SECOND SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 34690/12
Judith MAJLÁTH and Sophie BARTA
against Hungary
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 23 October 2012 as a Committee composed of:
Isabelle Berro-Lefèvre, President,
Guido Raimondi,
Helen Keller, judges,
and Françoise Elens-Passos, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 5 June 2012,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicants, Ms Judith Majláth and Ms Sophie Barta, are respectively Austrian and British nationals, who were born in 1941 and 1965 and live in Vienna. They were represented before the Court by Mr G. Thuan Dit Dieudonne, a lawyer practising in Strasbourg.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.
The applicants are respectively the sister and the daughter of Ms E. Rhodes, a British national who lived in Hungary and – as it was subsequently discovered – was murdered there on 10 September 2008. On that date, Ms Rhodes went missing. A first investigation into her disappearance remained fruitless.
On 9 March 2009 Ms Majláth filed a criminal report, submitting to the police that she feared that her sister might have been murdered. The ensuing investigation of the Győr Police Department resulted in the apprehension of Mr A. This man, a former employee of the victim, confessed to the murder, committed on 10 September 2008.
On 10 September 2010 the Győr-Moson-Sopron County Regional Court convicted Mr A. of murder and theft and sentenced him to 10 years’ imprisonment, also having regard to a number of mitigating factors. The Regional Court relied on the perpetrator’s confession and his account of the – otherwise unwitnessed – incident, on physical evidence, the testimonies of numerous indirect witnesses and the expertise of eight forensic specialists. The applicants’ suggestions about taking further evidence were rejected with detailed reasoning.
Ms Barta participated in the proceedings as the deceased person’s next-of-kin, had as such access to the investigative material, and apparently made representations in court. Subsequently, she became indisposed and was replaced by Ms Majláth in this function.
On appeal, 6 December 2011 the Győr Court of Appeal upheld the murder conviction, re-characterised the theft charge, and aggravated the sentence to 13 years’ imprisonment to be served in high-security facilities.
The applicants submitted that the media had covered the trial in a way that the victim’s image had always been blackened out whenever footage had been broadcast.
PROCEDURE
On 12 July 2012 the application was declared inadmissible by a Single Judge. However, it has turned out from the applicants’ subsequent submissions that certain elements were not taken into account when this decision was adopted. The application should therefore be reopened.
COMPLAINTS
The applicants complained under Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention that the investigation into Ms Rhodes’ death was not adequate and the sentence imposed on the murdered was too lenient. Moreover, they submitted that the trial was not fair, in breach of Article 6. Lastly, under Article 8, they complained about the treatment of the victim by the media.
THE LAW
The applicants complained that the investigation and the trial was not adequate, submitting inter alia that the physical evidence had not been properly collected and secured, that the police officers involved had been biased against the victim, that the expert opinions had been poor, that the Hungarian authorities had refused to involve the Scotland Yard, that the applicants had not been able to give oral testimonies in court and their requests to have additional witnesses heard had not been accepted; and that the perpetrator had received an unduly mild sentence.
The Court observes that the murder case in question had been investigated into and the perpetrator was apprehended and convicted to a long prison term. The authorities gathered evidence among others from several witnesses and relied on the opinions of a number of experts. Moreover, both applicants could participate in the case as the victim’s next-of-kin, a function allowing access to the case documents and the submission of observations. The proceedings from Ms Majláth’s criminal report to the perpetrator’s final conviction lasted about two years and nine months, involving two court instances. Moreover, there is nothing in the case file disclosing any appearance that the requisite public scrutiny was frustrated in the case.
In these circumstances, it cannot be argued that the investigation into the death of Ms Rhodes fell short of the requirements flowing from Article 2 of the Convention (see among many other authorities, Hugh Jordan v. the United Kingdom, no. 24746/94, §§ 105 to 109, ECHR 2001‑III (extracts)), this provision not requiring the imposition on the perpetrator of a sentence of any particular severity. It follows that this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) and must be rejected, pursuant to Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.
As regards Article 6, it must be pointed out that this provision provides those charged with an offence with certain rights but does not guarantee any particular rights for victims of crimes or their relatives (save for those constituting civil parties). Since there is no indication that the trial concerned any civil claim on the applicants’ side, this part of the application is incompatible ratione materiae with the provisions of the Convention within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 and must be rejected, pursuant to Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.
Lastly, as to Article 8, the Court considers – even assuming that the applicants can claim to be victims in this respect and that they have exhausted domestic remedies – that the fact that the image of Ms Rhodes had been blackened out in the media coverage of the trial does not reveal any appearance of a violation of that provision. It follows that this part of the application is likewise manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) and must be rejected, pursuant to Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Reopens the application and
Declares it inadmissible.
Françoise Elens-PassosIsabelle Berro-Lefèvre
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy