Communicated on 5 October 2020 Published on 26 October 2020

FIRST SECTION

Application no. 52503/17 Krystian GOLIASZ against Poland lodged on 18 July 2017

STATEMENT OF FACTS

1 . The applicant, Mr Krystian Goliasz , is a Polish national, who was born in 1987 and is detained in Warsaw.

The circumstances of the case

2 . The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.

3 . On 12 February 2015 the Warsaw District Court convicted the applicant of the offence of taking part in a sale of drugs. The court sentenced him to one-year ’ s imprisonment and a fine.

4 . The court relied on the sole testimony of a certain P.R., the principal drug dealer in a gang, who had been questioned during the investigation against the applicant, as the latter ’ s fellow suspect. P.R. later invoked a self ‑ incrimination clause and refused to testify before the court (Article 182 § 3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure - right to refuse to give an evidence in case if the witness is accused in another proceedings of complicity in the same crime). P.R. extensively described the chain of drug sales in which the applicant had allegedly taken part.

5 . As a result, the applicant had no possibility to question him at trial.

6 . No other evidence was produced by the prosecutor.

7 . The District Court expressly stated that the sole evidence incriminating the applicant was the pre-trial submission given by P.R. The court found that P.R. ’ s testimony was sufficiently corroborated by a number of six other witnesses (who had not directly incriminated the applicant). It was thus reliable and sufficiently convincing for the applicant ’ s conviction of a number of drug sales.

8 . The applicant ’ s attorney appealed against the first-instance judgment, arguing that the defendant had not been able to question the sole and crucial witness.

9 . On 27 January 2016 the Warsaw Regional Court dismissed the appeal. The court held that although P.R. had refused to testify at the hearing, he had not revoked his previous statements and had in fact “confirmed them”. The court did not elaborate any further in respect of the latter observation. The appellate court also reasoned that although no other evidence directly corroborated P.R. ’ s testimony, there was no evidence which would have disproved it. The appellate court emphasised that the evidence was sufficient to convict the applicant on some but not all counts. Any doubts had indeed been interpreted in the applicant ’ s favour.

10 . On 24 November 2016 the Supreme Court dismissed the applicant ’ s cassation appeal. On 20 January 2017 the applicant was served with the written grounds of that decision.

COMPLAINT

The applicant complains about a breach of Article 6 of the Convention, arguing that his defence rights were unduly curtailed as he could not examine P.R. at trial. The applicant claims that the testimony of P.R. constituted the sole and decisive evidence against him.

QUESTION TO THE PARTIES

Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of the criminal charge against him? In particular, was there a breach of the applicant ’ s right guaranteed by Article 6 § 3 (d) of the Convention on account of the fact that the pre-trial statement of prosecution witness P.R. was admitted in evidence without the applicant having a possibility to examine this witness (see Al ‑ Khawaja and Tahery v. the United Kingdom [GC], nos. 26766/05 and 22228/06, §§ 118-147, ECHR 2011; and Schatschaschwili v. Germany [GC], no. 9154/10, §§ 100-131, ECHR 2015)?