SECOND SECTION
CASE OF DIMCHEVSKA v. NORTH MACEDONIA
(Application no. 13919/18)
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
4 April 2023
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Dimchevska v. North Macedonia,
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Lorraine Schembri Orland, President,
 Jovan Ilievski,
 Diana Sârcu, judges,
and Dorothee von Arnim, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 13919/18) against the Republic of North Macedonia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 15 March 2018 by a Macedonian/citizen of the Republic of North Macedonia, Ms Stojna Dimchevska (“the applicant”), who was born in 1960 and lives in Attendorn, Germany, and was represented by Mr B. Kuzmanoski, a lawyer practising in Skopje;
the decision to give notice of the complaint concerning the applicant’s inability to obtain a retrial following her conviction in absentia to the Government of North Macedonia (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms D. Djonova, and to declare the remainder of the application inadmissible;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated in private on 14 March 2023,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns the applicant’s inability to obtain a retrial following her criminal conviction in proceedings in which she did not participate. 2. On 12 August 2015 the Veles Court of First Instance (“the trial court”), in written proceedings, imposed a penal order (казнен налог – hereinafter “the order”) on the applicant for using a document with false content (употреба на исправа со невистинита содржина) and sentenced her to three months’ imprisonment, suspended for one year. Two attempts to serve the order on the applicant were unsuccessful, as she was in Germany at the material time. In September 2015 the trial court appointed a lawyer to the applicant and posted the order on the court’s notice board. In the absence of an objection (“приговор”) against it, on 6 October 2015 the order became final. 3. On 1 September 2017 the applicant learned about the conviction when the order was submitted in evidence by the defendant in civil proceedings initiated by the applicant. 4. On 28 September 2017 the applicant requested that the criminal proceedings be reopened on the grounds that her trial had been held in absentia and new facts and evidence had come to light. The trial court dismissed her request, finding that (i) the evidence admitted and the facts established in the criminal proceedings had been sufficient to convict the applicant and the evidence proposed by her could not have altered the outcome of the criminal proceedings, and (ii) she had been assigned a court-appointed lawyer, who had not challenged the order. The appellate court upheld that decision, finding that the court-appointed lawyer had challenged the order – a finding which the Government subsequently argued had been a “technical error”. 5. In December 2020 the trial court established that the necessary conditions had been fulfilled for the entry concerning the applicant’s conviction to be erased from the criminal record. 6. The applicant complained under Article 6 that she had not been able to obtain a retrial following her conviction in her absence. She further raised other complaints under Article 6 concerning the fairness of the proceedings.

Outcome for Article 6: violation