Communicated on 8 May 2016
FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 59549/12
Norbert Andreas KONRAD
against Germany
lodged on 12 September 2012
SUBJECT MATTER OF the CASE
The application concerns the alleged violation of the applicant’s right under Article 6 of the Convention to a fair trial as neither the applicant nor a lawyer appointed for him were granted an opportunity to examine R.K., the victim and only direct witness of the offences (several counts of dangerous assault and coercion) the Arnsberg Regional Court, relying on R.K.’s statements, found the applicant guilty of.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has the applicant’s right to a fair trial, including a right to examine or have examined witnesses against him, under Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d) of the Convention, been breached in that neither the applicant nor counsel had been given an opportunity, at any stage of the proceedings, to examine the applicant’s wife R.K., the only eyewitness of the offences the applicant was convicted of by the Arnsberg Regional Court in its judgment of 28 June 2010?
2. In particular, having regard to the principles established by the Court notably in its judgments in the cases of Hümmer v. Germany (no. 26171/07, 19 July 2012) and Schatschaschwili v. Germany ([GC], no. 9154/10, ECHR 2015),
(a) Has there been a good reason for admitting the evidence of witness R.K., as reported by the investigating judge and, in part, by two police officers, at the trial?
(b) Was the applicant’s conviction based solely or to a decisive or significant extent on the evidence provided by witness R.K.?
(c) Have there been sufficient counterbalancing factors to compensate for the difficulties caused to the defence as a result of the fact that it had been unable to question the only direct witness of the offences in question? In particular, which statutory procedural safeguards were in place and operated in the applicant’s case in order to ensure that the trial as a whole was fair? And what measures were taken and which additional counterbalancing measures could have been taken by the domestic prosecution authorities and by the domestic courts to safeguard the applicant’s defence rights?
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