Published on 30 May 2022
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 47186/21
Brane GORŠE
against Slovenia
lodged on 20 September 2021
communicated on 10 May 2022
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the criminal proceedings in which the applicant was convicted of abuse of office and money laundering. Prior to conducting the trial and convicting the applicant, the judge who presided the applicant’s trial (Judge J.G.) had accepted an admission of guilt made by two co-accused – S.S. and P.K. – at a preparatory session. Based on their admission of guilt Judge J.G. convicted them of aiding the applicant in committing the offence of abuse of office and committing the offence of money laundry in complicity with the applicant. The judgments against S.S. and P.K. refer to the applicant as the perpetrator of the two criminal offences in which S.S. and P.K. participated. The applicant’s representative requested that Judge J.G. be recused from presiding the applicant’s trial which took place after the aforementioned convictions of S.S. and P.K. He alleged that because of the assumption that the applicant had committed the aforementioned criminal offences expressed in the judgments against S.S. and P.K., Judge J.G. could not be considered impartial. The request was rejected. The applicant complained about this issue also in his appeals against his conviction, but to no avail.
The applicant complains under Article 6 of the Convention that Judge J.G. expressed his view of the applicant’s guilt in the proceedings against S.S. and P.K. and that he then went on to convict the applicant in breach of his right to be heard by an impartial tribunal.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of the criminal charge against him in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, having regard to Judge J.G.’s conclusions in the judgments against S.S. and P.K., which were allegedly directly relevant to the finding of the applicant’s guilt, could this judge, who also presided the subsequent trial against the applicant, be considered impartial, as required by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see the principles set out in Poppe v. the Netherlands, no. 32271/04, §§ 22-26, and Miminoshvili v. Russia, no. 20197/03, §§ 113-16, 28 June 2011)?
2. Was the presumption of innocence, guaranteed by Article 6 § 2 of the Convention, respected in the present case (see Karaman v. Germany, no. 17103/10, §§ 41-43, 63-65 and 69-70, 27 February 2014)?