DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE LORENZEN JOINED BY JUDGES ROZAKIS AND CONFORTI

In this case I am not able to agree with the majority that there has been a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. The criminal proceedings concerned 24 persons and were of a certain complexity. They had to be adjourned  4 times because of lawyer’s strikes for which the State is not responsible.

Furthermore the proceedings were stayed for more than 7 months pending a Constitutional Court judgement. It is true that almost 2 years elapsed from when the applicants were informed of the criminal proceedings against them and until they were committed for trial. However, during this period the Public Prosecutor carried out investigations and even if no details are given, it is in my opinion not justified to consider this period as a period of total inactivity.

According to a global assessment, 4 years and almost 4 months cannot be considered unreasonable under the circumstances and a violation cannot be found based solely on the fact that a little more than 6 months elapsed from the judgement of the Constitutional Court and until the case was assigned to another investigating judge.