Published on 27 February 2023

FOURTH SECTION

Application no. 29223/19 Adrian-Ionuţ COMAN against Romania lodged on 21 May 2019 communicated on 8 February 2023

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the criminal proceedings opened by the domestic authorities against the applicant, a police officer, for stealing fifty boxes of fireworks from a private company’s deposit. The proceedings ended with the final judgment of the Bucharest Court of Appeal of 22 June 2018 (available to the applicant on 22 November 2018) convicting the applicant of theft and sentencing him to three years imprisonment.

The applicant alleged under Article 6 §§ 1and 2 of the Convention that the criminal proceedings opened against him (i) were unfair because the domestic courts had failed to examine all the essential arguments raised by the applicant in his defence contesting that he had committed the offence in question or that the elements of this offence had been met in his case; and (ii) violated his right to be presumed innocent because the courts had reversed the burden of proof and had convicted him mainly on the ground that he had not provided credible explanations for his alleged presence on the day of the impugned events both at the warehouse from where the fireworks were stolen and at the location where the said fireworks were subsequently found.

QUESTION TO THE PARTIES

Were the applicant’s rights to a fair trial and to be presumed innocent guaranteed by Article 6 §§ 1 and 2 of the Convention respected in the present case, having regard (i) to the alleged failure of the national courts to examine all the essential arguments raised by the applicant in his defence contesting that he had committed the offence in question or that the elements of this offence had been met in his case and (ii) to the alleged reversal of the burden of proof by the national courts to the applicant’s detriment?