Communicated on 21 February 2018
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 19186/13
Vladimir Nikolayevich MOISEYEV
against Russia
lodged on 5 March 2013
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Vladimir Nikolayevich Moiseyev, is a Russian national, who was born in 1952 and lives in Mineralniye Vody.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
On 16 April 2009 the investigative committee opened a criminal investigation against the applicant, his daughter and T. on the charges of fraud.
On 7 September 2010 the applicant signed an undertaking not to leave his place of residence pending the investigation.
On an unspecified date the investigation was completed and the case-file was transferred to the Mineralniye Vody Town Court for trial. The case was assigned to judge V.
On 16 April 2012 the Town Court sitting in a single judge formation presided by judge V. remanded the applicant in custody pending trial.
On 11 May 2012 the applicant asked judge V. to withdraw from the consideration of his case. He alleged that she might be biased against him given that her son-in-law had borrowed a considerable sum of money from the applicant (650,000 Russian roubles[1]) and failed to repay the debt. Judge V. rejected the applicant’s challenge.
On 30 May 2012 the Town Court sitting in a single judge formation presided by judge V. found the applicant guilty as charged and sentenced him to four years’ imprisonment. The applicant appealed referring, inter alia, to the bias on the part of judge V.
On 17 October 2012 the Stavropol Regional Court upheld the applicant’s conviction on appeal.
COMPLAINT
The applicant complains under Article 6 of the Convention that the trial judge V. was not impartial given that the applicant had lent a significant amount of cash to her son-in-law and the latter failed to repay the debt.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Was the Mineralniye Vody Town Court sitting in a single judge formation presided by judge V. when determining the criminal charge against the applicant impartial as required by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see, for example, Morice v. France [GC], no. 29369/10, §§ 73‑78, ECHR 2015; and Dorozhko and Pozharskiy v. Estonia, nos. 14659/04 and 16855/04, §§ 32-59, 24 April 2008)?
[1] Approximately EUR 16,667 at the time.
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