Information Note on the Court’s case-law No.
March 1997
Mantovanelli v. France - 21497/93
Judgment 18.3.1997
Article 6
Administrative proceedings
Article 6-1
Access to court
Fair hearing
Equality of arms
Expert medical report ordered by an administrative court not prepared in accordance with adversarial principle: violation
[This summary is extracted from the Court’s official reports (Series A or Reports of Judgments and Decisions). Its formatting and structure may therefore differ from the Case-Law Information Note summaries.]
I.ARTICLE 6 § 1 OF THE CONVENTION
Compliance with adversarial principle, just like observance of the other procedural safeguards enshrined in Article 6 § 1, relates to proceedings in a "tribunal" - no general, abstract principle that, where an expert has been appointed by a court, parties must in all instances be able to attend interviews held by him or to be shown documents he has taken into account.
Convention does not lay down rules on evidence - Court cannot exclude as a matter of principle and in the abstract that evidence obtained in breach of provisions of domestic law may be admitted but has to ascertain whether proceedings considered as a whole were fair.
In the instant case the "purely judicial" proceedings had complied with adversarial principle - however, Court not convinced that applicants had been afforded a real opportunity to comment effectively on expert report - question expert had been instructed to answer pertained to a technical field and was identical with the one that the court had to determine - expert's report likely to have a preponderant influence on court's assessment of the facts.
Applicants could only have expressed their views effectively before expert report had been lodged - no practical difficulty had stood in way of their being associated in process of producing report -applicants had been prevented from cross-examining the people interviewed by expert, who could reasonably have been expected to give evidence along same lines as opposing side in proceedings - applicants had only become aware of documents taken into consideration by expert once report had been completed and transmitted - they had thus been deprived of opportunity to comment effectively on main piece of evidence.
Conclusion: violation (five votes to four).
II.ARTICLE 50 OF THE CONVENTION
A.Damage
Non-pecuniary damage: judgment constituted sufficient satisfaction.
Pecuniary damage: not appropriate to speculate as to outcome of proceedings had there not been a breach of Convention.
B.Costs and expenses
Costs and expenses incurred before Strasbourg institutions reimbursed.
Conclusion: respondent State to pay specified sum to applicants (unanimously).
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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