Information Note on the Court’s case-law 53

May 2003

Georgios Papageorgiou v. Greece - 59506/00

Judgment 9.5.2003 [Section I]

Article 6

Criminal proceedings

Article 6-1

Fair hearing

Refusal to allow evidence requested by an accused: violation

Facts : The applicant is a Greek national who was born in 1955 and lives at Aghios Stephanos (Attica). He was prosecuted on 2 June 1990 following a complaint to the public prosecutor’s office by his employer, the Commercial Bank of Greece, alleging that he and other employees had debited the account of Greek Railways (" OSE ") using seven cheques from a cheque-book that had been issued but never delivered to Greek Railways. T he bank claimed that the loss came to more than 20,000,000 drachmas (EUR 58,700). The applicant was convicted of fraud by the Athens Criminal Court of Appeal, which found that he had worked on the computer that had been used to commit the offence and had s igned the cheques. During the proceedings the applicant made several unsuccessful requests for the production of certain evidence, including pages from the electronic calendar on the computer and the originals of the cheques. After the conviction was quash ed following an appeal to the Court of Cassation, the case was remitted to the Athens Criminal Court of Appeal, which found the applicant guilty of deception and sentenced him to three years and six months’ imprisonment. That decision was upheld by the Cou rt of Cassation on 30 November 1999.

Law : Article 6 § 1 – Noting that the case had lasted 9 years, 5 months and 28 days and that there had been periods of inaction and delays attributable to the judicial authorities, the Court held that there had been a vi olation of Article 6 § 1 on account of the length of the proceedings.

Conclusion : violation (unanimously).

Article 6 § 1 and  § 3 (d) – The Court noted that the case concerned a refusal to order production of the originals of documents that had served as a basis for a criminal conviction. At no stage during the proceedings had the trial courts examined the computer’s electronic records or the originals of the cheques. They had not even checked whether the copies that had been produced conformed to the origi nals. Production of the cheques was vital to the applicant’s case and might have enabled him to demonstrate that the accusation was unfounded. Despite his repeated requests, essential items of evidence had not been produced or adequately examined at the tr ial. Accordingly, the Court considered that the proceedings taken as a whole had not met the requisite standards of fairness.

Conclusion : violation (unanimously).

Article 41 – The Court awarded the applicant 20,000 euros for non-pecuniary damage and 5,848 euros for costs and expenses.

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

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