Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 2

January 1999

S.E. v. Italy (dec.) - 36686/97

Decision 12.1.1999

Article 6

Article 6-3-d

Examination of witnesses

Absence of opportunity in criminal proceedings to examine the victim: inadmissible

In the context of criminal proceedings brought against the applicant and two other persons on charges of rape, the victim, M., and four police officers who had taken statements from M., were summoned to appear for questioning. The victim and one of the police officers did not appear at the hearing.  The court ordered that M.'s statements and those made by the defendants be read out in court.  At the end of the trial, the court sentenced the applicant and his co-defendants to 4 years’ imprisonment. Its decision was based on a range of evidence, in particular the police officers’ reports and the substantial degree of correspondence between the victim’s statements and the confession made by one of the applicant’s co-defendants, C.  The appeal court upheld the judgment, save in the case of C.  The applicant and the other co-defendant lodged an appeal with the Court of Cassation.  As not all the procedural safeguards had been respected, the Court of Cassation held that the statements made by the victim and C. could not be used.  Nevertheless, the Court upheld the judgment against the applicant and the other co-defendant, on the grounds that it was justified by other evidence and consequently dismissed the defendants’ appeals.

Inadmissible under Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d): The applicant had the opportunity to question three of the police officers who had taken the victim’s statements and investigated the case. It would have been preferable to hear the victim, but her absence at the trial did not bring the proceedings to a standstill. In any event, M.'s statements were held to be «unusable» and were not taken into account in the final judgment against the applicant, which was, on the contrary, based on other evidence: 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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