Information Note on the Court’s case-law 34

September 2001

Jensen v. Denmark (dec.) - 48470/99

Decision 20.9.2001 [Section II]

Article 34

Victim

Sentence reduced on the ground of length of proceedings without acknowledgement by domestic courts of violation of Article 6 § 1: admissible

In October 1994, the applicant, who ran a law firm, confessed to the police that he had made fraudulent conversion on his clients’ accounts and cheque fraud. He requested that bankruptcy proceedings be instituted against him. In October 1996, following investigations which entailed numerous interviews with the applicant, the case was transferred to the prosecution. In March 1998, a pre-trial hearing was held at the request of the prosecution. By judgment of June 1998, the applicant was convicted and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. The sentence was suspended on the ground of the length of the proceedings, although the court expressly stated that Article 6 § 1 of the Convention had not been violated. In November 1998, the High Court on appeal reduced the sentence to one year’s imprisonment, without suspending it. The court held that the sentence had been brought down from 1½ years, the usual sentence for such criminal offences, to one year by reason of both the length of the proceedings and the applicant’s co-operation. The applicant’s request for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected in February 1999.

Adm issible under Article 6 § 1 (length of proceedings): The mitigation of a sentence on the ground of the excessive length of proceedings does not in principle deprive the individual concerned of his status of victim within the meaning of Article 34. This gen eral rule is subject to an exception when the national authorities have acknowledged in a sufficiently clear way the failure to observe the reasonable time requirement and have afforded redress by reducing the sentence in an express and measurable manner. In the instant case, the High Court expressly rejected the applicant’s claim that the proceedings had exceeded a reasonable time. However, the High Court also considered it a mitigating circumstance, the applicant’s co-operation being another, and, on the basis of both circumstances, reduced the sentence by 6 months. It is not clear, however, what proportion of the six months was attributable to the length of the proceedings. Moreover, unlike the City Court, it held that, despite these aforementioned mitiga ting circumstances, the sentence could not be suspended. Overall, it could not be considered that the courts acknowledged the failure to comply with the requirement of reasonable time under Article 6 § 1 and afforded the applicant redress by reducing the s entence in an express and measurable manner. Therefore, the applicant could still claim to be a victim.

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

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