Information Note on the Court’s case-law 65

June 2004

Stepinska v. France - 1814/02

Judgment 15.6.2004 [Section II]

Article 6

Article 6-1

Fair hearing

Adversarial trial

Rejection of appeal on points of law as inadmissible in preliminary procedure for examination of appeals by the Court of Cassation: no violation

Absence of opportunity to reply to oral submissions of the avocat général at hearing in Court of Cassation and absence of notification of the date of the hearing: no violation

Facts : The applicant had applied to the commission de surendettementdes particuliers (commission for personal over-indebtedness) with a request for verification of a sum she owed. The judge dealing with enforcement proceedings at the tribunal de grande instance fixed the amount owed by the applicant in a judgment against which no ordinary appeal lay. The applicant appealed on points of law to the Civil Division of the Court o f Cassation. She chose to conduct her own defence. The appeal was declared inadmissible on the basis of the preliminary procedure for examining the admissibility of appeals to the Court of Cassation. Under that procedure, which came into force in 2002, man ifestly inadmissible or ill-founded appeals on points of law are declared inadmissible at the outset. The applicant’s appeal was manifestly inadmissible under the consistent case-law in that area.

Law : Article 6 § 1 – In the context of the preliminary adm issibility procedure for appeals to the Court of Cassation, the advocate-general had made his submissions for the first time, in oral form only, at the public hearing (in contrast to existing practice in proceedings before the Court of Cassation, as alread y examined by the Court: see the Meftah judgment, ECHR 2002-VII). In the instant case, having chosen to conduct her own defence, the applicant had not been represented by a member of the Court of Cassation Bar and had not been summoned to the hearing. The Court had already ruled that the brevity of the grounds provided for preliminary admissibility decisions on appeals to the Court of Cassation was not contrary to Article 6 (cf. decision in Burg , no. 34763/02, ECHR 2003-II). With regard to this specific pro cedure, the Court noted that, in the context of the preliminary admissibility procedure for appeals to the Court of Cassation, the filing of a reply to the advocate-general’s oral submissions would have had no effect on the outcome of the dispute because t he legal solution adopted had not been open to discussion. The applicant’s appeal had clearly fallen into the category of manifestly inadmissible appeals. The Convention did not aim to protect rights that were purely theoretical. Accordingly, in view of th e particular circumstances of this case, the fact that the applicant had been unable to reply to the advocate-general’s oral submissions had not amounted to a violation of Article 6, unless she were to be recognised as enjoying a right that had no real sco pe or substance.

Conclusion : no violation (unanimously).

[For the procedure governing the non-admissibility of appeals to the Conseil d’Etat , see the decision in Latourneriev. France , no. 50321/99, 10 December 2002]

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

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