CASE OF ICHETOVKINA AND OTHERS v. RUSSIA
Violation of Article 6+6-3-c - Right to a fair trial (Article 6 - Criminal proceedings;Article 6-1 - Fair hearing) (Article 6 - Right to a fair trial;Article 6-3-c - Defence through legal assistance)
Alena Poláčková;Branko Lubarda;Dmitry Dedov;Helena Jäderblom;Luis López Guerra;Pere Pastor Vilanova
5. The facts of the cases, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows. 6. On various dates between 2004 and 2008 the applicants were criminally prosecuted for and convicted of various offences under the Russian legislation then in force. All of the applicants appealed, but their cases were examined by the appeal courts in the absence of their respective counsel. The appeal courts upheld their convictions. 7. In the case of Mr Chernenko (application no. 51264/07) the firstinstance court ordered him to pay the legal fees incurred in respect of his representation in the criminal proceedings against him. On 6 November 2012 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation quashed the order of the first-instance court and waived the legal fees that Mr Chernenko had been ordered to reimburse. 8. Following the communication of the applications, the prosecutor lodged requests for supervisory review of the criminal cases of Ms Ichetovkina and Mr Dubrovskiy (applications nos. 12584/05 and 45690/05). 9. Following the communication of the other four applications (nos. 45075/05, 11343/06, 51264/07 and 59378/08), the prosecutor lodged a request for supervisory review of the judgment of the appeal courts. The domestic courts examined his request and expressly acknowledged that these four applicants’ right to legal assistance in the appeal proceedings in respect of their cases had been breached. The applicants’ cases were remitted for re-examination by the same appeal courts. The Court requested additional observations from the Government in respect of these four cases regarding the conformity of the second set of appeal proceedings with the requirements of Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (c) of the Convention. When the applicants’ cases were heard and re-examined by the appeal courts, they were represented by lawyers, and they participated in the respective proceedings via video link. 10. The details of the applicants’ cases are set out in the appendix.