Argomento: Nuove tecnologie e diritto penale
Sezione: Corte EDU
“(...) The case concerns the applicant’s complaints under Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (c) of the Convention in relation to an oral hearing, held in an administrative criminal case against him, that took place via videolink on the basis of procedural rules enacted in the context of the pandemic caused by the coronavirus-2019 disease (...). (...) The applicant complained that he had not been permitted to participate in person (rather than virtually) in the hearing held before the Regional Administrative Court, even though that court had been sitting as first-instance court. Furthermore, he complained that the public had been excluded from the hearing and challenged whether the access information had indeed been displayed on the door of the hearing room, and claimed that the costly technical requirements for participation had hindered (part of) the public from doing so. Lastly, the applicant alleged that there had been an infringement of his right to be effectively defended by a lawyer, submitting that he and his lawyer had had to attend the hearing using two different videolinks and had been physically located in different rooms, making any confidential conversation between them impossible. (...) As regards the preliminary question of the applicability of Article 6 of the Convention to the case at issue, the Court notes that it is common ground between the parties that the proceedings before the Regional Administrative Court concerned the determination of a “criminal charge” against the applicant in the meaning of the Convention. The Court sees no reason to disagree. Indeed, according to its established case-law, Article 6 § 1 of the Convention applies, under its criminal head, to administrative offences like the one at issue in the present case and the corresponding administrative criminal proceedings under Austrian law (...). (...) An oral, and public, hearing constitutes a fundamental principle enshrined in Article 6 § 1. This principle is particularly important in the criminal context, where generally there must be at first instance a tribunal which fully meets the requirements of Article 6 (...), and where an applicant has an entitlement to have his case “heard”, with the opportunity, inter alia, to give evidence in his own defence, hear the evidence against him, and examine and cross-examine the witnesses (...). Furthermore, although this is not expressly mentioned in paragraph 1 [continua ..]

» Per l'intero contenuto effettuare il login inizio