Information Note on the Court’s case-law 227
March 2019
Kangers v. Latvia - 35726/10
Judgment 14.3.2019 [Section V]
Article 6
Article 6-2
Presumption of innocence
Finding of guilt for repeat offence while appeal against original offence still pending: violation
Facts – In February 2009 the applicant was handed a two-year driving ban for having committed the offence of driving under the influence of alcohol. In July 2009 the police drew up an administrative offence report stating that the applicant had driven a car while disqualified. The applicant appealed.
Before the appeal was decided, the police drew up,in September 2009, a further administrative offence report stating that the applicant had driven a car while disqualified and that the offence had been committed repeatedly within a year. The applicant’s appeal was dismissed.
Law – Article 6 § 2: In the third set of administrative offence proceedings the domestic courts had established that the applicant had committed the offence of driving while disqualified repeatedly within a year. In doing so the courts had expressly referred to the administrative offence report of July 2009 in relation to which the appeal had still been pending. The conclusion that that initial offence had constituted the basis for repetitiveness unavoidably implied that the applicant had also committed that initial offence.
Presumptions of fact or of law operated in every legal system and the Convention did not prohibit them in principle. However States were required to confine them within reasonable limits which took into account the importance of what was at stake and maintained the rights of the defence. In cases where the Court had analysed presumptions of fact or of law in the context of criminal proceedings, it had had particular regard to the procedural guarantees and the means of defence available to the accused for rebutting such presumptions. Where the procedural guarantees available for rebutting the presumptions were considered to be lacking, the presumption of innocence had been found to be violated.
The applicant had been found guilty of a repeat offence rather than of simply driving while disqualified and as such, he had not only been given a higher fine but also a custodial sentence of five days which he had been required to serve before the proceedings concerning the initial offence had been completed. The presumption in the applicant’s case concerned the fact that he had committed an offence that was the subject matter of a different set of proceedings. The domestic courts had considered themselves to be legally bound by the administrative offence report concerning the initial offence, regardless of the fact that it was being appealed. Accordingly, the applicant had been left without any means of defence with respect to that presumption.
Conclusion: violation (six votes to one).
Article 41: finding of a violation constituted sufficient just satisfaction in respect of any non-pecuniary damage; claim in respect of pecuniary damage dismissed.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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