7.  The applicant was born in 1981. 8.  On 28 January 2004 the Radom Regional Court convicted the applicant of murder and sentenced him to 25 years' imprisonment as a recidivist offender. The applicant appealed. On 14 April 2005 the Lublin Court of Appeal upheld the first-instance judgment. On the same day the applicant's lawyer, who represented him under the legal-aid scheme, requested the court to prepare written grounds for the judgment of the appellate court and stated that this request should be regarded as an announcement of an upcoming cassation appeal against it. 9.  On 25 April 2005 the same lawyer requested the court to release him from the obligation to represent the applicant since the applicant had announced that he had lost confidence in him. 10.  On 19 May 2005 the applicant lodged with the Lublin Court of Appeal a motion to have a new legal-aid lawyer assigned to the case. On 13 June 2005 the court allowed his request, assigned Mr J. Ż. to represent the applicant and ordered the registry to serve the written grounds of the judgment of 14 April 2005 on the lawyer. 11.  The lawyer was served with the grounds on 20 June 2005. 12.  In a letter to the applicant, dated 14 July 2005 the Lublin Court of Appeal informed the applicant that Mr J. Ż. had found no grounds on which to prepare a cassation appeal. The relevant passage of the letter read as follows:
“I inform you that the legal-aid lawyer assigned to prepare a cassation appeal against the ... judgment of 14 April 3005, advocate Mr J. Ż. submitted a letter to the court that he had found no grounds, stipulated in Article 523 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, on which to prepare a cassation appeal in the present case. Accordingly, I am obliged to inform you that Article 84 of that Code confers on a defence counsel a right to issue such an opinion and that no regulations are available which would empower the court to compel a legal-aid lawyer to prepare a cassation appeal ... Therefore the Court of appeal will abstain from taking any further measures in the present case, having found that the convicted person's defence rights were properly guaranteed through legal-aid assistance having been granted in the case.”