FIRST SECTION
Application no. 40820/12
Goran MARČAN
against Croatia
lodged on 18 June 2012
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Goran Marčan, is a Croatian national, who was born in 1967 and lives in Rijeka.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
On 20 October 2010 the applicant was fined by the police for the minor offence of dangerous overtaking of another car and for driving with defective tyres.
He lodged an objection against the police fine in the Vrgorac Minor Offences Court (Prekršajni sud u Metkoviću, Stalna služba u Vrgorcu) challenging his conviction and sentence. The Vrgorac Minor Offences Court opened the summary proceedings and requested the Rijeka Minor Offences Court (Prekršajni sud u Rijeci) to question the applicant since the applicant had a residence within its territorial jurisdiction. The applicant was questioned and he denied all charges held against him.
On 21 November 2011 the Vrgorac Minor Offences Court found the applicant guilty, issued him an official court warning, fined him with 500,00 Kunas (HRK) and ordered him to pay HRK 100,00 of court expenses. The Vrgorac Minor Offences Court relied solely on the police report concerning a police officer’s observations of the offence at issue, without questioning the police officer who drafted it or taking any other evidence.
On 2 March 2012 the applicant lodged a constitutional complaint with the Constitutional Court (Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske).
The applicant contended that he had never been provided with the police report on which the judgment was based and that he had had no opportunity to challenge the accusations contained in that report. He also complained that the Vrgorac Minor Offences Court relied solely on the police report without questioning the police officer who drafted it. This, in his view, had divested the court proceedings of any sense since there had been no need to have any proceedings if the judgment could be based only on the police report which had anyway already existed in the case file.
On 2 May 2012 the Constitutional Court declared the applicant’s constitutional complaint inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains, invoking Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d) of the Convention, that in the minor offences proceedings there has been no oral hearing where he could defend himself by challenging the evidence and questioning the witnesses against him.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of the criminal charges against him, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, did he have a real possibility of challenging a minor offences sentencing order made against him by the Ministry of the Interior before a tribunal that offered the guarantees of Article 6?
In particular, did the tribunal offered the guarantees of the right to a public hearing and to equality of arms, including the right to defend oneself in person and to examine, or have examined, witnesses, as required by Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (c) and (d) of the Convention?
The Government are requested to submit two copies of the entire case file from the domestic proceedings.
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