Information Note on the Court’s case-law 64

May 2004

Somogyi v. Italy - 67972/01

Judgment 18.5.2004 [Section II]

Article 6

Criminal proceedings

Article 6-1

Fair hearing

Alleged failure to inform accused of proceedings prior to conviction in absentia : violation

Article 41

Just satisfaction

Reopening of criminal proceedings

Facts : The applicant is a Hungarian national. In the course of proceedings concerning drug t rafficking in Italy, notice of the date for the preliminary hearing, translated into Hungarian, was served by registered post on the accused, a Hungarian citizen living in Hungary, the spelling of whose first name was not exactly the same as that of the ap plicant, and whose place and date of birth did not correspond to those of the applicant. The acknowledgment of receipt for the notice was returned to the registry of the court with a signature which, according to the applicant, was not his. Having failed t o attend the preliminary hearing, the accused was declared to be unlawfully absent. In June 1999 the accused was sentenced in absentia to a term of imprisonment. The applicant was arrested in Austria. The Italian authorities considered that the person conv icted in the judgment of June 1999 was in fact the applicant and ordered that the judgment be rectified to indicate the applicant's first name and his date and place of birth. The applicant was then extradited to Italy and imprisoned. He appealed against t he judgment, claiming that he had been unaware of the proceedings against him. He pointed out that the address on the registered letter in question had been erroneous, and stated that the signature on the acknowledgment of receipt for the notice fixing the date of the hearing had not been his; he asked for an assessment by a handwriting expert. Applications for reopening of the proceedings were unsuccessful. The Court of Cassation considered, inter alia , that there was no evidence to show that notice of the date of the trial had been received by someone sharing the applicant's name and living at an address which was similar or almost identical to the applicant's.

Law : Article 6 – The Court was unable to ascertain whether the applicant had received notice of the date for the preliminary hearing. The applicant had on several occasions disputed the authenticity of the signature attributed to him, which was the only means of proving that the accused had been informed of the opening of proceedings. The applicant's allegations had not been immediately devoid of merit. Nonetheless, the Italian courts had dismissed all his appeals and refused to reopen the proceedings or to ex tend the time-limit for filing an appeal, and had not checked whether the signature on the acknowledgement of receipt was indeed the applicant's, despite the latter's requests to that effect, although that question had been at the very heart of the case. T he right to a fair trial imposed an obligation on every national court to check whether the accused had had an opportunity to take cognisance of the proceedings against him if, as in the instant case, a dispute arose on a ground that did not immediately ap pear to be manifestly devoid of merit. In the absence of scrupulous supervision to determine beyond any reasonable doubt whether the applicant's decision not to appear had been unequivocal, the methods used by the Italian authorities had not enabled the st andard required by Article 6 to be reached. Although the applicant had allegedly learnt of the proceedings through a journalist, this was not sufficient to meet the obligations arising under the Convention.

Conclusion : violation (unanimously).

Article 41 – The Court considered that the finding of a violation in itself constituted just satisfaction for the non-pecuniary damage suffered by the applicant. It awarded him a sum in respect of costs and expenses.

The Court added that where it found tha t an applicant had been convicted despite a potential infringement of his right to participate in his trial, the most appropriate form of redress would, in principle, be to grant him a retrial or to reopen the proceedings without undue delay and in complia nce with the requirements of Article 6 of the Convention.

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

Click here for the Case-Law Infor mation Notes