Information Note on the Court’s case-law 199
August-September 2016
Karelin v. Russia - 926/08
Judgment 20.9.2016 [Section III]
Article 6
Administrative proceedings
Article 6-1
Impartial tribunal
Lack of a prosecuting party in administrative offence proceedings: violation
Article 46
Article 46-2
Execution of judgment
Measures of a general character
Respondent State required to take general measures to ensure judicial impartiality in administrative-offence proceedings
Facts – The applicant was convicted of an administrative offence. In his application to the European Court he complained that the absence of a prosecuting party in the case against him had violated Article 6 of the Convention as regards the requirement of impartiality.
Law – Article 6 § 1: The Court reiterated that impartiality normally denoted the absence of prejudice or bias. The existence of impartiality was determined according to both a subjective and an objective test. As regards the objective test, in deciding whether in any given case there was a legitimate reason to fear that a particular judge lacked impartiality, the viewpoint of the person concerned was important but not decisive. What was decisive was whether that fear could be held to be objectively justified. In the applicant’s case the administrative proceedings had been set in motion by a police officer, who compiled an administrative offence record and transmitted it to the court. At the same time, the police officer was not a prosecuting authority in the sense of a public official designated to oppose the defendant in the proceedings and to present and defend the accusation on behalf of the State before a judge. The relevant domestic provisions relating to administrative proceedings did not require a prosecutor to attend court hearings and attached no particular consequences to his or her absence from such a hearing. In such circumstances, the Court concluded that there was no prosecuting party in the case.
The lack of a prosecuting party had an effect on the operation of the presumption of innocence during trial and, by implication, on the question of the trial court’s impartiality. In a situation where the trial court had no alternative but to undertake the task of presenting – and carrying the burden of supporting – the accusation during the hearing, the Court was not convinced that there had been sufficient safeguards in place to exclude legitimate doubts as to any adverse effect such a procedure might have had on the trial court’s impartiality. The Court considered that where an oral hearing was judged opportune for the judicial determination of a criminal charge against a defendant, the presence of a prosecuting party was appropriate in order to avert legitimate doubts that may otherwise arise in relation to the impartiality of the court. The Court further observed the subsequent lack of a prosecuting party in the appeal proceedings as well and concluded that the appeal proceedings had not remedied the impartiality matter arising at trial.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 46: The Court had previously examined applications relating to the administrative-offence proceedings under Russian law and found violations of Article 6 of the Convention, in particular on account of the fairness requirement. It considered that general measures at the national level were therefore called for.
In that connection, the respondent State was required above all, through appropriate legal and/or other measures, to secure in its domestic legal order a mechanism providing sufficient safeguards for ensuring impartiality of the courts dealing with administrative-offence cases, by way of introducing a prosecuting authority (a representative of a prosecutor’s office or another public authority) where there is an oral hearing, or by other appropriate means.
Article 41: EUR 2,500 in respect of non-pecuniary damage; question of whether it is appropriate and practicable to reopen the domestic proceedings could usefully be addressed by the respondent State.
(See also Thorgeir Thorgeirson v. Iceland, 13778/88, 25 June 1992; Ozerov v. Russia, 64962/01, 18 May 2010; Krivoshapkin v. Russia, 42224/02, 27 January 2011; and Weh and Weh v. Austria (dec.), 38544/97, 4 July 2002)
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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