Communicated on 8 June 2015
FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 52288/13
Reinhard MAYER
against Liechtenstein
lodged on 13 August 2013
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Reinhard Mayer, is a German national, who was born in 1956 and lives in Monrovia (Liberia). He is represented before the Court by Mr F.J. Giesinger, a lawyer practising in Schaan (Liechtenstein).
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
1. The first phase of the proceedings before the Liechtenstein authorities and courts
On 3 December 2008 an information was laid against the applicant with the Liechtenstein police concerning an altercation between the applicant and A. in Triesen (Liechtenstein) on 14 June 2008.
By a bill of indictment dated 26 October 2009 the Liechtenstein Public Prosecutor’s Office charged the applicant with aggravated assault of A., his wife’s former husband. In the prosecution’s submission, A. had suffered a haematoma in the face and had two fingers of his hand broken during the altercation with the applicant.
On 16 April 2010 the Regional Court, in an interim decision taken in the criminal proceedings pending before it, dismissed the requests of the applicant, who was represented by counsel throughout the proceedings, to discontinue the proceedings against him. It found that there was no procedural bar to criminal proceedings against the applicant. Even assuming that the latter was an attaché to the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Liberia to the United Nations in Vienna, he would not enjoy diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 18 April 1961 for the acts on 14 June 2008 he was charged with, carried out outside his official functions while passing through a third country.
On 23 June 2010 the Court of Appeal, following the applicant’s appeal dated 10 May 2010 against the Regional Court’s decision, amended the latter’s decision and found that the applicant enjoyed absolute immunity from jurisdiction under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
On 3 December 2010 the Supreme Court, following the prosecution’s and the applicant’s appeals on points of law, quashed the Court of Appeal’s decision dated 23 June 2010 and remitted the case to that court. Having regard to the contents of a Verbal Note of the Embassy of Liberia to the Liechtenstein Foreign Office dated 8 October 2009 and of a Verbal Note of the Austrian Ministry for European and International Affairs to the Embassy of the Republic of Liberia dated 30 September 2010, it considered that the Court of Appeal had to further examine the factual question whether the applicant was a diplomat accredited either to the United Nations in Vienna or to the Republic of Austria.
On 9 February 2011 the Court of Appeal quashed the Regional Court’s interim decision of 16 April 2010 and remitted the case to that court, arguing that it was for the latter to further clarify the facts in the light of the Supreme Court’s findings and the applicant’s new submissions.
2. The second phase of the proceedings before the Liechtenstein courts
On 5 August 2011 the Regional Court, having heard a witness and having obtained additional information on the applicant’s diplomatic status with the help of the Foreign Office, again dismissed the applicant’s request to discontinue the criminal proceedings against him owing to diplomatic immunity. It accepted that the applicant had been accredited to the UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization) in Vienna and therefore, in principle, enjoyed diplomatic immunity. However, he had been on a private, and not a professional, journey in Liechtenstein on Saturday 14 June 2008, visiting friends together with his wife and her son in Triesen, situated close to Buchs (Switzerland) where they lived at that time. He did not, therefore, enjoy immunity from jurisdiction in respect of the events on that day.
On 23 November 2011 the Court of Appeal allowed the applicant’s appeal dated 24 August 2011 and discontinued the proceedings as the applicant’s immunity from jurisdiction constituted a bar to the criminal proceedings against him. The Court of Appeal considered that the applicant was accredited as an attaché and advisor to the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Liberia to the United Nations in Vienna and, being on a professional journey, enjoyed diplomatic immunity, in particular, under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations of 13 February 1946.
On 13 April 2012 the Supreme Court, allowing the prosecution’s appeal on points of law dated 6 December 2011, amended the Court of Appeal’s decision and dismissed the applicant’s appeal against the Regional Court’s interim decision of 5 August 2011. It found that the applicant’s accreditation to the UNIDO in Vienna did not result in his enjoying diplomatic immunity in Liechtenstein as Liechtenstein had not ratified the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the Specialized Agencies of 21 November 1947 applicable to the UNIDO, which granted the Member States’ representatives at that agency of the United Nations functional immunity on journeys to and from conferences. Moreover, the Regional Court’s finding that the applicant had been in Liechtenstein on a private journey on 14 June 2008 was convincing in the light of the evidence available.
By submissions dated 16 May 2012 the applicant lodged a constitutional complaint with the Constitutional Court. He claimed, inter alia, that the length of the criminal proceedings against him was excessive and had failed to comply, in particular, with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention because, since the information laid against him on 3 December 2008, three and a half years had passed until the decision of the Supreme Court of 13 April 2012.
On 11 December 2012 the Constitutional Court, having granted the complaint suspensive effect on 4 June 2012, dismissed the applicant’s constitutional complaint as ill-founded (file no. StGH 2012/71).
The Constitutional Court found that the applicant’s right to a trial within a reasonable time under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, having regard to the criteria developed in the European Court of Human Right’s case-law, had not been breached. It accepted that the duration of the proceedings from 3 December 2008 until 13 April 2012 was very long, especially as it was only the question whether there was a bar to the criminal proceedings which had to be resolved. However, the questions of public international law raised by the case were complex and unusual in the courts’ practice. It had been necessary for the courts to obtain information on the applicant’s diplomatic status from different authorities within and outside Liechtenstein, which had partly taken time in responding. The criminal courts, which had been called upon to decide on the issue of jurisdiction twice, had made efforts to conduct the proceedings speedily.
The Constitutional Court further considered that the applicant’s right to a fair trial, the presumption of innocence, the principle of equality of arms, the right to a reasoned court decision, the right to equality and the prohibition of arbitrary decisions had not been breached by the lower courts.
The judgment was served on the applicant’s counsel on 28 February 2013.
The criminal proceedings against the applicant were subsequently continued before the Regional Court.
COMPLAINT
The applicant complains under Article 6 of the Convention about the length of the criminal proceedings against him.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Was Article 6 § 1 of the Convention applicable to the proceedings in the present case?
2. Was the length of the proceedings in the present case in breach of the “reasonable time” requirement of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?
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