Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 141
May 2011
Suhadolc v. Slovenia - 57655/08
Decision 17.5.2011 [Section V]
Article 6
Criminal proceedings
Article 6-1
Public hearing
Oral hearing
Lack of hearing in summary administrative-offences proceedings: inadmissible
Facts – The applicant was stopped by police and breathalysed after being caught speeding by a laser device. In accordance with a summary procedure introduced by the Minor Offences Act 2002, he was given a copy of the police officers’ report together with a written notice indicating that he would be charged with speeding and driving under the influence of alcohol and inviting him to submit a written statement in reply within five days. He did so, denying the charges. The police subsequently found the case proved and fined him 100,000 Slovenian tolars (SIT) (approximately EUR 400), issued him with seven penalty points and ordered him to pay costs. An application by the applicant for judicial review was dismissed by a local court as unsubstantiated. In his application to the European Court, the applicant complained, inter alia, that there had been no oral or public court hearing of his case.
Law – Article 6 § 1: The Court reiterated that an oral hearing may not be required in criminal cases where there are no issues of credibility or contested facts which necessitate an oral presentation of evidence or cross-examination of witnesses and where the accused is given an adequate opportunity to put forward his case in writing and to challenge the evidence against him.
The applicant’s case concerned regulatory offences of speeding and driving under the influence of alcohol which, as such, did not belong to the traditional categories of criminal law. His case was dealt with under a summary procedure providing for certain administrative penalties, such as fines and penalty points, to be imposed by the administrative authorities, with the possibility of judicial review. The domestic courts dealing with requests for judicial review had full jurisdiction to entertain questions of fact and law. Under the terms of the legislation as applied by the domestic courts in practice, a judge could hold an oral hearing and examine witnesses if the administrative authority had failed to establish the facts sufficiently or when a request for judicial review was upheld on the basis of the file and the judge had to rule on the matter in ordinary judicial proceedings. That system, which left the decision to hold an oral hearing to the judge’s discretion, was not per se incompatible with the guarantees enshrined in Article 6 and was aimed at expediting the processing of minor offences and lowering the judicial workload.
The applicant had been able to deny that he had committed the offences and to submit factual and legal arguments, both in his written reply to the charges in the procedure before the police and more importantly in his application for judicial review. The points raised in the judicial-review proceedings – which essentially related to general objections to the police’s statutory power to impose a fine and to the reliability of the speed measurements – did not give rise to any issue of credibility which would require the oral presentation of evidence or cross-examination of witnesses. Moreover, the applicant had not asked to be heard orally or to examine witnesses. There was therefore force in the Government’s argument that the domestic court had been able to resolve the case adequately on the basis of the file. In these circumstances and having regard to the minor character of the offences in question, the Court found that there were special features in the applicant’s case that justified the absence of an oral hearing and, by extension, the lack of a public hearing.
Conclusion: inadmissible (manifestly ill-founded).
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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