Source: http://www.giacomooberto.com/munich2012/independence.htm
Timestamp: 2019-11-12 03:22:07
Document Index: 5688197

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1', '§ 78', '§ 73', '§ 65', '§ 38', '§ 37', '§ 1', '§ 80', '§ 1', '§ 3', '§ 35', '§ 30', '§ 69', '§ 47', '§ 25', '§ 58', '§ 32', '§ 119', '§ 45', '§ 42', '§ 118', '§ 58', '§ 44', '§ 1', '§ 1', '§ 5', '§ 19', '§ 1', '§ 1', '§ 1', '§ 51', '§ 1', 'art. 6', '§ 1', '§ 1', '§ 59', '§ 1', '§ 1', '§ 67', '§ 1', '§ 5', '§ 1', '§ 1', 'art. 6', 'art. 6', '§ 1']

(Turin – 2012)
· Universal Charter of the Judge, unanimously approved by the Central Committee of the International Association of Judges at its meeting in Taipei (Taiwan) on 17 November 1999;
As far as proper working conditions are concerned, the above-mentioned Recommendation provides for as follows (see Principles 32-38 of the Recommendation No. (2010) 12):
· In this case a French citizen complained against a law (subsequently repealed by France) which allowed the Conseil d’Etat to rely on the official interpretation of international treaties given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs. In other words the Conseil d’Etat, when confronted with provisions of international treaties that it considered insufficiently clear, could defer its decision and ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs to issue an advice on how to interpret provisions of the concerned treaties.
· This case is similar to the Beaumartin case. The application was addressed against the Conseil d’Etat’s practice of referring preliminary questions for interpretation of an international treaty to the Minister for foreign affairs. This meant, in the relevant case, that, when the administrative court was called upon to give a ruling on the conditions governing the application of the reciprocity clause in Article 55 of the French Constitution, it was obliged to ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs to clarify whether the treaty in issue had been applied on a reciprocal basis and to draw the necessary consequences. The administrative judge had then to abide by his interpretation in all circumstances.
· Here the Court held understandable that a civilian prosecuted in a National Security Court for offences regarded ipso facto as directed against Turkey’s territorial national integrity, the democratic order or national security should be apprehensive about being tried by a bench of three judges which included a regular army officer, who was a member of the Military Legal Service. Status of military judges provided certain guarantees of independence and impartiality making them comparable to their civilian counterparts – on the other hand, during their term of office (which lasted four years and could be renewed) they continued to belong to the army, remained subject to military discipline and had assessment reports made on them by the army, which, together with the administrative authorities, took decisions pertaining to their appointment.
· In this case the Court noted that the Ukrainian authorities acting at the highest level intervened in a proceedings before an Ukrainian court on a number of occasions. Whatever the reasons advanced by the Government to justify such interventions, the Court considered that, in view of their content and the manner in which they were made, they were ipso facto incompatible with the notion of an “independent and impartial tribunal” within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. The Court saw no reason to speculate on what effect such interventions may have had on the course of the proceedings in issue, but found that in the circumstances of the case the applicant company’s concerns as to the independence and impartiality of the tribunals were not unreasonable. Coming from the executive branch of the State, such interventions revealed a lack of respect for judicial office itself.
· In a case concerning a Romanian trying to recover property of a house seized during the communist regime, the plaintiff held that there had been a violation of Article 6, because two of the judges members of the panel of the Romanian Supreme Court had in a previous and similar case, decided by the Joint Chambers of that Court, had voted for an interpretation of law which was against the interests of the plaintiff. The Court of Human Rights decided that the authority of the decisions rendered by the joint chambers of a court is not an authority which can limit the right and the duty of the other sections of that court or of lower courts to examine and decide cases in a fully independent way. The Court therefore rejected the application, saying that no violation of the principle of judicial independence had occurred in the relevant case.
Pohoska v. Poland (10 April 2012).
In this case the Court summarized as follows the general principles on judicial independence, applying them to the peculiar situation of a plaintiff who stated her case had not been judged by an independent and impartial tribunal. The Court pointed out as well that the judge of that Polish case had been an “assessor,” who in Poland is a particular kind of judge, subject to special powers of the Minister of Justice.
“32. The applicant submitted that the criminal case against her in which the second-instance judgment had been given by the Elbląg Regional Court on 27 January 2006 had not been examined by an impartial court.
33. The Government submitted that they would abstain from making any submissions on the merits of that complaint.
34. The Court recalls that in determining whether a body can be considered as “independent” – notably of the executive and of the parties to the case – regard must be had, inter alia, to the manner of appointment of its members and the duration of their term of office, the existence of guarantees against outside pressures and the question whether the body presents an appearance of independence (see Campbell and Fell v. the United Kingdom, 28 June 1984, § 78, Series A no. 80; Findlay v. the United Kingdom, 25 February 1997, § 73, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997‑I; Incal v. Turkey, 9 June 1998, § 65, Reports 1998‑IV; Brudnicka and Others v. Poland, no. 54723/00, § 38, ECHR 2005‑II; and Luka v. Romania, no. 34197/02, § 37, 21 July 2009). Furthermore, the irremovability of judges by the executive during their term of office must in general be considered as a corollary of their independence and thus included in the guarantees of Article 6 § 1 (see Campbell and Fell, cited above, § 80). The Court further recalls that the requisite guarantees of independence apply not only to a “tribunal” within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, but also extend to “the judge or other officer authorised by law to exercise judicial power” referred to in Article 5 § 3 of the Convention (see McKay v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 543/03, § 35, ECHR 2006‑X).
35. The Court further reiterates that it is of fundamental importance in a democratic society that the courts inspire confidence in the public. To that end, Article 6 requires a tribunal falling within its scope to be impartial. Impartiality normally denotes the absence of prejudice or bias and its existence or otherwise can be tested in various ways. The Court has thus distinguished between a subjective approach – that is, endeavouring to ascertain the personal conviction or interest of a given judge in a particular case – and an objective approach – that is, determining whether he or she offered sufficient guarantees to exclude any legitimate doubt in this respect (see Piersack v. Belgium, 1 October 1982, § 30, Series A no. 53, and Grieves v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 57067/00, § 69, ECHR 2003‑XII (extracts)).
36. In applying the subjective test, the Court has consistently held that the personal impartiality of a judge must be presumed until there is proof to the contrary (see Hauschildt v. Denmark, 24 May 1989, § 47, Series A no. 154). As regards the type of proof required, the Court has, for example, sought to ascertain whether a judge has displayed hostility or ill will or has arranged to have a case assigned to himself for personal reasons (see De Cubber v. Belgium, 26 October 1984, § 25, Series A no. 86). The principle that a tribunal shall be presumed to be free of personal prejudice or partiality is long-established in the case-law of the Court (see, for example, Le Compte, Van Leuven and De Meyere v. Belgium, 23 June 1981, § 58, Series A no. 43).
37. Although in some cases it may be difficult to procure evidence with which to rebut the presumption, it must be remembered that the requirement of objective impartiality provides a further important guarantee (see Pullar v. the United Kingdom, 10 June 1996, § 32, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996‑III). In other words, the Court has recognised the difficulty of establishing a breach of Article 6 on account of subjective partiality and for this reason has, in the vast majority of cases raising impartiality issues, focused on the objective test. However, there is no watertight division between the two notions, since the conduct of a judge may not only prompt objectively held misgivings as to impartiality from the point of view of the external observer (the objective test) but may also go to the issue of his or her personal conviction (the subjective test) (see Kyprianou v. Cyprus, [GC], no. 73797/01, § 119, ECHR 2005‑XIII).
38. As to the second test, when applied to a body sitting as a bench, it means determining whether, quite apart from the personal conduct of any of the members of that body, there are ascertainable facts which may raise doubts as to its impartiality. In this respect, even appearances may be of some importance (see Castillo Algar v. Spain, 28 October 1998, § 45, Reports 1998‑VIII; Morel v. France, no. 34130/96, § 42, ECHR 2000‑VI and Kyprianou v. Cyprus [GC], cited above, § 118, ECHR 2005‑XIII). When it is being decided whether in a given case there is a legitimate reason to fear that a particular body lacks impartiality, the standpoint of those claiming that it is not impartial is important but not decisive. What is decisive is whether the fear can be held to be objectively justified (see Ferrantelli and Santangelo v. Italy, 7 August 1996, § 58, Reports 1996‑III, and Wettstein v. Switzerland, no. 33958/96, § 44, ECHR 2000‑XII).
39. Turning to the circumstances of the present case, the Court observes that the applicant was involved in a long-running dispute with one of her neighbours, D.Ł. Against the background of that dispute, a number of administrative and criminal cases were conducted concerning various disagreements and incidents between the applicant and that neighbour.
40. The Court first observes that the applicant did not adduce any evidence to substantiate personal bias on the part of the judges of the Elbląg Regional Court dealing with the criminal case against her. It remains to be ascertained whether the appearance of impartiality was observed under the objective test.
41. In this connection, the Court notes that the applicant’s neighbour, and opponent in a number of the cases, happened to be the brother of a supervising judge at the Elbląg Regional Court. In the Polish judicial system, such a judge is responsible for supervision of the quality of decisions produced by judges of the Regional Court and the district courts and of the manner in which they handle their case‑management duties. The supervisor’s functions can have a bearing on a judge’s professional career and advancement. The Gdańsk Court of Appeal, having regard to the relationship between D.Ł. and the supervising judge, on a number of occasions, held that the judges of the Elbląg courts should withdraw from the applicant’s cases.
42. The Court is of the opinion that it cannot be excluded that a situation where domestic courts find it appropriate that judges should withdraw from examining a case, but subsequently the same judges are called upon to examine another case involving the same parties, is capable of raising issues under Article 6 of the Convention. However, the Court observes that it is not necessary, in the circumstances of the present case, to examine in detail this particular aspect of the case, for the following reasons.
43. The Court notes that in the applicant’s case Assessor E.M. dismissed the applicant’s request that K.S., another assessor assigned to examine her case, be disqualified. No reference was made in this decision either to the relationship between D.Ł. and the supervising judge or to the earlier decisions of the Gdańsk Court of Appeal. In this connection, the Court observes that at the material time the supervising judges were responsible for preparing assessments of assessors’ suitability for judicial functions (see paragraph 26 above).
44. Furthermore, the Court notes that at the relevant time assessors were appointed by the Minister of Justice provided that they met a number of specific conditions stipulated in the Law of 27 July 2001 (as amended) on the Organisation of Courts (Prawo o ustroju sądów powszechnych; hereinafter “the 2001 Act”) 2001 Act (section 134 § 1). The Minister could confer on an assessor the authority to exercise judicial power in a district court, subject to approval by the board of judges of a regional court and for a period not exceeding four years (section 135 § 1). Under section 134 § 5 of the 2001 Act the Minister could remove an assessor, including those who were vested with judicial powers.
45. The Court observes that the Polish Constitutional Court considered the status of assessors in its leading judgment of 24 October 2007 (see Henryk Urban and Ryszard Urban v. Poland, cited above, §§ 19‑24). The Constitutional Court found that the manner in which Poland had legislated for the status of assessors was deficient since it lacked the guarantees of independence required under Article 45 § 1 of the Constitution, guarantees which are substantively identical to those under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. As a result, the Constitutional Court set aside the regulatory framework governing the institution of assessors as laid down in the 2001 Act.
46. The Court has already held, having had regard to the findings of the Constitutional Court, that a court composed of assessors was not independent within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the reason being that an assessor could have been removed by the Minister of Justice at any time during their term of office and that there were no adequate guarantees protecting them against the arbitrary exercise of that power by the Minister (see, Henryk Urban and Ryszard Urban v. Poland, cited above, §§ 51‑53).
47. The Court thus concludes, having regard to the circumstances of the case seen as a whole, that there has been a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.”
· In 1988, staff members of the local social-security offices of Alsace-Moselle challenged before several industrial tribunals the method whereby the offices had, for nearly fifteen years, calculated the amount of a special allowance introduced by an agreement of 1953. In April 1992 the Court of Cassation quashed judgments of the Metz Court of Appeal relating to some of these cases, held that the 1953 agreement could no longer apply in its original terms and ordered that the cases should be reheard by a tribunal of fact in order that it might be determined whether a practice had been established (on account of the application of a given method of calculation by the social-security offices over many years) or, in the absence of such a practice, in order that the method of calculating the allowance should be determined. In September 1993, however, the Colmar Court of Appeal held that a practice had been established for paying the allowance by the method adopted by the social-security offices, while in October the Besançon Court of Appeal held, on the contrary, that no practice had been established and laid down a new method of calculation – in other words, two unappealable but contradictory assessments of one and the same question of fact, namely whether a practice existed. Therefore, an unjustifiable inequality of position arose between staff members of the local social-security offices of Alsace-Moselle in respect of the calculation of the allowance in question, according as they came, as litigants, within the jurisdiction of the Colmar Court of Appeal or within that of the Metz Court of Appeal.
· The European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms signed in Rome in 1950;
The International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, 1966;
· The Basic Principles on the independence of the Judiciary, drawn up in 1985 by UNO;
· The “Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union” adopted in Nice on 7 December 2000.
As far as the Council of Europe is concerned we can point out that the already mentioned Recommendation No. R (94) 12 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on the independence, efficiency and role of judges refers three times to the concept of impartiality.
· Coming to the European Charter on the status of judges, approved by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, 8-10 July 1998, we may notice that from the very beginning,
· Recommendation CM/Rec(2010)12 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on judges: independence, efficiency and responsibilities clearly links impartiality to judicial independence, reinstating many of the principles already set forth by the previous Recommendation of 1994. In a more general way, Article 11 provides for that “The independence of judges should be regarded as a guarantee of freedom, respect for human rights and impartial application of the law. Judges’ impartiality and independence are essential to guarantee the equality of parties before the courts.”
Judicial impartiality can be concretely ensured in a number of ways. Different procedural mechanisms strive in each legal system to achieve this goal. Let us mention some examples, such as
· withdrawing from hearing a case (abstention)
· and recusation.
· Even the possibility of an appeal to a superior court can be seen as a way through which impartiality can be implemented in single cases.
· We can cite as well the fact that in many legal systems cases must be decided by a panel of judges and not by a single judge.
· Also the obligation for the judge to hand down the written reasoning of his/her decision–of course, where such duty exists–remarkably contributes to ensure the respect of the principle of impartiality
· and so does the publication of this judgement in law reviews
· as well through other means like e.g. Internet.
As for political activity a judge can of course publicly express his/her political views[20] or take part in an electoral meeting[21], but he/she cannot take active part in a political campaign[22], unless he/she does not stand as candidate. The ethical code adopted by the Italian association of judges (Article 8) forbids judges–though indirectly and through rather involved expressions–to join political parties, but these provisions do not have the same force as a law and can only indirectly influence disciplinary case law. Judges can be elected to the Parliament, but then they are automatically suspended from their judicial functions for the whole period in which they serve as parliamentarians. They can not be elected in the same district in which they have exercised their functions until six months before they have accepted to be candidates. After having completed their term of office, they can return to exercise their functions. Judges who stood as candidates but were not elected cannot exercise their functions for at least five years in the same district in which they campaigned[23].
On all of these matters a law adopted by the Italian Parliament in 2005 exerted a remarkable influence. This act (Law of 25 July 2005, No. 150) provides for a strict prohibition for judges and prosecutors to be members of political parties and inflicts disciplinary sanctions to a series of behaviours considered as against the principle of judicial impartiality.
As far as ethical duties are concerned, let me add that I belong to a system in which an ethical code for judges exists since more than a decade. In 1993, upon delegation from the Parliament, the Italian Government issued a decree, according to which all the branches of the civil service should adopt ethical codes “in order to ensure a high standard of services to the citizens”. The central directive board of the Italian Association of Judges approved on 7 May 1994 an “Ethical Code for Judges”[24], which is not part of any statute issued by the Parliament and therefore cannot be considered as law. As already told before, the document was updated in 2010.
Piersack v. Belgium (1 October 1982).
In the case Piersack v. Belgium (1 October 1982) the Court had to address the following issue. Mr. Van de Walle, the judge who presided over the Brabant Assize Court in the criminal proceedings against Mr. Piersack, had previously served as a senior deputy to the Brussels procureur du Roi (prosecution office); until his appointment to the Court of Appeal, he was the head of section B of the Brussels public prosecutor’s department, this being the section dealing with indictable and non-indictable offences against the person and, therefore, the very section to which Mr. Piersack’s case was referred. On the strength of this fact the applicant argued that his case had not been heard by an “impartial tribunal”: in his view, “if one has dealt with a matter as public prosecutor for a year and a half, one cannot but be prejudiced.”
· Also in the case Pullar v. U.K. (10 June 1996) we can read that “It is well established in the case-law of the Court that there are two aspects to the requirement of impartiality in Article 6 para. 1 (art. 6-1). First, the tribunal must be subjectively impartial, that is, no member of the tribunal should hold any personal prejudice or bias. Personal impartiality is to be presumed unless there is evidence to the contrary. Secondly, the tribunal must also be impartial from an objective viewpoint, that is, it must offer sufficient guarantees to exclude any legitimate doubt in this respect (see, for instance, the Fey v. Austria judgment of 24 February 1993, Series A no. 255-A, p. 12, para. 28).”
· In the case Buscemi v. Italy (16 September 1999) the applicant complained of bias on the part of the President of the Turin Youth Court, C.L., and submitted that his case should not have been heard by a court presided over by a person with whom he had had an argument in the press. He alleged that this had given rise to a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. The Government considered that there could be no doubt as to the President of the court’s impartiality. The decisions adopted by the court presided over by C.L. had not subsequently been varied and the proceedings on the complaints which the applicant had filed against the President had been discontinued. Furthermore, it was the applicant who had started the controversy with his letter in La Stampa (Turin’s newspaper) portraying the court’s work in an unfavourable light and he had been supported in that action by the journalist responsible for the column. The President of the court had therefore simply considered it his duty to clarify matters, having regard in particular to the risk of misinformation on account of the relative importance given by the daily in question to the applicant’s story.
The Court considered, as the Commission did, that the fact that the President of the court publicly used expressions which implied that he had already formed an unfavourable view of the applicant’s case before presiding over the court that had to decide it clearly appears incompatible with the impartiality required of any court, as laid down in Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. The statements made by the President of the court were such as to objectively justify the applicant’s fears as to his impartiality (see, mutatis mutandis, the Ferrantelli and Santangelo v. Italy judgment of 7 August 1996, Reports 1996-III, p. 952, §§ 59 and 60). Therefore, according to the Strasbourg Court, there had been a breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.
· A similar decision was rendered in the case Lavents v. Latvia (28 November 2002). In this decision (whose reasoning is available only in French) we can read that “Quant à la démarche subjective, la Cour rappelle que la discrétion qui s’impose aux autorités judiciaires lorsqu’elles sont appelées à juger, doit les amener à ne pas utiliser la presse, même pour répondre à des provocations ; ainsi le veulent les impératifs supérieurs de la justice et la grandeur de la fonction judiciaire. En particulier, le fait, pour le président ou le membre d’un tribunal appelé à trancher une affaire, d’employer publiquement des expressions sous-entendant une appréciation négative de la cause de l’une des parties, est incompatible avec les exigences d’impartialité de tout tribunal, consacrées à l’article 6 § 1 de la Convention (voir Buscemi c. Italie, no 29569/95, §§ 67-68, CEDH 1999-VI).”
· In both the above-mentioned cases (Buscemi and Lavents) the need for “keeping a distance from the case” was stated by the Court having regard to declarations made by the judge to the press. In the case Sofri and others v. Italy (10 June 2003) the alleged violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention was based on the assumption that a judge had not “kept a distance” from his personal view of the case while writing the reasoning of it.
The Government submitted that the applicants’ assertion that the judge who had written reasoning of the case (Judge Pincioni) was a “dissenting judge” who had written a “suicidal judgment” had not been properly proved. In that connection, they observed that at the end of the deliberations of the Milan Assize Court, composed, inter alia, of Judge Pincioni, the court president had lodged a signed and sealed envelope with the registry in accordance with the procedure set out in Article 125 § 5 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The very existence of that envelope showed that at least one of the members of the Milan Assize Court had dissented from the acquittal verdict. The names of the dissenting judges could, however, only be ascertained by opening the sealed envelope. However, the Government were of the view that the envelope could not be produced to the Court as the procedure was intended to protect a dissenting judge in the event of court proceedings for professional negligence. Section 16(5) of the Civil Liability of Judges Act (Law no. 117 of 1988) provided for the envelope to be sent to the court in which the Prime Minister had issued proceedings seeking reimbursement of compensation paid to an injured party from the judge who delivered the decision. In the Government’s submission, the provisions of domestic law allowing an exception to be made to the principle that deliberations in private were confidential applied only in exceptional circumstances and could not be interpreted widely by analogy.
· In the case Remli v. France (23 April 1996) the Court said that national courts have to check themselves whether, as constituted, they are “an impartial tribunal” within the meaning of Article 6 § 1, where this is disputed on a ground that does not immediately appear to be manifestly devoid of merit. Failing to do so will automatically bring about a violation of the principle of impartiality.
· Another case dealing with racist remarks by jurors is Sander v. U.K. (9 May 2000). Here a member of the jury had submitted a note alleging that two fellow jurors “[had] been making openly racist remarks and jokes” and stating that he feared that “they [were] going to convict the defendants not on the evidence but because they were Asian”. Another juror, being confronted with these allegations, accepted that “he might have done so” and stated that “he was sorry if he had given any offence”. The Court, therefore, considered that it was established that at least one juror had made comments that could be understood as jokes about Asians. In the Court’s view, this did not on its own amount to evidence that the juror in question was actually biased against the applicant. Moreover, the Court noted that it was not possible for the trial judge to question the jurors about the true nature of these comments and the exact context in which they had been made. It followed that it had not been established that the court that tried the applicant was lacking in impartiality from a subjective point of view.
· A different solution was given to the case Gregory v. U.K. (25 February 1997). In this case, on the final day of the trial against Mr Gregory, at 10.46 a.m., the jury retired to consider their verdict. An hour and three quarters later a note was passed by the jury to the judge. It read: “Jury showing racial overtones. 1 member to be excused”. In the absence of the jury, the trial judge showed the note to counsel for the prosecution and defence and consulted them on the appropriate response to it. The Court observed that it was not disputed that there was no evidence of actual or subjective bias on the part of one or more jurors. It was also accepted by both the applicant and the Government that it was not possible under English law for the trial judge to question the jurors about the circumstances which gave rise to the note. The Court acknowledges that the rule governing the secrecy of jury deliberations is a crucial and legitimate feature of English trial law which serves to reinforce the jury’s role as the ultimate arbiter of fact and to guarantee open and frank deliberations among jurors on the evidence which they have heard.
· In the case Wettstein v. Switzerland (21 December 2000) the applicant submitted that in some areas of administration in Switzerland there were particularly close links between practising lawyers and the judiciary. The applicant referred to everyday legal practice where a conflict of interests experienced by an individual lawyer in a partnership consisting of several lawyers implied that not only this lawyer but all other staff were equally excluded from taking on the same work. The applicant contended that the lawyers should not have been allowed to act as judges. There was always a danger of at least a potential conflict of interests for administrative court judges: either they considered the possibility of obtaining future work from the public authorities concerned and did not want to annoy them by voting against them; or they did not want to lose their goodwill when taking future decisions on granting planning permission, on which they were dependent for their private clients who wanted to carry out construction projects. The interrelated interests of a total of two out of five judges in the instant case amounted to an appearance of lack of impartiality.
· In the case Pescador Valero v. Spain (17 June 2003) the applicant alleged that the participation of Judge J.B.L. in the proceedings he had brought against the University of Castilla-La Mancha while the judge was also associate professor at that university at the time had affected the fairness of the hearing and in particular had infringed his right to an independent and impartial tribunal.
· In the case Sigurdsson v. Iceland (10 April 2003) the applicant instituted proceedings against the National Bank of Iceland, claiming compensation under the law of torts, on the grounds that one of the Bank’s legally trained employees had made an incorrect declaration in 1992 which was instrumental in the Supreme Court’s finding that a certain claim was no longer enforceable. As the District Court found for the defendant bank, the applicant, by a summons of 31 May 1996, instituted appeal proceedings before the Supreme Court. By a judgment of 25 April 1997, the Supreme Court, by three votes to two, rejected the applicant’s claim. The minority found that the applicant’s claim should be upheld and that the National Bank was liable to pay him ISK 8,746,319 Icelandic krónur (ISK) in compensation, plus default interest from 30 August 1993. One of the three judges forming the majority was Mrs Justice Guðrún Erlendsdóttir. The applicant submitted that after the delivery of the Supreme Court’s judgment, it came to light that Mrs Justice Guðrún Erlendsdóttir and her husband, a Supreme Court lawyer, had a financial relationship with the National Bank of such a nature as to disqualify her from sitting in the applicant’s case.
· In the case Pullar v. U.K. (10 June 1996) the Court stressed that the tribunal must be impartial not only from a subjective viewpoint, but also from an objective one, that is, it must offer sufficient guarantees to exclude any legitimate doubt in this respect. Mr Pullar’s misgivings as to the impartiality of the tribunal were based on the fact that one member of the jury, Mr Forsyth, was employed by the firm in which the prosecution witness, Mr McLaren, was a partner.
· Simsek v. U.K. (9 July 2002) is a very similar case. Here the applicant’s misgivings as to the impartiality of the tribunal were based on the fact that a juror was a sister-in-law of Officer S, the latter being a prison officer in the prison where the applicant had been detained as a Category A prisoner prior to and during his trial. The Court remarked that “While some prejudicial connections could in principle arise from events prior to a trial, the present applicant’s misgivings about that period are based on a number of weak suppositions – that, prior to the trial and importantly prior to the relevant juror’s appointment to the jury, Officer S had any specific and prejudicial knowledge of the applicant who was one of 180 prisoners on that House Block; and that he would have had a reason to mention that particular prisoner to his sister-in-law; and that she would have had a reason to retain any such information. Such suppositions are not, in the Court’s view, strong enough to constitute an objective risk to the impartiality of the jury.”
· In the case A.B. Kurt Kellermann v. Sweden (1 July 2003) the applicant challenged the composition of Swedish labour courts in which lay assessors are sitting. More precisely, the Labour Court which heard the case and delivered judgment was composed of seven members. In accordance with the 1974 Act, the Labour Court was composed of two legally trained and qualified judges and five lay assessors. One assessor had been appointed because of her special knowledge of the labour market. However, she did not represent any employers’ or employees’ interests. Of the other four assessors, two had been nominated by employers’ associations (a director of the Swedish Employer’s Confederation (Svenska Arbetsgivareföreningen; hereinafter “the SAF”) and an employee of the Ministry of Finance representing the State employers) and two by employees’ associations (ombudsmen in the LO and the joint Central Organisation of Salaried Employees and Central Organisation of Swedish Academics (Tjänstemännens Centralorganisation and Svenska Akademikers Centralorganisation; hereinafter “the TCO/SACO”), respectively).
· In the case Piersack v. Belgium (1 October 1982, already mentioned: see above, Para. 12) the Court noticed that it would have been going too far to the opposite extreme to maintain that former judicial officers in the public prosecutor’s department were unable to sit on the bench in every case that had been examined initially by that department, even though they had never had to deal with the case themselves. So radical a solution, based on an inflexible and formalistic conception of the unity and indivisibility of the public prosecutor’s department, would erect a virtually impenetrable barrier between that department and the bench. It would lead to an upheaval in the judicial system of several Contracting States where transfers from one of those offices to the other are a frequent occurrence. Above all, the mere fact that a judge was once a member of the public prosecutor’s department is not a reason for fearing that he lacks impartiality. However, remarked the Court, if an individual, after holding in the public prosecutor’s department an office whose nature is such that he may have to deal with a given matter in the course of his duties, subsequently sits in the same case as a judge, the public are entitled to fear that he does not offer sufficient guarantees of impartiality. This being the case in that particular proceeding, the Court concluded that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1 (art. 6-1).
· In the case De Cubber v. Belgium (26 October 1984) one of the three judges of the Oudenaarde criminal court who, on 29 June 1979, had given judgment on the charges against the applicant, had previously acted as investigating judge in the two cases in question: in one case he had done so from the outset and in the other he had replaced a colleague, at first on a temporary and then on a permanent basis. On the strength of this, Mr. De Cubber contended that he had not received a hearing by an impartial tribunal.
· In the case Hauschildt v. Danemark (24 May 1989) the applicant, while not objecting in principle to a system such as that existing in Denmark whereby a judge was entrusted with a supervisory role in the investigation process, criticised it in so far as the very same judge is then expected to conduct the trial with a mind entirely free from prejudice. He argued that the kind of decisions the judge would be called upon to make at the pre-trial stage would require him, under the law, to assess the strength of the evidence and the character of the accused, thereby inevitably colouring his appreciation of the evidence and issues at the subsequent trial. As to the facts of his own case, Mr Hauschildt pointed out above all that the presiding judge of the City Court, Judge Larsen, had taken numerous decisions on detention on remand and other procedural matters, especially at the pre-trial stage.
· In the case Procola v. Luxemburg (28 September 1995) the Court had to determine whether the Judicial Committee of the Council of State of Luxemburg satisfied the impartiality requirement of Article 6 (art. 6) of the Convention, regard being had to the fact that four of its five members had to rule on the lawfulness of a regulation which they had previously scrutinised in their advisory capacity.
· In the case McGonnell v. U.K. (8 February 2000) the applicant pointed to the non-judicial functions of the Bailiff in the Island of Guernsey, contending that they gave rise to such close connections between the Bailiff as a judicial officer and the legislative and executive functions of government that the Bailiff no longer had the independence and impartiality required by Article 6. As specific examples, the applicant pointed to three matters which were not referred to before the Commission. They were the facts that the Bailiff was invariably appointed from the office of the Attorney-General, that he acted as Lieutenant-Governor of the island when that office was vacant, and that the Bailiff who sat in the present case had also presided over the States of Deliberation when DDP6, the very act which was at issue in the applicant’s later case, was adopted.
· In the case Kleyn and others v. Netherlands (6 May 2003) the Court, having regard to the position of the Council of State of the Netherlands, reiterated that, as illustrated in Procola (cited above), the consecutive exercise of advisory and judicial functions within one body might, in certain circumstances, raise an issue under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention as regards the impartiality of the body seen from the objective viewpoint. The Dutch Government had brought to the Court’s attention the internal measures taken by the Council of State with a view to giving effect to Procola in the Netherlands. According to the description of these measures which is to be found in the Annual Report 2000 of the Council of State, the composition of the bench would only be scrutinised if doubts were expressed by a party; the criterion then applied was that if the appeal went to a matter explicitly addressed in a previous advisory opinion, the composition would be changed so as to exclude any judges who participated in that opinion.
· In Nortier v. Netherlands (24 August 1993) the applicant stressed that throughout the proceedings, i.e. during the pre-trial phase as well as at the trial, his case had been dealt with by one and the same judge, Juvenile Judge Meulenbroek, who had taken all relevant decisions. He did not doubt the personal impartiality of Juvenile Judge Meulenbroek, but pointed to the fact that the latter had acted as investigating judge and had on four occasions decided on the applicant’s detention on remand. These decisions implied that Judge Meulenbroek had already reached the conclusion at that stage that there were “serious indications” that the applicant had committed the crime of which he stood accused; furthermore, he must also already have formed an idea of the sentence or measure to be imposed, since the law required him to ascertain that it was unlikely that the detention on remand would last longer than any detention imposed under that sentence or measure. Consequently, the applicant had had legitimate grounds for fearing that Judge Meulenbroek, who tried his case as a single judge, lacked the impartiality required of a trial judge, the more so as the applicant was only fifteen years old and therefore less able to defend himself.
· In the case Saraiva de Carvalho v. Portugal (22 April 1994) the applicant challenged the impartiality of the Fourth Division of the Lisbon Criminal Court, which on 20 May 1987 had sentenced him to fifteen years’ military imprisonment, alleging that its presiding judge, Mr Salvado, had earlier, as the judge in charge of the case, issued the despacho de pronúncia. Such a decision meant that at the outset of the proceedings the judge had already become convinced of the applicant’s guilt, a fact that could not fail to affect the conduct of the trial, which was the presiding judge’s responsibility.
· In the case Bulut v. Austria (22 February 1996) the fear that the trial court might not be impartial was based on the fact that one of its members had questioned witnesses during the preliminary investigation. The Court conceded that this kind of situation may give rise to misgivings on the part of the accused as to the impartiality of the judge. However, whether these misgivings should be treated as objectively justified depends on the circumstances of each particular case; the mere fact that a trial judge has also dealt with the case at the pre-trial stage cannot be held as in itself justifying fears as to his impartiality (see, mutatis mutandis, the Hauschildt v. Denmark judgment of 24 May 1989, Series A no. 154, pp. 21-22, paras. 49-50, and the Nortier v. the Netherlands judgment of 24 August 1993, Series A no. 267, p. 15, para. 33).
· In Sainte-Marie v. France (16 December 1992) the Criminal Appeals Division of the Pau Court of Appeal, which sentenced Mr Sainte-Marie, on 29 October 1985, was composed of three judges. Two of them, Mr Bataille and Mr Biecher, had sat on the previous 8 August in the Indictment Division of the same Court of Appeal. The applicant complained that, in confirming an order dismissing an application for release, they must necessarily have considered whether there were plausible grounds for suspecting the applicant of having committed the offence and must, accordingly, have carried out a preliminary examination of the merits. They had thus formed an opinion on the weight of the evidence and the clues contained in the prosecution case. The Court remarked that the main thrust of the applicant’s argument, namely that the fact of having ruled on the question of detention on remand necessarily entailed a lack of objective impartiality, runs counter to the Court’s case-law. According to the Hauschildt judgment of 24 May 1989, which moreover is concerned, as appears from its express wording, solely with the decisions of a judge who is not responsible for preparing the case for trial, the mere fact that such a judge has already taken pre-trial decisions in the case, including decisions relating to detention on remand, cannot in itself justify fears as to his impartiality. Only special circumstances, added the Court, may warrant a different conclusion, as they did in the Hauschildt case. The Court shared the Commission’s view that there was nothing of that nature in that peculiar case. Furthermore, the Indictment Division had based its decision of 8 August 1985 on the applicant’s own statements. He did not retract these statements and never claimed that they had been obtained under duress. They were moreover corroborated by uncontested physical evidence. The Indictment Division confined itself to making a brief assessment of the available facts in order to establish whether prima facie the police suspicions had some substance and gave grounds for fearing that there was a risk of the accused’s absconding.
· In Rojas Morales v. Italy (16 November 2000: reasoning available only in French) the applicant complained that two of the three members of the panel which had sentenced him had already expressed their views on the guilt of the defendant while deciding another case against Mr M.A. The Government conceded that the Italian Constitutional Court had held as against the Constitution the provisions of the Italian code of penal procedure allowing such a situation; however, as far as that particular case was concerned, the defendant had been sentenced before that judgement of the Constitutional Court. The applicant remarked that in that previous decision he had been qualified as the head of the band of criminals, one of them had been sentenced by the previous decision.
· In the case Pfeifer and Plankl v. Austria (25 February 1992) the Court dealt with a situation in which, according to national law, the judge should have withdrawn from the case, but had not been recused by the defendants. Actually Mr Pfeifer claimed that the two professional judges who sat as members of the Klagenfurt Regional Court in his case should have withdrawn under Article 68 (2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, as they had acted as investigating judges in the case.