TrustHLT/LaCour huggingface dataset:
AP2 (Applicant): At that same moment, she wrote the request, as I've told you, to the Kharkiv Oblast prosecutor's office.
AP2 (Applicant): And also, she informed the medical personnel of the jail.
AP2 (Applicant): And they fixed all that bruises at the same moment.
AP2 (Applicant): You ask why there was no blood test.
AP2 (Applicant): She made several requests for the blood test done by the independent doctor, not by that lady who said that the hospital is not the hotel, but by the independent doctor whom she trusts, whom Mrs. Timoshenko trusts.
AP2 (Applicant): There was also the question of trust, why there was no trust by Mrs. Timoshenko
AP2 (Applicant): to the state doctors.
AP2 (Applicant): All these state doctors, since the beginning of the trial, since the beginning of the detention, were giving the public statement that Mrs. Timoshenko is healthy,
AP2 (Applicant): Mrs. Timoshenko is simulating, Mrs. Timoshenko
AP2 (Applicant): is manipulating with her health conditions.
AP2 (Applicant): When Mrs. Timoshenko had the severe problems
AP2 (Applicant): with her back, which was detected by the German doctors and reflected in the report of the German doctors, Mrs. Timoshenko asked the state doctors to help.
AP2 (Applicant): They say, no, we will not do that.
AP2 (Applicant): We'll give you the painkillers.
AP2 (Applicant): Please eat that.
AP2 (Applicant): And that's it.
AP2 (Applicant): She asked for the walking aids.
AP2 (Applicant): And that lady who is sitting here, the first vice deputy minister of health, Mrs. Mysenko, she said,
AP2 (Applicant): no, you don't need the walking aids.
AP2 (Applicant): You need to make much more physical trainings, and that will be your treatment.
AP2 (Applicant): She did it in written.
AP2 (Applicant): That was not oral.
AP2 (Applicant): But every day, these state doctors were giving the official statement that Mrs. Timoshenko is healthy enough
AP2 (Applicant): to participate in the interrogation and investigation activity.
AP2 (Applicant): And on the day-to-day basis, the investigators of SBU were questioning Mrs. Timoshenko,
AP2 (Applicant): were just giving her the files to revise, or they were making another investigation activity all day long for three, four, and five hours, with Mrs. Timoshenko lying in the bed, in the cell,
AP2 (Applicant): even not in the special room for the investigation activity, in the cell.
AP2 (Applicant): Now, there was also the question whether there were some extras for Mrs. Timoshenko, extra rides
AP2 (Applicant): like additional parcels.
AP2 (Applicant): I also am very thankful to the representative of the state who said that according to the law, any imprisoned person have the unlimited right to receive the parcels.
AP2 (Applicant): And Mrs. Timoshenko used that right
AP2 (Applicant): because she never used the food and the meal from the CISO or from Kachanovska Colony because she is really afraid for her life.
AP2 (Applicant): And because of the issue of security, she never used water and meals from that institutions.
AP2 (Applicant): There was also a question why Mrs. Timoshenko
AP2 (Applicant): didn't accept the participation of the doctor she trusts in her examination.
AP2 (Applicant): I should explain it to the court.
AP2 (Applicant): That was a very similar situation.
AP2 (Applicant): Mrs. Timoshenko wrote the request
AP2 (Applicant): for the independent doctor to visit her and to examine her.
AP2 (Applicant): She was not allowed.
AP2 (Applicant): That doctor was included in so-called commission.
AP2 (Applicant): So in that commission, there were some, maybe five or maybe seven, another state doctors.
AP2 (Applicant): And that doctor, whom Mrs. Timoshenko trusts,
AP2 (Applicant): he was one of the members of that commission.
AP2 (Applicant): And when Mrs. Timoshenko said, please,
AP2 (Applicant): I want that doctor to examine me, the commission said, no, only the whole commission will examine you.
AP2 (Applicant): So that's why Mrs. Timoshenko said, sorry,
AP2 (Applicant): but that's violation of my rights.
AP2 (Applicant): According to Ukrainian law, as any citizen, even in prison, I have the right to choose my doctor.
AP2 (Applicant): I'm choosing that guy.
AP2 (Applicant): But he was not allowed.
AP2 (Applicant): Also, I should stress that during the hearings in Pechersk District Court, the defense of Mrs. Timoshenko
AP2 (Applicant): presented to the judge Kireev more than 30 motions for the independent blood test and for independent medical examination of Mrs. Timoshenko.
AP2 (Applicant): All of them were rejected with no grounds, all of them.
AP2 (Applicant): As far as I remember, that's all questions.
AP2 (Applicant): I think Mrs. Timoshenko will add something.
AP1 (Applicant): I would add only about the fact that applicants turned to the administrative court in Ukraine with her claim against the surveillance.
AP1 (Applicant): But because we believe that there is a political will and political pressure under any court in Ukraine in a case where Timoshenko or anyone else from the oppositional government or Timoshenko government members involved, then there is no justice available in Ukraine from that point of view.
AP1 (Applicant): So that's probably the reason why the administrative court of Ukraine did not scrutinize the case properly.
AP1 (Applicant): Thank you for the attention.
AP1 (Applicant): I'd like to thank you all.
Dean Spielmann (JudgeP): Thank you. We have now come to the end of the hearing. I thank the parties for their interventions and answers to the court's questions.
Dean Spielmann (JudgeP): The court will now deliberate on the admissibility and merits. The judgment will be delivered later.
Dean Spielmann (JudgeP): The parties will be informed of the date of delivery. I declare the hearing closed.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): I declare open the public hearing on the merits in the case of Ibrahim and others versus the United Kingdom.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): The first three applications were lodged by Mr. Muqtad Saeed Ibrahim, Mr. Ramzi Mohamed, and Mr. Yasin Omar on 22 October 2008 under Article 34 of the Convention.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): They are Somali nationals who were born in 1978, 1981, and 81 respectively.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): The fourth application was lodged on 29 July 2009 by Mr. Ismail Abdurahman, who was a British national born in Somalia in 1982.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): The applications were allocated to the fourth section of the court, pursuant to Rule 52, Paragraph 1 of the rules of the court.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): On 16 December 2014, a chamber of the fourth section declared the applications admissible as regards the complaints under Article 6 of the Convention about delayed access to legal advice and the admission of statements at trial.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): It held that there had been no violation of that provision.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): On 5 and 16 March 2015, the third and fourth applicants, respectively, requested that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber in accordance with Article 43 of the Convention.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): The panel of the Grand Chamber accepted these requests on 1st June 2015.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): On 27 August 2015, the president of the Grand Chamber granted leave to Fair Trials International to submit written comments as a third party by virtue of Rule 44, Paragraph 3 of the rules of the court.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): The government are represented by Lord Keen of Elie QC, Advocate General of Scotland Council, and by Mr. Paul McKell, Agent, assisted by Mr. David Perry QC and Mr. Louis Mably, Counsel, and by Mr. Ruaraidh Macniven and Mr. John De Sousa, Advisors.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): The first three applicants are represented by Mr. Joel Bennathan QC, Counsel, assisted by Mr. Jude Bunting, Counsel, and by Mr. Ravi Naik and Mr. Tayab Ali, Advisors.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): The fourth applicant is represented by Mr. John King, Counsel, assisted by Mrs. Anne Fall, Counsel.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): I also welcome the following groups of judges who are attending the hearing, judges and legal advisors of the Constitutional Court of Montenegro, a group of judges from Russia, an international group of judges and prosecutors attending a seminar organized by the German Judicial Academy.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Having consulted the agent of the government and the representatives of those applicants, I have determined the order of addresses as follows.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Mr. Bennathan QC for the first three applicants will speak first, and then Mr. King for the fourth applicant, and finally, Lord Keen of Elie QC for the government.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): I would explain that in addition to interpreting in the two official languages of the court, English and French, interpreting into Montenegrin and Russian has also been authorized.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): That interpreting has not been arranged by the court, and no transcription of the oral translation will be included in the official record of the proceedings.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): I call Mr. Bennathan QC.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): You have the floor, please, Mr. Bennathan.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. President, hard cases make bad law.
AP1 (Applicant): In times when terrorism haunts Europe, we acknowledge it may be difficult for even this court to make a finding against a member state in a terrorist case, even if the court were dealing with a member state that was happy to be corrected.
AP1 (Applicant): If there are such member states, the United Kingdom is clearly not amongst them.
AP1 (Applicant): But an old saying in the English courts is that hard cases make bad law.
AP1 (Applicant): A court can always adjust the law to get to what seems like a desirable result in a particular case.
AP1 (Applicant): But the damage done to the law will live on long after the hard case itself is forgotten.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. President, in our submissions this morning,
AP1 (Applicant): we will first remind the court of one or two of the facts, as well as the ratio of the central case to this hearing, Saldas and Turkey.
AP1 (Applicant): We will remind the court of some of the international jurisprudence that Saldas complements and the consensus that Saldas represents.
AP1 (Applicant): We will set out some specific criticisms of the judgment of the fourth section that this court has now agreed to reconsider.
AP1 (Applicant): And finally, we will suggest there is an inconsistency and an absurdity in the legal sense to the United Kingdom's stance on safety interviews.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. President, as the court will recollect,
AP1 (Applicant): in the case of Saldas on the 30th of May, 2001, Mr. Saldas was arrested and interviewed
AP1 (Applicant): without a lawyer present.
AP1 (Applicant): He supposedly admitted in those interviews writing a banner in support of the leader of the PKK.
AP1 (Applicant): Subsequently, Mr. Saldas told the investigating judge
AP1 (Applicant): he had not written the banner and his confession was false.
AP1 (Applicant): At his later trial, he was, like the applicants in this case, afforded full legal assistance to argue about the effect of his confession.
AP1 (Applicant): But the trial court, nonetheless, took it into account and found him guilty.
AP1 (Applicant): The judgment of this court in Saldas and Turkey seemed to make the position clear and simple to comprehend.
AP1 (Applicant): At paragraph 55 of this court's judgment, this court held that access to a lawyer should be granted before the first interrogation unless there are, quote, compelling reasons, unquote, to restrict this right.
AP1 (Applicant): But then the court went on.
AP1 (Applicant): Even where there is such a compelling reason, the rights of the defense will, in principle, be irretrievably prejudiced when incriminating statements made during police interrogation without access to a lawyer are used for a conviction.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. President, the decision in Saldas and Turkey
AP1 (Applicant): was not a sudden departure from past jurisprudence, nor was it this court casting aside international bodies' views.
AP1 (Applicant): It was the culmination of a gradual development of this court's jurisprudence, only pronounced after a thorough review of the entirely consistent views of a number of international bodies.
AP1 (Applicant): The judgments in Saldas not only aligns this court's decisions with international and domestic law, but it will do so, and it will continue to do so, unless it is undermined and damaged by the judgment of the fourth section in these applications to shortly review that international legal consensus.
AP1 (Applicant): Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union enshrines the rights for a fair trial.
AP1 (Applicant): Article 48.2 of the Charter guarantees respects
AP1 (Applicant): for the rights of the defense.
AP1 (Applicant): The relevant directive states, quote, member states shall ensure that suspects and accused persons have the right of access to a lawyer in such time and in such a manner so as to allow the persons concerned to exercise their rights of defense practically and effectively.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. President, to send to one more detail,
AP1 (Applicant): the Charter further states, suspects or accused persons shall have access to a lawyer without undue delay.
AP1 (Applicant): In any event, they shall have access to a lawyer from whichever of the following points in time is the earliest, and the first in the list is, quote, before they are questioned by the police.
AP1 (Applicant): The stance of the European Union and this court in Saldos is also consistent with the requirements of Article 14.3d
AP1 (Applicant): of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which applies as soon as an individual is arrested.
AP1 (Applicant): As a final example of comparative law, we look to the case law of the United States Supreme Court.
AP1 (Applicant): In the very well-known judgment of Miranda and Arizona, the rules governing custodial interrogation were summarized, including the following.
AP1 (Applicant): The person must be warned prior to any questioning that he has the right to remain silent, that anything he says can be used against him in a court of law, and, quote, that he has the right to the presence of an attorney, unquote.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. President, we suggest there is
AP1 (Applicant): a clear international consensus of what can be called a simple right-line rule, a rule by which one knows one is one side of the line or the other, a rule that requires representation before questioning and which requires evidence given during questioning without representation to be excluded.
AP1 (Applicant): The complication, we would suggest, that this court addressed and elegantly resolved in Saldas is that this court, unlike the European Union laws, unlike the American laws, this court allows the maybe extreme circumstances where questioning has to take place without lawyers present.
AP1 (Applicant): Article 6 also is essentially concerned with the later trial, not the initial detention.
AP1 (Applicant): The resolution in Saldas used this court's power to lay down rules about the trial process in such a way as to honor the right-line rule.
AP1 (Applicant): And that clear decision has become the observed rule within member states.
AP1 (Applicant): In our written submissions, we give examples from the Netherlands, from France, and from the United Kingdom.
AP1 (Applicant): In Cader and Her Majesty's Advocate, the United Kingdom Supreme Court relied on Saldas as settling the law in this area.
AP1 (Applicant): In passing, we would mention that Lord Hope, dealing with the suggestion that Gafgen and Germany, which the fourth section in these applications uses a basis to disregard Saldas, Lord Hope dealing with Gafgen and the idea that Gafgen might undermine or qualify Saldas, said as follows.
AP1 (Applicant): This, the Gafgen judgment, this was a pragmatic decision which proceeded on the basis that evidence obtained in breach of Article 3 was on the facts irrelevant to the applicant's conviction.
AP1 (Applicant): I do not think it can be regarded as raising any doubt as to the decision in Saldas and Turkey.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. President, not only was Saldas
AP1 (Applicant): reflective of an international consensus, not only has it been followed loyally and properly by member states, it's since been applied consistently in this court and by the various sections of this court.
AP1 (Applicant): It was applied in Sucre and Yildiz in Turkey.
AP1 (Applicant): It was applied in Plonka and Poland, in which the court specified neither the assistance provided subsequently by a lawyer or the adversarial nature of the ensuing proceedings could cure the defects which had occurred during the police custody.
AP1 (Applicant): We mention that, of course, because one of the fourth section's argument was, because there's a later trial, because there are lawyers at trial, because there's a later adversarial proceedings, somehow the earlier breach doesn't matter.
AP1 (Applicant): In Dayan and in Turkey, this court applied Saldas in facts where the accused applicant remained silent when in custody and had not confessed.
AP1 (Applicant): In Pishkalnikov and Russia, the court applied Saldas.
AP1 (Applicant): In Amutagan and Turkey, this court found a breach even though the applicant had confirmed to the trial judge the accuracy of his confession.
AP1 (Applicant): In Baikov and Russia, the Grand Chamber followed Saldas.
AP1 (Applicant): In Ushakov and Ushakov and Ukraine, the court stressed, quote, these principles are particularly called for in a case of serious charges, for it is in the face of the heaviest penalties that respect for the right to a fair trial is to be ensured to the highest possible degree by democratic societies.
AP1 (Applicant): And in a number of other cases, Mr. President,
AP1 (Applicant): we've listed them in our written submissions.
AP1 (Applicant): We pause to pose the question with respect, why?
AP1 (Applicant): With all that body of law and with such legal consistency, why can it be that the Fourth Section avoided finding a violation in this case?
AP1 (Applicant): We would suggest the only comprehensible answer is that it was a really hard case.
AP1 (Applicant): But Mr. President, that cannot be the basis
AP1 (Applicant): to make bad law by rejecting the obvious violation of Article VI suffered by these applicants.
AP1 (Applicant): I turn, please, to the Fourth Section judgment itself.
AP1 (Applicant): Of course, our simple and fundamental criticism of the Fourth Section is, with respect, that the court set aside the clear and consistent law enunciated in Saldas.
AP1 (Applicant): But we would mention three more detailed points.
AP1 (Applicant): First, the Fourth Section attached significant weight, as of course now to the United Kingdom, to the detailed judgment given by the applicant's trial judge, Mr. Justice Fulford, as he was then.
AP1 (Applicant): The trial judge allowed the use of the safety interviews at trial.
AP1 (Applicant): We would suggest, with respect, that that is to confuse form with substance.
AP1 (Applicant): As this court has said many times and repeated in Saldas, the convention is designed to, quote, guarantee not rights that are theoretical or illusory, but rights that are practical and effective.
AP1 (Applicant): In the context of this case, we would say that means the question is not whether the trial judge's ruling was detailed, lengthy, elegantly expressed.
AP1 (Applicant): It was all of those things.
AP1 (Applicant): But what was the effect it had upon the trial?
AP1 (Applicant): And no amount of detail and no amount of elegance of expression can make good a simple breach of what was and should remain the simple test enunciated in Saldas.
AP1 (Applicant): Second, Mr. President, the Fourth Section
AP1 (Applicant): starts its conclusion at paragraph 212 of their judgment in this case by suggesting, quote, it must be borne in mind that the applicants, not the prosecution, brought the safety interview into play at the trial, unquote.
AP1 (Applicant): We would suggest, with great respect, of course, that if that is a significant criterion and the position of that observation right at the start of the Fourth Section's conclusions would suggest it is, then the Saldas protection will never apply because there's no doubt in the applicant's case who sought to introduce the evidence of the safety interviews, the prosecution, and no doubt who sought to exclude them, the applicants.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicants are said to have, quote, brought them into play, unquote, by advancing a defense that was inconsistent with what was said when they were interviewed in the absence of lawyers.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. President, there will only ever
AP1 (Applicant): be a potential violation if an accused is advancing a defense inconsistent with that interview.
AP1 (Applicant): If the defense at trial is consistent with that interview, then no harm is done.
AP1 (Applicant): There will never be any complaint, and the state would not have any interest in using that interview in the first place.
AP1 (Applicant): In Saldas, of course, in Saldas, Mr. Saldas
AP1 (Applicant): denied at trial that the admissions he made in interview were correct.
AP1 (Applicant): So Mr. Saldas, applying the logic of the fourth section
AP1 (Applicant): in this case, quote, brought the interviews into play.
AP1 (Applicant): We would suggest in virtually every case on this topic before the court, an applicant will have, quote, brought the interviews into play.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. President, that simply cannot be a basis
AP1 (Applicant): for avoiding Saldas, or Saldas means nothing.
AP1 (Applicant): Third and above all, the fourth section seems to have decided these cases on the basis of the strength of the other evidence at trial.
AP1 (Applicant): And we suggest that is a new test, which this court, with great respect, would do well to disavow as soon as possible.
AP1 (Applicant): Paragraph 211, the fourth section stated, quote, finally, and this is not without some importance, the safety interview statements were far from the sole evidence in the case and have to be considered alongside the wealth of other prosecution evidence led during the seven-month trial, unquote.
AP1 (Applicant): On the same theme, in the same judgment in dealing with the case of the fourth applicant, Mr. King will forgive me for trespassing on his case
AP1 (Applicant): for just a moment.
AP1 (Applicant): The fourth section was even more explicit.
AP1 (Applicant): Paragraph 223, the court said, I quote, finally, and most importantly, a great deal of other incriminating evidence was placed before the jury, unquote.
AP1 (Applicant): It's our submission that the suggestion by the fourth section that what would otherwise be a violation will not be if there is ample other evidence is a new development that, if allowed to take root, will allow any government and any prosecutor a ready route to avoid almost all the protections proffered by Article VI.
AP1 (Applicant): We would suggest there are a number of reasons with respect why this court should disown the fourth section's reasoning on this topic.
AP1 (Applicant): First, it's not founded in the court's own precedent.
AP1 (Applicant): The precedents relied on for this new principle set out in paragraph 196E of the fourth section judgment of Saldas, Yoldas, and Zachenko.
AP1 (Applicant): We would suggest the point made in those cases is not an assessment of the weight of all the other evidence in those trials, but a far simpler question of whether the impugned answers from interviews played a significant part in the subsequent trials.
AP1 (Applicant): In support of that submission, we remind this court of Lord Hope's analysis in Cadha that Gafgen, a case the fourth section also relied on, Gafgen was, quote, a pragmatic decision on the basis that the evidence obtained in breach of Article III was irrelevant to the applicant's conviction.
AP1 (Applicant): In Yoldas, another case the fourth section relied upon for what we say is a new and dangerous principle, in Yoldas, the court found no violation as there had been a genuine waiver of the offer of representation.
AP1 (Applicant): And the comments then made in interview had been repeated before a judge.