TrustHLT/LaCour huggingface dataset:
AP1 (Applicant): a witness, and the applicant's co-accused were both interrogated.
AP1 (Applicant): Finally the Chamber relies upon the view that the applicant's conviction was not based exclusively on his confession and that he had been able to mount his defense at the trial.
AP1 (Applicant): In this, it is submitted, it is unwarranted as it focuses on the outcome of the proceedings rather than on the observance of the minimum right under Article 6.3c to defend oneself
AP1 (Applicant): with the assistance of a lawyer.
AP1 (Applicant): It also entails the assumption that a lawyer's assistance at the time when the applicant was seen only by the investigators and those guarding him would have made no difference to the course of the proceedings.
AP1 (Applicant): It is submitted that this is not really something which is possible for the Court to judge.
AP1 (Applicant): Indeed any attempt to do so would be inconsistent with the fact that the Court is not a fourth instance.
AP1 (Applicant): It of course is true that the assistance may not have led to the applicant's acquittal, but this cannot be known for sure since the applicant might have been able to provide information which would have affected the course of the investigation or the approach adopted at the trial, which could have affected the assessment of the evidence.
AP1 (Applicant): He was not also given the possibility of having the assistance of a lawyer to deal with the interrogation, the initial investigative actions involving his co-accused and his witness.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant does not suggest that any of this would necessarily have occurred, as he no more than the Court can predict what would have happened if he had actually had a lawyer's assistance, which he repeatedly requested and which he had already made preparations to obtain during these first three days of his detention.
AP1 (Applicant): What is clear is, however, that he being denied the assistance of a lawyer during the period from the 3rd to the 6th of October meant that the applicant could not discuss and determine his future conduct and position during the process that was to follow.
AP1 (Applicant): Moreover, the fact that he did not have a lawyer meant that the preparation of the case by the investigators was facilitated as a result of this, even though they did not use the confession which he made during that interrogation.
AP1 (Applicant): Moreover, if the applicant had had a lawyer at this time, such a person would have been in a position to request the investigator's replacement for having breached the presumption of innocence through various statements.
AP1 (Applicant): In all, as the Court made clear in the Dvorsky's case, the whole range of services specifically associated with legal assistance were denied to the applicant during this time.
AP1 (Applicant): He was denied this assistance for three days, and none of us can tell what difference it might have made.
AP1 (Applicant): Apart from its relevance to the applicant's right to a fair trial, having a lawyer's assistance would also have safeguarded other Convention rights, such as the right to liberty and the prohibition on ill-treatment.
AP1 (Applicant): Thus, a lawyer would have been in a position to challenge the lawfulness of the applicant's detention between noon and 8 p.m. on the 4th of October, when there was no document justifying
AP1 (Applicant): his detention during this period.
AP1 (Applicant): More significantly, the lawyer would have been in a position to act on the failure of Colonel Bottov to act on the assignment to organize a medical examination before any investigative actions took place.
AP1 (Applicant): That is to say, when he was in Sofia.
AP1 (Applicant): As has been seen, such an examination only occurred two days later in Burgos.
AP1 (Applicant): With the possible result, there could no longer be any trace of the beating to which the applicant alleged he had been submitted.
AP1 (Applicant): The right to the assistance of a lawyer can certainly have a crucial bearing on the fairness of a trial.
AP1 (Applicant): However, it is submitted that it would not be appropriate to regard it as being inextricably and exclusively linked to the right under Article 6.1.
AP1 (Applicant): Rather than just being a right to avoid prejudice at trial, it should be seen as a right to defend oneself in the manner considered appropriate, whatever may be the eventual outcome of the proceedings concerned.
AP1 (Applicant): Thus the question of whether or not there has been a violation of Article 6.3.C, surely
AP1 (Applicant): it is submitted, be determined by the presence or absence of justified reasons for preventing a detained person from being assisted by a lawyer.
AP1 (Applicant): Where there are no such reasons, the fact that there might have been some basis for conviction other than statements made during interrogations would certainly be relevant in determining whether or not the proceedings as a whole were fair.
AP1 (Applicant): However, this should have no bearing on whether or not the right conferred by Article 6.3.C
AP1 (Applicant): has in fact been respected.
AP1 (Applicant): Furthermore, it is submitted that it is dangerous to link the question of whether or not there has been a violation of the right to the assistance of a lawyer to the ultimate conduct of the proceedings, as this will encourage the disregard of the right to the assistance of a lawyer at the initial stage of detention.
AP1 (Applicant): The resulting risk of this occurring has implications not only for the outcome of criminal proceedings, but also for the effective protection of the right not to be subjected to torture and inhuman and degrading treatment.
AP1 (Applicant): In this connection, the continued flouting of the right to the assistance of a lawyer during the initial interrogation, which CPT reports have repeatedly underlined as a problem in Bulgaria, is a warning of the unsafe approach entailed by waiting to see the outcome of a trial before insisting on the observance of the right in Article 6.3.C of the Convention.
AP1 (Applicant): The Smona government itself acknowledges that there are instances in which the Court has found violations of Article 6.3.C, even though no use was made of statements given without
AP1 (Applicant): a lawyer, but submits that these were only cases in which there existed a deficient legal framework.
AP1 (Applicant): However, it is submitted that this was precisely the situation that obtained in Bulgaria when the applicant was arrested.
AP1 (Applicant): Although there were formal guarantees, insufficient steps had been taken to ensure that these were truly operational.
AP1 (Applicant): Moreover, even though improvements have since occurred, the clear implication of reports by the CPT is that the right to the assistance of a lawyer is still more theoretical and illusory than practical and effective.
AP1 (Applicant): For all these reasons, it is submitted that there has been a violation of Article 6.3.C
AP1 (Applicant): of the Convention, either taken in conjunction with Article 6.1 or by itself if the linking
AP1 (Applicant): of the two provisions leads to account being taken of the ultimate outcome of the domestic proceedings.
AP1 (Applicant): Turning to the third issue, which is the question of the whole life sentence, which was imposed upon the applicant following his conviction.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant's complaint about this sentence was considered to be manifestly all founded in an admissibility decision taken on 23 August 2011.
AP1 (Applicant): In raising it now, the applicant recognized that the court has established that the case referred to the Grand Chamber is the application as it has been declared admissible.
AP1 (Applicant): However the applicant submits that there are compelling reasons in the present case for making a limited exception to that general approach, which he does not otherwise contest.
AP1 (Applicant): In order to appreciate those reasons, it is first necessary to note the evolution of the court's case law on the issue of irreducible life sentences and why the position now reached is applicable to the applicant's situation.
AP1 (Applicant): The admissibility decision in the present case was based upon the court's ruling in Yorgov in Bulgaria No. 2 in 2010, which held that the whole life imprisonment in Bulgaria
AP1 (Applicant): was not to be regarded as irreducible de facto simply because no life prisoner had been granted presidential clemency by November 2009.
AP1 (Applicant): This followed the relatively recent introduction of the whole life sentence penalty.
AP1 (Applicant): This approach to whole life sentence was in turn based upon the earlier Grand Chamber ruling in Kafkaris in Cyprus that a life sentence did not become irreducible by the mere fact that it could be served in full, since it was enough that such a sentence be de jure and de facto reducible.
AP1 (Applicant): The Yorgov judgment was handed down almost three years before the Grand Chamber overruled Kafkaris in Vinter and others in the United Kingdom, and almost four years before the approach in Vinter was applied to the situation in Bulgaria in Herakljev and Tolomov in Bulgaria.
AP1 (Applicant): Vinter requires not only that there must be the possibility of a review subsequent to the passing of a whole life sentence to determine whether the continued detention of the prisoner concerned is still justified on legitimate penological grounds, but that he or she should not be obliged to wait and serve an indeterminate number of years of his or her sentence before being able to raise the complaint that the legal conditions attaching to his sentence failed to comply with the requirements of Article III of the Convention.
AP1 (Applicant): This was found not to be the case in the Herakljev and Tolomov case, and the applicant submits the situation in his case is the same as that in Herakljev.
AP1 (Applicant): Thus, at the time of both his application to the court and the admissibility decision in his case, and until the early months of 2012, as found in Herakljev and Tolomov, the way in which the presidential power of clemency was being exercised was quite opaque, with no publicly available policy statements and no reasons whatever being provided for individual clemency decisions.
AP1 (Applicant): Moreover, parliamentarians had sought reassurance that the President's discretion would not be exercised with regard to persons sentenced to whole life imprisonment, and there were no concrete examples showing that persons in the applicant's situation could hope to benefit from the exercise of that power.
AP1 (Applicant): Given the combination of the complete lack of formal or even informal safeguards surrounding the exercise of the presidential power of clemency, coupled with the absence of any examples tending to suggest that a person serving a whole life sentence would be able to obtain an adjustment to that sentence, and under what circumstances, there is no basis for concluding that between June 2001 and the beginning of 2012, the applicant's sentence was one that could be regarded as de facto reducible.
AP1 (Applicant): Moreover, the Chamber's findings in this case with respect to the applicant's conditions of detention underline that he has been subjected to a highly restrictive prison regime, characterized by isolation from the rest of the prison population and insufficient activities.
AP1 (Applicant): It is submitted that the deleterious effects of such an impoverished regime, coupled with the unsatisfactory material conditions in which the applicant has been kept, must, just as in the Harakhchyiv and Ptolemyov case, have seriously weakened the possibility of his reforming himself, and thus entertaining a real hope that he might one day achieve and demonstrate his progress and obtain a reduction of sentence.
AP1 (Applicant): In addition, there has been a lack of consistent periodical assessment of the applicant's progress towards rehabilitation.
AP1 (Applicant): Also as observed in the Harakhchyiv and Ptolemyov case, the national standards for the treatment of life prisoners appear to be geared towards helping life prisoners adapt to their sentence rather than work towards their rehabilitation.
AP1 (Applicant): Those standards, moreover, do not make it clear whether any positive changes in life prisoners should be the result of their own efforts or of a proactive approach on the part of prison authorities, as has been recommended by the CPT.
AP1 (Applicant): Although the applicant was able, albeit unsuccessfully and without reasons being given, to make an application for pardon in 2015, this does not alter the fact that for the period beginning with the imposition of the whole life sentence on him until at least the beginning of 2012, this sentence could not be regarded as reducible.
AP1 (Applicant): As a result, it is submitted that, just as in the Harakhchyiv and Ptolemyov case, the applicant has been deprived for a significant period of time of any hope of release, however tenuous that hope may be.
AP1 (Applicant): Such a deprivation thus equally entails, in his case, a breach of Article 3 of the Convention.
AP1 (Applicant): In the light of these circumstances, the applicant submits that there are good reasons in the present case for making a very limited exception to the Grand Chamber's general approach of treating the case referred to as being just the application declared admissible.
AP1 (Applicant): Firstly such an exception would be consistent with the Grand Chamber's role in resolving conflicts in the approach taken to the application and interpretation of the Convention by Chambers.
AP1 (Applicant): Secondly, it was already established when the applicant submitted his application that an irreducible life sentence would amount to a violation of Article 3.
AP1 (Applicant): The rulings in Vinter and Harakhchyiv have merely provided some clarification as to how irreducibility is to be understood.
AP1 (Applicant): In these circumstances, the standard which high contracting parties were required to observe was an insubstance already applicable to persons in the applicant's situation.
AP1 (Applicant): To refuse to depart from the admissibility ruling in the particular circumstances of the applicant's case would thus lead to the differential application of a Convention right to persons who have been subjected contemporaneously to exactly the same treatment.
AP1 (Applicant): Thirdly such an exception would not undermine the principle of legal certainty but would reinforce respect for the rule of law, a core Convention value, by ensuring that like cases are treated alike.
AP1 (Applicant): Finally the Grand Chamber has previously itself shown itself prepared to take account of pertinent case law developments occurring after a particular stage in the proceedings.
AP1 (Applicant): For example, the judgment in NADA and Switzerland took account of the ruling in Al-Jadda in the United Kingdom which decided some three and a half months after the oral hearing in NADA.
AP1 (Applicant): Both this approach and the exception now being proposed equally serve the goal of ensuring the integrity of the case law and its consistent application.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant therefore submits that his complaint about the whole life sentence imposed upon him should be considered admissible notwithstanding the Chamber decision on 23 August 2011.
AP1 (Applicant): Furthermore, the applicant submits that the Court should find that his sentence gave rise to a violation of Article 3 for the period beginning with the imposition of the whole life sentence on him until at least the beginning of 2012 as it could not during this period be regarded as reducible.
AP1 (Applicant): In conclusion, the Court has respectfully requested to find violations of Article 3 in respect to both the conditions of the applicant's detention in the prison regime and of the whole life sentence imposed on him.
AP1 (Applicant): It is also invited to find a violation of Article 6.3c either alone or taken in conjunction
AP1 (Applicant): with Article 6.1 as well as to grant just satisfaction.
AP1 (Applicant): As regards just satisfaction, the Court has requested to award the applicant 10,000 euros for non-pecuniary damage in view of the very significant suffering caused by the material conditions of his detention and remand and the prison regime following his conviction.
AP1 (Applicant): No award of non-pecuniary damage is sought in respect of either the denial of the assistance of a lawyer or the imposition of the irreducible life sentence.
AP1 (Applicant): However the applicant does request the Court, pursuant to Article 46 and as in the Kharakchev case, to indicate that the execution of its judgment requires the reform of the legal framework governing the prison regime which is applicable to persons sentenced to life imprisonment with or without parole.
AP1 (Applicant): In addition, the applicant requests the Court, pursuant to Article 46, to indicate that the execution of its judgment requires the introduction of a system of conditional release for life sentence prisoners as has already been recommended by the CPT.
AP1 (Applicant): Finally the applicant requests the Court to award him the costs and expenses that he has incurred in bringing the present application subject to any award of legal aid.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr President, Members of the Court, thank you for your attention.
András Sajó (JudgeP): Thank you, Mr. McBride.
András Sajó (JudgeP): I would like to call Ms. Kotseva on behalf of the government.
GR2 (Government): Thank you Mr. President, Honourable Judges.
GR2 (Government): On behalf of the Government of Bulgaria, I will first briefly focus on some points raised to the Applicants' Memorial to the Grand Chamber.
GR2 (Government): Concerning his complaint under Article 3 of the Convention, I would then give the floor to my co-agent, Ms. Maria Dimitrova, who will present to you our main submissions regarding
GR2 (Government): the complaint under Article 6, Paragraph 3C, in relation to Article 6, Paragraph 1 of the Convention.
GR2 (Government): Mr. Simeonov has raised several complaints before the Court.
GR2 (Government): In a decision of 23rd August 2011, the Grand Chamber of the Court declared inadmissible the Applicant's complaint under Article 3 of the Convention, in particular that the punishment life imprisonment without commutation constituted inhuman and degrading punishment.
GR2 (Government): In its judgment of 20 October 2015, the Chamber declared inadmissible another set of complaints under Articles 3, 6 and 13 of the Convention.
GR2 (Government): Those decisions declaring certain complaints inadmissible have become final and are not subject to re-examination.
GR2 (Government): In his Memorial to the Grand Chamber, Mr. Simeonov provides ample arguments regarding
GR2 (Government): the alleged inconsistency of the punishment life imprisonment without commutation with the requirements of Article 3 of the Convention.
GR2 (Government): In this respect, the Government argues that according to the Court's settled case law, a case referred to the Grand Chamber necessarily embraces all aspects of the application previously examined by the Chamber.
GR2 (Government): The content and scope of the case referred to the Grand Chamber are therefore delimited by the Chamber's decision of the admissibility.
GR2 (Government): This means that the Grand Chamber may examine the case in its entirety insofar as it has been declared admissible.
GR2 (Government): It cannot, however, examine those parts of the application which have been declared inadmissible by the Chamber.
GR2 (Government): In paragraph 92 of his Memorial to the Grand Chamber, the applicant suggests that the present case involves a situation where the Court must make an exemption to this general approach.
GR2 (Government): Mr. President, the Government submits there is absolutely no reason to depart from this
GR2 (Government): principle in the present case.
GR2 (Government): Neither the Convention nor the rules of the Court envision a situation where reopening of proceedings is possible when a complaint has been declared inadmissible.
GR2 (Government): It is true that in some very exceptional situations the Court has ordered reopening of such proceedings.
GR2 (Government): We refer here to the cases Omas and Omas v. Turkey and Edwards v. the United Kingdom,
GR2 (Government): where there was a technical and manifest error in calculating the six-month time limit.
GR2 (Government): In the line, however, those situations are extremely exceptional and concern rectification of a technical mistake, but not issues related to the merits of the complaint.
GR2 (Government): The applicant's argument that reopening is necessary for the sake of the interpretation of the Convention, for dealing with inconsistencies in the case law, or for reasons to the development of the case law, are completely misplaced and are not sufficient to overrule the principle of legal certainty.
GR2 (Government): Therefore, the Government invites the Court to rule that in the context of the present case, it has no jurisdiction to examine any complaint which had already been declared inadmissible, including the complaint under Article 3 concerning the punishment life imprisonment without commutation.
GR2 (Government): The same considerations apply to Mr. Simeonov's complaint under Article 6, paragraph
GR2 (Government): 3c, that during his detention he was not given the opportunity to consult with his lawyer in private.
GR2 (Government): The Government further notes that the case before the Grand Chamber concerns two main complaints, the complaint under Article 3 of the Convention regarding the combined effect of the special regime and the material conditions of Mr. Simeonov's detention, and the complaint
GR2 (Government): under Article 6, paragraph 3c, in relation to Article 6, paragraph 1, regarding the alleged lack of access to legal advice during the first three days of the applicant's detention.
GR2 (Government): As stated in our memorial, the Government does not intend to make any observations in respect to the applicant's complaint under Article 3.
GR2 (Government): We would like only to point out that Major Reform C. Bulgarian Prison System, following
GR2 (Government): Neshkov-Pilot judgment and Kharagchyev-Tulumov judgment, are currently underway in order to improve those conditions and ensure compliance with international standards.
GR2 (Government): The Reform also envisions legislative amendments with respect to the special regime of detention, reduction of its term and regular examination of the need for its continuation, as well as possibilities for prisoners' inclusion in common activities based on the individual risk assessment.
GR2 (Government): As regard the complaint under Article 6 of the Convention, I would now give the floor to my co-agent, Ms. Maria Dimitrova, who will provide to you a brief overview of our main
GR2 (Government): submission on the matter.
András Sajó (JudgeP): Thank you Miss Kotseva, I call Miss Dimitrova.
GR1 (Government): the applicant complained that due to lack of access to legal advice in the first three days of his detention, his right to a fair trial under Article 6, Paragraph 3C, in relation to Article 6, Paragraph 1, had been violated by the Republic of Bulgaria.
GR1 (Government): The government underlined at the outset that in the context of access to a lawyer, this case is neither a case of field treatment nor a case of arbitrary detention, but a case concerning the right to a fair trial, and in particular, whether the absence of counsel during the first three days of the applicant's detention had irretrievably prejudiced the rights of the defense.
GR1 (Government): In our written submissions, we pointed out the developments in the domestic legislation regarding the protection of the right to legal advice.
GR1 (Government): We submit in this connection that in Bulgaria, an adequate domestic legal framework has traditionally been in place guaranteeing that right.