Communicated on 5 January 2017
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 30259/15
Janko JANEVSKI
against the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
lodged on 16 June 2015
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Janko Janevski, is a Macedonian national who was born in 1976 and lives in Tetovo. He is represented before the Court by Mr T. Dimov, a lawyer practising in Veles.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
On 17 November 2009 the applicant was indicted before the Skopje Court of First Instance (Основен суд Скопје) on charges of fraud under Article 247 §§ 1 and 3 taken in conjunction with Article 45 of the Criminal Code. It was alleged that between September and November 2008 the applicant had misled B.C., N.J., O.K. and A.T. by promising them that through his contacts he could help them to find a job at the Ministry of the Interior and that in exchange he had received certain amounts of money from them.
At the hearing held on 4 November 2013 statements that B.C., N.J., O.K. and A.T. had given – without the presence of the applicant or his lawyer – at (i) the investigation stage and (ii) outside the main hearing were read out and adduced as evidence.
On the same day the Court of First Instance gave judgment, convicted the applicant as charged and sentenced him to one year and six months’ imprisonment. The applicant was ordered to return the money he had obtained from the victims. The Court of First Instance relied on the statements of the four victims, B.C., N.J., O.K. and A.T., in determining that the applicant had misled them by promising them help with finding a job at the Ministry in exchange for money. Personal documents belonging to some of the victims, discovered during a search of the applicant’s car, were also taken into account by the Court of First Instance. The applicant’s defence that a person called A. had in fact promised to help all of them to find a job at the Ministry was dismissed by the Court of First Instance as unfounded, since the applicant failed to provide contact information in respect of this person so that he could be examined at the trial.
The applicant lodged an appeal, arguing, inter alia, that his defence rights had been unjustifiably restricted since he had not been given the opportunity at the trial hearing to examine the four victims, whose statements had served as a basis for his conviction. He claimed that neither he nor his lawyer had been present during the examination of the victims and that his lawyer had opposed the Court of First Instance’s decision to read out the victims’ statements at the hearing.
On 5 June 2014 the Skopje Court of Appeal (Апелационен суд Скопје) dismissed the applicant’s appeal and upheld the conviction, finding that no new circumstances were supplied that would require the examination of the witnesses at the main hearing.
The applicant lodged a request with the Supreme Court for an extraordinary review of the final judgment (барање за вонредно преиспитување на правосилна пресуда), reiterating the arguments that he had made in his appeal to the second-instance court. He stressed that the statements of the four victims (whom he had had no opportunity to examine) had served as the decisive basis for his conviction. The applicant also alleged that the victims would have confirmed that A. had been present during the meetings between the applicant and the victims and that the applicant himself had given money to A. so that he would help him to find a job at the Ministry.
On 2 December 2014 the Supreme Court refused the applicant’s request and upheld the conviction. Relying on the Court’s judgment in the case of Solakov v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (no. 47023/99, ECHR 2001‑X), the Supreme Court held that the applicant’s defence rights had not been restricted to such an extent that he had not been afforded a fair trial since the statements of the four victims had not constituted the sole evidence against him. It also noted that no objections had been raised during the hearing regarding the statements of the victims. The Supreme Court also found that in the course of the proceedings several unsuccessful attempts had been made to summon the victims, who had all lived in a different city, and that any further attempts would have unnecessarily prolonged the proceedings.
The applicant’s lawyer received a copy of this judgment on 24 February 2015.
COMPLAINT
The applicant complains under Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d) of the Convention that he was not given an adequate opportunity to examine B.C., N.J., O.K. and A.T., whose statements served as the basis for his conviction.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
1. Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to a fair trial under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, taken in conjunction with Article 6 § 3 (d), given the fact that during the trial he was not given the opportunity to examine the victims B.C., N.J., O.K. and A.T., whose statements served as a basis for his conviction (see Schatschaschwili v. Germany [GC], no. 9154/10, § 100-131, ECHR 2015)?
The Government are required to provide copies of all relevant documents concerning the applicant’s case, in particular copies of the trial records.
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