Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 150
March 2012
Gagliano Giorgi v. Italy - 23563/07
Judgment 6.3.2012 [Section II]
Article 35
Article 35-3-b
No significant disadvantage
Reduction of prison sentence in length-of-criminal-proceedings case: inadmissible
Facts – In 1988 criminal proceedings were brought against the applicant. They lasted until 1999. The applicant was convicted of forgery and given a one-year suspended prison sentence. He was also debarred from public office for one year. A bribery charge was declared time-barred. The “Pinto” proceedings initiated by the applicant in 2001 to complain about the length of the criminal proceedings ended in 2006. He was not awarded any compensation.
Law – Article 35 § 3 (b): As a result of the length of the criminal proceedings, the court of appeal had in 1998 declared the bribery charge time-barred. That had clearly reduced the applicant’s sentence, especially as the time-barred charge had been the more serious of the two, even though the material before the Court did not indicate the exact extent of that reduction nor clarify whether there was ultimately any connection between the reduction and the violation of the “reasonable-time” requirement. The applicant had chosen not to waive the time bar, a possibility open to him under Italian law. In those circumstances, the reduction in sentence had at least compensated for or significantly reduced the damage normally entailed by the excessive length of criminal proceedings. The Court thus took the view that the applicant had not suffered a “significant disadvantage” in respect of his right to a hearing within a reasonable time. This complaint raised the question of the right to trial within a “reasonable time” in criminal matters, a subject on which the Court had much case-law. Pursuit of the examination of the complaint was thus not justified by any imperatives of European ordre public of which the Convention and Protocols formed part. The question of the length of the criminal proceedings had been examined on two occasions by the competent courts (court of appeal and Court of Cassation) for the purposes of the “Pinto” legislation, the applicant having submitted to the latter court his grounds of appeal against the decision by the former not to award him compensation. In those circumstances, the case had been duly considered by a domestic tribunal and no important questions affecting the application or interpretation of the Convention or concerning national law had been left unanswered. The conditions of the inadmissibility test having been met, that complaint was thus declared inadmissible.
Conclusion: inadmissible (no significant disadvantage).
The Court also found, unanimously, a violation of Article 6 § 1 on account of the unreasonable length of the “Pinto” proceedings.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy