FOURTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 59518/10
Jukka-Pekka MATTILA
against Finland
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 28 January 2014 as a Committee composed of:
Päivi Hirvelä, President,
Vincent A. De Gaetano,
Robert Spano, judges,
and Fatoş Aracı, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 13 October 2010,
Having regard to the the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr Jukka-Pekka Mattila, is a Finnish national who was born in 1963 and lives in Espoo. He was represented before the Court by Mr Antti Sorjonen, a lawyer practising in Helsinki.
2. The Finnish Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr Arto Kosonen of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
The circumstances of the case
3. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
4. The applicant was suspected by the police of three financial offences. The police suspected that the applicant had concealed his assets in different corporations and foundations in several countries including Switzerland, Monaco, France, Belgium, the United Kingdom and the Dominican Republic. The suspected financial interest of the case came to several million euros.
5. On 8 August 2002 the applicant was arrested in absentia. He was apprehended on 8 May 2003 on the strength of an international arrest warrant in the Dominican Republic, where he had been living under a false identity. On 14 May 2003 the applicant was questioned in the Dominican Republic about the suspected offences, at the request of the Finnish police. He was subsequently expelled from the Dominican Republic and his assets were seized.
6. On 15 May 2003 the National Bureau of Investigation (Keskusrikospoliisi, Centralkriminalpolisen) brought the applicant to Finland to serve a six-year prison sentence for other offences. On 18 May 2003 the applicant’s detention order concerning the present case was revoked.
7. In the context of the pre-trial investigation concerning the suspected financial offences, the police questioned dozens of persons and travelled once to Belgium and three times to Switzerland to carry out investigations. The applicant was questioned 20 times between 8 December 2005 and 30 October 2006. On a number of occasions the Finnish authorities also requested international legal assistance from various countries including Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, France, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Jersey, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Bahamas and Costa Rica. The first request was issued on 17 June 2002 and the last one on 2 December 2009.
8. On 13 October 2009 the pre-trial investigation was concluded.
9. On 13 April 2010 the public prosecutor decided not to bring charges against the applicant, partly because the suspected offences had become time-barred and partly because of lack of evidence.
COMPLAINTS
10. The applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the length of the proceedings had been incompatible with the “reasonable time” requirement.
11. In his observations of 11 July 2011 the applicant also raised several other complaints under Article 6 of the Convention. He claimed, inter alia, that there had been various other unfairness issues in the case breaching the rights set out in Article 6 of the Convention.
THE LAW
A. Length of the proceedings
12. The applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the total length of the domestic proceedings had been incompatible with the reasonable-time requirement.
13. Article 6 § 1 of the Convention reads in relevant parts as follows:
“In the determination of ... any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a ... hearing within a reasonable time by [a] ... tribunal ...”
14. The Government contested the allegation.
15. The period to be taken into consideration began on 8 May 2003 when the applicant was apprehended in connection with the suspected offences at the request of the Finnish police and ended on 13 April 2010 when the public prosecutor decided not to bring charges against the applicant. The proceedings thus lasted six years and eleven months at one level of jurisdiction.
16. The Court reiterates that the reasonableness of the length of proceedings must be assessed in the light of the circumstances of the case and with reference to the following criteria: the complexity of the case, the conduct of the applicant and the relevant authorities (see, among many other authorities, Pélissier and Sassi v. France [GC], no. 25444/94, § 67, ECHR 1999-II).
17. The Government argued that the case had been very extensive and complex, involving connections to several countries and several other suspects. Therefore, the pre-trial investigation had been very demanding. It had been necessary to gather information with international legal assistance from eleven countries and all the documents acquired from other countries had to be translated. At the end, the pre-trial investigation material included more than 10,000 pages and 680 different actions taken by the police.
18. In the Government’s view, the applicant had not collaborated with the authorities. When the applicant had first been apprehended, he was living in the Dominican Republic under a false identity, thus trying to evade justice. The requests for international legal assistance had also been delayed, mainly due to the applicant. Furthermore, the applicant had appealed against the decisions of the authorities at several stages of the investigation. The examination of these appeals had hindered the progress of the pre-trial investigation. The Government maintained that the applicant himself had admitted that the case had been exceptionally complex.
19. The Government further observed that during the proceedings there had been no periods of unnecessary delay on the behalf of the domestic authorities. The domestic authorities considered that it was in the best interest of the applicant to wait for the necessary information to be gathered by means of international legal assistance before questioning him. The particular circumstances of the case, including the applicant’s conduct, the need for international co-operation and the vast quantity of material received from the foreign authorities justified the duration of proceedings, the length of which could not be considered excessive.
20. The applicant contested the Government’s arguments. In his view, he had done his best to co-operate with the police in order to expedite the proceedings and to have them terminated within a reasonable time. The delays in the pre-trial investigation could not be attributed to him but only to the State. The first hearing of the applicant had taken place only on 8 December 2005, more than two and a half years after his arrest. The applicant argued that such passiveness breached Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and that the Government had not produced any acceptable reasons for such a long delay.
21. The Court reiterates that only delays attributable to the State may justify a finding of a failure to comply with the “reasonable time” requirement (see H. v. France, 24 October 1989, § 55, Series A no. 162‑A).
22. In the present case the Court considers that the attempts by the national authorities to gather information through international legal assistance from several countries and the translation of the documents explain the delays in the investigation. It appears from the case file that the investigators were actively working on the case and sent various requests via international legal assistance. There were no considerable periods of inactivity by the authorities. Moreover, the complexity of the case is acknowledged by both parties. The pre-trial investigation material at the end of the case was vast; it contained some 10,000 pages and 680 different actions taken by the police.
23. The Court also notes that the applicant was living under a false identity in the Dominican Republic at the time of his apprehension and was not cooperating with the police.
24. Having examined all the material submitted to it the Court considers, taking into account the complexity of the case and the delays in receiving replies to requests made through international legal assistance, that the Government’s arguments are capable of persuading the Court that most of the delays in the proceedings were not attributable to the State. The delays in the proceedings that were attributable to the State do not alone form such a substantial period as to constitute excessive length of proceedings.
25. The foregoing considerations, that is, the complexity of the case, the applicant’s own conduct and that of the domestic authorities, are sufficient to enable the Court to conclude that the complaint is manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention and it must therefore be declared inadmissible.
B. Remainder of the application
26. With regard to the other complaints of unfairness raised under Article 6 in the applicant’s observations, the Court notes that as no charges were brought against the applicant, he cannot be considered a victim of any unfairness of proceedings. Accordingly, this part of the application must be rejected as being incompatible ratione personae with the provisions of the Convention. It must therefore be declared inadmissible pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3(a) and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Declares the application inadmissible.
Fatoş AracıPäivi Hirvelä
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy