Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 142
June 2011
Fruni v. Slovakia - 8014/07
Judgment 21.6.2011 [Section III]
Article 6
Criminal proceedings
Article 6-1
Tribunal established by law
Applicant’s case decided by Special Court established for trying corruption and organised crime: no violation
Facts – In June 2002 the applicant, who was the chairman of various financial institutions accepting money from the public, was arrested and charged with large-scale fraud and other offences. He was detained pending trial and his applications for release were refused on the grounds of the gravity of the charges, the risk of his absconding and the extensive amount of evidence that had to be obtained. In 2005 he was indicted to stand trial in a regional court exercising the powers of the Special Court, which had been established in 2003 to try certain public officials for crimes of corruption and organised crime. The applicant unsuccessfully challenged the jurisdiction of that court and in January 2007 was convicted of financial fraud and conspiracy. He appealed alleging, inter alia, that the Special Court was unconstitutional and that his trial had been unfair. The Special Division of the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal, and in April 2008 the Constitutional Court declared his complaint inadmissible since there was no constitutionally relevant arbitrariness in the impugned decisions. Subsequently, however, the Constitutional Court declared the statutory provisions establishing the Special Court unconstitutional but ruled that this would not give ground for reopening proceedings which had already ended before that court.
Law – Article 6 § 1: The term “established by law” was meant to ensure “that the judicial organisation in a democratic society [did] not depend on the discretion of the executive, but that it [was] regulated by law emanating from Parliament”. The jurisdiction and competence of the Special Court and the Special Division of the Supreme Court were defined by legislation adopted in 2003 and proceedings before them were subject to the Code of Criminal Procedure. The reasons for the Constitutional Court’s decision that the statutory provisions establishing the Special Court were unconstitutional appeared to be linked to the conceptual role and institutional status of the Special Court in the constitutional and judicial system of Slovakia rather than its quality and independence as a judicial body. This explained why the Constitutional Court had stressed that final decisions rendered by the Special Court were in no way affected by the subsequent unconstitutionality of the underlying legal basis of that court. Consequently, there was nothing to suggest that the Special Court and the Special Division of the Supreme Court involved in the determination of the applicant’s case were not “tribunals established by law”.
Moreover, neither Article 6 nor any other Convention provision required the States to comply with any theoretical constitutional concepts regarding the permissible limits of the powers’ interaction. The question was always whether, in a given case, the requirements of the Convention were met. In this connection, the Court observed that the judges of the Special Court and of the Special Division of the Supreme Court were career judges whose terms of office were not limited in time, and who thus had equal status to that of any other judge in Slovakia. They could be recalled if they ceased to meet the security vetting criteria, but this appeared never to have occurred, and in any event, in such a case the judge involved could seek judicial review. The Special Court was subject to the supervisory jurisdiction of the Special Division of the Supreme Court on appeal and both jurisdictions were subject to supervision by the Constitutional Court in the event of a constitutional complaint. In sum, the Court found no grounds for the applicant to have had legitimate misgivings as to the “independence” of the Special Court, which had tried him, or of the Special Division of the Supreme Court, which had determined his appeal.
Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).
Article 5 § 3: The Constitutional Court had issued a decision concerning the reasonableness of the length of the applicant’s detention in 2005, by which time his detention had lasted just over three years. In justifying the applicant’s continued detention at that time, the Constitutional Court relied on the wide-ranging criminal activity of which the applicant stood accused, involving more than 150,000 aggrieved parties and vast financial damage. It also took note of the large amount of evidence which had to be obtained and assessed and, in view of his personal and financial situation, the serious risk of his absconding. The Court accepted these reasons as relevant and sufficient in the circumstances. There was no indication of procedural inactivity on the part of the authorities. Conversely, the defence strategy had been marked by attempts to obstruct the proceedings. In these circumstances, the Constitutional Court’s assessment at the time was acceptable. Following that court’s decision in 2005, the applicant’s detention had lasted for another year, four months and eighteen days, but he had failed to exhaust domestic remedies in respect of that period. In that connection, the Court noted that a constitutional complaint challenging exclusively the lawfulness of the applicant’s pre-trial detention but not its length was not sufficient.
Conclusion: inadmissible (non-exhaustion of domestic remedies).
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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