to examine M.E., M.D. and Ö.T. as required by Article 6 § 3 (d) of the Convention? What steps did the domestic courts take to secure the attendance of those individuals?
(a) Was there a good reason for the non-attendance of the above-mentioned individuals at the trial? Were the factual or legal grounds of such a reason reflected in the domestic courts’ judgments?
(b) Did their statements serve as the sole or decisive evidence for the applicant’s conviction?
(c) Did the domestic courts’ judgments indicate that they had approached those with any specific caution?
(d) Did the domestic courts provide the applicant with procedural safeguards aimed at compensating for the alleged lack of opportunity to directly examine those individuals at the trial?
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