Published on 13 October 2025
FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 5701/23
Shahram ZADEH
against the Czech Republic
lodged on 20 January 2023
communicated on 24 September 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns criminal proceedings in which the applicant was found guilty of membership in a criminal group and of crimes of false accusation, bribery, and aiding and abetting related to a separate criminal case brought against him concerning tax evasion.
The applicant was held in detention for a major part of the proceedings. According to his allegations, upon an unspecified decision of the prison authorities, he was deprived of any confidential communication with his attorneys, both in oral and written forms. Furthermore, his notes and written communication with them were read and placed in the case file following a court-ordered search of his home and prison cell.
During the proceedings, the judge presiding over his tax evasion case before the Brno Regional Court was criticised in the media, based at least partly on the applicant’s statements. The majority of the judges of that court subsequently expressed their support for the presiding judge. On that basis, the applicant filed an objection of bias, which was dismissed by several court instances.
After having been found guilty by the lower courts, the applicant lodged an appeal on points of law which was dismissed by the Supreme Court without communicating to him the comments of the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office to which it referred in its decision. On 6 September 2022 the Constitutional Court (II. ÚS 2441/21) dismissed as manifestly ill-founded the constitutional appeal in which the applicant raised the same complaints which he is now raising before the Court. The decision was delivered to the applicant on 20 September 2022.
Relying on Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the applicant complains that he was not tried by an impartial tribunal at the appeal stage and that the principle of equality of arms was violated in the proceedings before the Supreme Court. He further complains under Articles 6 § 3 (c) and 8 of the Convention that the privacy of communication with his attorneys was not respected, which negatively impacted on his right to defence.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Having regard to the applicant’s allegations of a lack of respect for the privacy of communication with his lawyers, has there been an interference with the applicant’s rights under Article 8 or Article 6 § 3 c) of the Convention? If so, has there been a violation of these provisions (see Campbell v. the United Kingdom, 25 March 1992, § 32-54, Series A no. 233; Laurent v. France, no. 28798/13, § 47, 24 May 2018; and Khodorkovskiy and Lebedev v. Russia, nos. 11082/06 and 13772/05, § 601- 648, 25 July 2013)?
2. Were the merits of the criminal charge against the applicant examined fairly, as required by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? In particular:
- could the Brno Regional Court be considered impartial within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention when examining the applicant’s appeal, in view of the support expressed by its judges to a fellow judge having decided on the applicant’s guilt in another case (see Morice v. France [GC], no. 29369/10, ECHR 2015)?
- were the principles of adversarial trial and equality of arms respected in view of the Supreme Court’s failure to communicate to the applicant the Supreme Prosecutor Office’s observations in the proceedings no. 4Tdo 737/2020 (see, mutatis mutandis, Hubka v. the Czech Republic, no. 500/06, 3 February 2011, and Janáček v. the Czech Republic, no. 9634/17, 2 February 2023)?