Information Note on the Court’s case-law No.
November 1993
Imbrioscia v. Switzerland - 13972/88
Judgment 24.11.1993
Article 6
Article 6-1
Fair hearing
Article 6-3-c
Defence through legal assistance
Non-attendance by a lawyer at several interrogations of a suspect by the police and by the district prosecutor: no 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.]
1.Primary purpose of Article 6: to ensure a fair trial by a "tribunal" competent to determine "any criminal charge", but did not follow that it had no application to pre-trial proceedings - in particular requirements of paragraph 3 might also be relevant at that stage if and in so far as the fairness of the trial was likely to be seriously prejudiced by an initial failure to comply with them.
2.Right to defend oneself or through legal assistance - Article 6 § 3 (c) did not specify manner of exercising that right: States left choice of means of securing it in their system, it being borne in mind that Convention was designed to guarantee rights that were practical and effective - application of provision to preliminary investigation depended on the special features of the proceedings in question and the circumstances of the case.
3.Domestic proceedings taken as a whole:
(a)Investigation proceedings
(i)Lack of necessary legal support at outset, but State could not be held responsible for every shortcoming on the part of a lawyer chosen by the accused - under Article 6 § 3 (c) intervention required only where failure was manifest or sufficiently brought to the attention of the competent authorities - in instant case authorities had officially assigned a lawyer for applicant's defence as soon as his lawyer had informed them of her withdrawal.
(ii)Lawyer assigned by authorities had been sent case file and had not raised issue of non-attendance by a lawyer at the earlier interrogations - he had visited his client before and after each of the interviews - after he had complained of not being summoned, he was invited to attend the last interrogation.
(b)Trial proceedings
Hearings in District Court and Court of Appeal attended by adequate safeguards.
Conclusion: no violation (six votes to three).
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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