Information Note on the Court’s case-law No.
June 1996
Pullar v. the United Kingdom - 22399/93
Judgment 10.6.1996
Article 6
Criminal proceedings
Article 6-1
Impartial tribunal
Trial by jury including employee of prosecution witness: no violation
Article 6-3-d
Examination of witnesses
Witnesses
Reliance by appeal court on written statement of prosecution witness: 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.]
A.Article 6 § 1 of the Convention taken alone
Reiteration of Court's case-law on concept of "impartial" tribunal.
Subjective test: personal impartiality must be presumed even if difficult to procure evidence in rebuttal - here, no evidence of personal partiality.
Objective test: it does not necessarily follow from fact that member of tribunal has personal knowledge of witness that he will be prejudiced in favour of latter's testimony - question of nature and degree of familiarity - juror had no knowledge of facts forming background to accusations against applicant and had been given notice of redundancy before trial - on these facts, by no means clear that objective observer would conclude that juror more inclined to believe prosecution witness - in addition, tribunal offered important safeguards such as random selection of jury, detailed directions to jury by presiding judge to dispassionately assess credibility of all witnesses and oath by jurors to same effect - applicant's misgivings as to tribunal's impartiality not found to be objectively justified.
Conclusion: no violation (five votes to four).
B.Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d) taken together
Application of Court's case-law on relationship between Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d) and autonomous interpretation of concept of "witness".
Applicant's counsel could have objected to written statement being seen by appeal court judges, reserved his position as to its accuracy or called for oral evidence - in these circumstances, cannot be said applicant denied rights under Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d) in consequence of manner in which appeal hearing conducted.
Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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