SECOND SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 43104/07
Dávid MÁRTON
against Hungary
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 18 September 2012 as a Committee composed of:
Dragoljub Popović, President,
András Sajó,
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque, judges
and Françoise Elens-Passos, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 28 September 2007,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant, Mr Dávid Márton, is a Hungarian national, who was born in 1953 and lives in Budapest.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
On 8 May 2001 criminal investigations were instituted against the applicant on charges of fraud.
On 29 April 2003 the Budapest VI/VII District Public Prosecutor’s Office preferred a bill of indictment against the applicant, charging him with fraud and illegal possession of firearm.
Following numerous hearings held in the case, the Pest Central District Court found the applicant guilty as charged on 1 June 2010. It sentenced him to four years and four months of imprisonment. In the judgment, the District Court stated:
“Within the sentencing process the [District] Court appreciated in respect of every accused as aggravating circumstance the large number of crimes against property ... and as mitigating circumstance the considerable lapse of time exceeding the limitation period. ... Further aggravating circumstances [in respect of the applicant] are his criminal record, being a habitual criminal and a qualified recidivist, the fact that his crime had exceeded more than two counts, and that it had been organised and committed continuously, collectively and repeatedly. ... [I]n light of the confession of the accused and due to the lapse of time, the length of prison sentence was established closer to the lower side of the range of punishment.”
As the applicant revoked his appeal, the District Court’s judgment became final on 28 October 2010.
On 25 October 2011 the Budapest Regional Court, acting as a second-instance court, imposed a cumulative sentence of five years and eleven months on the applicant in respect of several earlier convictions.
COMPLAINT
The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention about the length of the proceedings and about the cumulative sentences.
THE LAW
1. The applicant complains that the proceedings lasted an unreasonably long time, in breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, which reads as relevant:
“In the determination of ... any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a ... hearing within a reasonable time by [a] ... tribunal...”
The Government argue that the applicant cannot claim to be a victim of a violation of his Convention rights, since the domestic courts expressly acknowledged that the proceedings had been unusually long and provided redress by imposing a lighter prison sentence despite the numerous aggravating circumstances. In any event, the authorities displayed the requisite diligence in handling the case.
The applicant contests these views.
The Court observes that the District Court held that the time elapsed since the commission of the crime had been excessive and mitigated the applicant’s sentence on account of this to a lighter prison sentence. Against this background, the Court finds that the applicant obtained adequate redress for the alleged violation of his right under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention to the determination within a reasonable time of the criminal charges against him. Accordingly, he can no longer claim to be a victim, for the purposes of Article 34, of a violation of Article 6 § 1. The application is therefore manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 4 of the Convention (see Morby v. Luxembourg (dec.), no. 27156/02, ECHR 2003 XI and Tamás Kovács v. Hungary, no. 67660/01, § 26, 28 September 2004).
2. The applicant further complains about the cumulative sentences. In so far as this complaint may be understood to concern the assessment of the evidence and the result of the proceedings before the domestic courts, the Court reiterates that, according to Article 19 of the Convention, its duty is to ensure the observance of the engagements undertaken by the Contracting Parties to the Convention. In particular, it is not its function to deal with errors of fact or law allegedly committed by a national court unless and in so far as they may have infringed rights and freedoms protected by the Convention. Moreover, while Article 6 of the Convention guarantees the right to a fair hearing, it does not lay down any rules on the admissibility of evidence or the way it should be assessed, which are therefore primarily matters for regulation by national law and the national courts (see García Ruiz v. Spain [GC], no. 30544/96, § 28, ECHR 1999 I). In the present case, the Court is satisfied that the applicants’ submissions do not disclose any appearance that the courts lacked impartiality, or that the proceedings were otherwise unfair or arbitrary. 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.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Declares the application inadmissible.
Françoise Elens-PassosDragoljub Popović
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy