THIRD SECTION
CASE OF LUBARDA AND MILANOV v. SERBIA
(Applications nos. 6570/19 and 43604/19)
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
29 April 2025
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Lubarda and Milanov v. Serbia,
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Peeter Roosma, President,
 Diana Kovatcheva,
 Mateja Đurović, judges,
and Olga Chernishova, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the applications against the Republic of Serbia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by the applicants listed in the appended table (“the applicants”), on the various dates indicated therein;
the decision to give notice of the applications to the Serbian Government (“the Government”) represented by their Agent, Ms Z. Jadrijević Mladar;
the parties’ observations;
the decision to reject the Government’s objection to the examination of the applications by a Committee;
Having deliberated in private on 25 March 2025,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The present case concerns the applicants’ complaints under Article 6 of the Convention that they had not been given an opportunity to cross-examine witnesses in minor-offence proceedings against them for road-traffic offences. 2. The first applicant was convicted in 2017 of failing to comply with a traffic light signal and the second applicant was convicted in 2015 of driving while intoxicated (“in a state of complete intoxication”). The first applicant was fined with 120 euros (EUR) and banned from driving for three months, and penalty points were added to his license. The second applicant was fined EUR 850 and banned from driving for eight months, and penalty points were added to his license. Both offences were potentially punishable with imprisonment as well. In accordance with the Minor Offences Act, if the fines given to the first and second applicants had not been paid, they could have been converted into effective prison sentences lasting up to 15 and 60 days, respectively. 3. The applicants both appealed against their convictions, but both convictions were upheld by the Appeals Court and, subsequently, the Constitutional Court. The final domestic decisions were notified to the applicants on 1 August 2018 in the first applicant’s case and 26 February 2019 in the second applicant’s case. 4. Both applicants had signed reports drawn up by police officers at the scene of the incidents, but later disputed the contents of those reports in court. Their convictions were based on those reports and on evidence given by the police officers that was taken in court but not during the main hearings in the cases. Neither the applicants nor their lawyers were summoned to the examining of the witnesses, even though they had explicitly requested to be. The first applicant’s request was refused on the grounds of efficiency and economy of proceedings. In the second applicant’s case the court held that cross-examination would not have led to a different determination of facts because the witness’s evidence was consistent with the report the second applicant had signed. 5. Relying on Article 6 of the Convention the applicants complained that the minor-offence proceedings against them had not been fair as they had not been given the opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses on whose statements their convictions had been based.

Article of the Convention at issue: Article 6
Outcome: violation