Information Note on the Court’s case-law 201

November 2016

Kiril Zlatkov Nikolov v. France - 70474/11 and 68038/12

Judgment 10.11.2016 [Section V]

Article 35

Article 35-3-b

No significant disadvantage

Discrimination with respect to enjoyment of right to fair trial: inadmissible

Facts – The applicant was prosecuted for a criminal offence related to organised crime. He did not benefit from the guarantee laid down in Article 116-1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, consisting of an audiovisual recording of interrogations of persons placed under formal investigation conducted in the investigating judge’s chambers, the seventh paragraph of which provision excluded tha t guarantee where the investigation concerned the criminal offences in question or crimes infringing the fundamental interests of the French Nation and terrorism. The Constitutional Council declared the provision in question of the Code of Criminal Procedu re unconstitutional under the equality principle. However, the Court of Cassation dismissed the applicant’s appeal on points of law on the grounds that the Constitutional Council’s decision only applied to persons in the applicant’s situation as from the d ate of its publication. The applicant therefore complained, inter alia , that he had suffered discrimination in the exercise of his right to a fair trial.

Law – Article 14 in conjunction with Article 6 § 1: There was no evidence to show that the failure to record the applicant’s interrogations had any significant impact on the exercise of his rights in the framework of the criminal proceedings against him, or even, more generally, any effect on his personal situation.

In any event, the discrimination in his entitlement to a fair trial complained of by the applicant did not cause him any “significant disadvantage” within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (b) of the Convention.

Accordingly, given the revocation of the impugned article of the Code of Criminal Proced ure, respect for human rights as secured under the Convention and the Protocols thereto did not require any assessment of the merits of that part of the application; the issue submitted to the Court had been settled at the domestic level, such that the cas e now only had an historical interest in that respect. Furthermore, the complaint under Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 6 § 1 had been duly examined by a domestic court.

Conclusion : inadmissible (no significant disadvantage).

The Court therefore unanimously found no violation of Article 5 § 3 on the ground that the time-limit for bringing the applicant before the investigating judge had been in conformity with domestic law, falling short of the four-day maximum posited in the c ase-law of the Court. Moreover, the circumstances of the case sufficiently explained why it had been impossible to bring the applicant before the investigating judge any sooner.

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

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