Tucka v. the United Kingdom (dec.)

Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 137

January 2011

Tucka v. the United Kingdom (dec.) - 34586/10

Decision 18.1.2011 [Section IV]

Article 35

Article 35-1

Exhaustion of domestic remedies

Effective domestic remedy

Six month period

Application to Criminal Cases Review Commission: not effective remedy; inadmissible

Facts – The applicant’s appeal against a conviction for rape was dismissed in 2008. He applied to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) for his case to be referred back to the Court of Appeal, but was notified in 2010 that the CCRC had rejected that application. He subsequently lodged an application with the European Court in which he alleged a breach of his right to a fair trial. As a preliminary point, the Court considered whether he had complied with the six-month time-limit for lodging his application.

Law – Article 35 § 1: The Court reiterated that the pursuit of remedies which are not considered effective for the purposes of Article 35 § 1 will not be taken into account when determining the date of the “final decision” or calculating the starting point for the running of the six-month rule. The 2010 request to the CCRC had effectively sought to reopen the concluded criminal proceedings against the applicant. It was clear from the terms of the relevant legislation that any decision to refer a case to the Court of Appeal was within the discretion of the CCRC and that an application to that body could be made “at any time”. It could thus be seen that no time-limit applied to an application to the CCRC, nor to the number of CCRC applications an individual could make. Thus if an application to the CCRC were to be considered an effective remedy, the uncertainty thereby created would render nugatory the six-month rule in so far as it concerned criminal convictions in the United Kingdom. Accordingly, the request to the CCRC for a referral did not constitute an effective remedy for the purposes of Article 35 § 1 and the application to the European Court had been lodged more than six months after the decision of the Court of Appeal.

Conclusion: inadmissible (out of time).

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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