Information Note on the Court’s case-law No.
May 1998
Hozee v. the Netherlands - 21961/93
Judgment 22.5.1998
Article 6
Criminal proceedings
Article 6-1
Reasonable time
Length of criminal proceedings: 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.]
A. Period to be taken into consideration
Starting-point: reasonable time requirement begins when person “charged” (substantially affected). In instant case fiscal penalties imposed on applicant’s companies and not on applicant personally – no reason for him to suppose he was under investigation in his personal capacity – applicant became substantially affected when questioned for first time as a suspect.
End: when appeal on points of law rejected by Supreme Court.
Total: eight years, five months and eighteen days.
B. Reasonableness of the length of proceedings
Reiteration of Court’s case-law on criteria for determining reasonableness of length of proceedings.
Preliminary judicial investigation: appears to have lasted a disturbingly long period of time – length of four years and seven months must be convincingly justified – investigating authorities had to unravel network of interconnecting companies and accounts, interview substantial number of witnesses, collect and examine significant volume of material – complexity compounded by involvement of co-suspects – no period of inertia on part of the authorities – length of this phase of the proceedings cannot be considered unreasonable.
Post investigation proceedings: three instances involved – period not excessive.
Conclusion: no violation (seven votes to two).
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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