5.  The applicant was born in 1967 and lives in Kyiv.
6.  At the time of the events he was the director of a private company.
7.  In August 2002 criminal proceedings were instituted against the applicant on suspicion of tax evasion and forgery in office. Subsequently, the tax-evasion charge was dropped.
8.  On 7 December 2004 the Kyiv Dniprovskyy District Court (“the Dniprovskyy Court”) found the applicant guilty of forgery in office. It held that he had entered knowingly false data in the company’s tax returns. More specifically, instead of applying a straight-line depreciation method in respect of the company’s intangible assets, the applicant calculated their depreciation costs as the difference between the company’s gross revenues and expenses. As a result, the documents showed the absence of any profit or loss in the company’s activity, whereas in the reality it had had losses. The applicant was sentenced to one year’s restriction of liberty (namely detention in a semi-open penal institution by the place of his residence) with a ban on holding administrative posts for one year. The sentence was suspended on probation for one year. The applicant was under an undertaking not to leave the town until the judgment became final.
9.  The applicant appealed. He submitted that the activity of the company had been subject to numerous tax inspections, which had not found any violations of the tax legislation. He therefore contended that he had not done anything criminal and that that fact had not received due attention of the first-instance court. Furthermore, the applicant considered that the expert questioned in the trial did not have adequate qualification. Lastly, he argued that the tax police investigator, who had also been questioned, was not impartial and that his statements should not have been relied on. Accordingly, the applicant requested the appellate court to quash the first‑instance court’s judgment and to pronounce a new one, acquitting him for the lack of the constituent elements of a crime in his actions.
10.  On 10 February 2005 the Dniprovskyy Court sent a letter to the Kyiv City Court of Appeal (“the Court of Appeal”) stating as follows:
“The [Dniprovskyy Court] is sending you the criminal case regarding [the applicant] convicted under Article 366 § 1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine [forgery in office], for the appellate examination at 10.35 a.m. on 17 March 2005.”
11.  In addition to the president of the Court of Appeal, the above letter was also addressed to the prosecutor, the applicant and his lawyer. There is no evidence in the case file as to whether the applicant and/or his lawyer received it. According to the applicant, they were unaware of its existence.
12.  On 17 March 2005, following a hearing held with the prosecutor’s participation, but in the absence of both the applicant and his lawyer, the appellate court rejected the applicant’s appeal. It delivered its ruling “having heard the report of the judge-rapporteur of the appellate court and the explanations of the prosecutor, the latter considering the judgment lawful and [the applicant’s] appeal groundless, having checked the case-file materials and having discussed the arguments advanced in the appeal”. The issue of the applicant’s and his lawyer’s absence from the hearing was not mentioned in the appellate court’s ruling.
13.  The applicant appealed on points of law, challenging, among other things, the examination of his case on appeal in his and his lawyer’s absence as being in breach of his defence rights.
14.  On 23 January 2007 the Supreme Court, in written proceedings, upheld the decisions of the lower courts. Referring to the case-file materials, it noted that the first-instance court had informed the applicant and his lawyer about the scheduled appellate hearing, without further details.