CASE OF PAWLAK v. POLAND
Violation of Article 6 - Right to a fair trial (Article 6 - Criminal proceedings;Article 6-1 - Reasonable time)
Krzysztof Wojtyczek;Päivi Hirvelä;Zdravka Kalaydjieva
5. The applicant was born in 1974 and lives in Łódź. 6. On 6 June 2007 the applicant was arrested on suspicion of committing a number of offences in an armed organised criminal group. 7. On 15 June 2007 the Łódź District Court (Sąd Rejonowy) remanded the applicant in custody. The court relied on a reasonable suspicion that the applicant had committed the offences in question. The risk of the applicant fleeing was also taken into account since he had spent almost a year in hiding after a ‘wanted’ notice (list gończy) had been issued against him. The court also referred to the likelihood of a heavy prison sentence being imposed on the applicant after conviction. 8. The applicant’s detention on remand was extended by the Łódź Regional Court (Sąd Okręgowy) on 4 September 2007, 18 December 2007 and 26 March 2008. Subsequently it was extended by the Łódź Court of Appeal (Sąd Apelacyjny) on 4 June 2008, 22 October 2008, 23 December 2008 and on 25 March 2009. The applicant’s appeals filed against some of the above decisions were dismissed by the Łódź Court of Appeal on 6 February 2008, 2 July 2008, 12 November 2008 and 22 April 2009. In their detention decisions the courts relied on the original grounds for the applicant’s arrest. They stressed, in particular, the danger of the applicant absconding referring to the fact that he had remained in hiding before his arrest. They further referred to the need to apprehend other members of the criminal group and to obtain additional evidence supporting the case against the applicant. In the courts’ view, the applicant, if released, would try to obstruct the proceedings by passing vital information about the preliminary proceedings onto the other members of the criminal group and by influencing witnesses. The courts concluded that in the context of the applicant’s case, which concerned organised crime, detention on remand was the only security measure to guarantee the proper conduct of the proceedings. 9. On an unspecified date in 2009 the charges against the applicant were severed to a separate set of the proceedings as he was to undergo a psychiatric examination. 10. On 16 June 2009 the Łódź Prosecutor of Appeal (Prokurator Prokuratury Apealacyjnej) lodged a bill of indictment against the applicant with the Łódź Regional Court. The applicant was charged with several counts of robbery and drug trafficking committed in an organised criminal group. 11. On 24 June 2009 the Łódź Court of Appeal extended the applicant’s detention on remand until 31 December 2009. Subsequently, the same court ordered prolongation of his detention on 21 December 2009 (detention extended until 30 September 2010), on 22 September 2010 (detention extended until 31 March 2011) and on 23 March 2011 (detention extended until 30 September 2011). The applicant appealed against all of those decisions but to no avail. In their decisions the courts repeated the grounds previously given for the applicant’s detention. They also stressed the likelihood of a heavy prison sentence being imposed on the applicant after conviction. 12. Meanwhile, on 28 July 2009, the Łódź Regional Court joined the applicant’s case with the case against the other members of the criminal group. The joined proceedings concerned altogether 29 defendants charged with 102 offences. The prosecution authorities requested that 318 witnesses be heard before the court. 13. The court scheduled fifteen hearings for November and December 2009. Due to sick-leaves of the presiding judge and of some of the accused those hearings did not take place. 14. The trial was eventually opened on 18 January 2010. Subsequent scheduled hearings were adjourned due to absences of some of the coaccused and due to problems with sound system in the court room. 15. In May 2010 the Regional Court gave a severance order and decided to determine charges against two co-accused separately. 16. The bill of indictment was finally read out to the defendants at the hearing held on 27 May 2010. 17. At the hearing of 28 May 2010 the Regional Court started taking evidence from the accused. It subsequently held fourteen hearings until the end of 2010, during which some of the accused gave evidence. Five of the scheduled hearings were adjourned due to sick-leaves of the accused. In particular, the hearing scheduled for 16 August 2010 was cancelled because the applicant and another defendant in the case were feeling unwell. One hearing was adjourned because of the motion for disqualification of the judge lodged by one of the co-accused. 18. In 2011 the Regional Court continued taking evidence from the defendants. Of the twenty-nine hearings scheduled for this year, eleven took place. The trial court adjourned fifteen hearings due to justified absences of the parties, three hearings were cancelled due to sick-leaves of the presiding judge and the lay judges. 19. Meanwhile, the applicant’s detention on remand was lifted on an unspecified date in late August 2011. He continued to remain in custody as pretrial detention was imposed on him in a separate set of proceedings. 20. The Regional Court scheduled twenty hearings for 2012, of which six hearings were eventually held. At the hearing of 16 April 2012 the trial court started taking evidence from witnesses. Of the fourteen hearings cancelled this year, two were adjourned because of a sickleave of the presiding judge, three because of absences of witnesses, and the remaining nine hearings – because of absences of the parties. 21. Until 30 July 2013 the Regional Court scheduled nine hearings for 2013, of which seven were adjourned due to justified absences of the defendants. In particular, the hearing of 28 June 2013 was adjourned because of the absence of the applicant. 22. The criminal proceedings against the applicant are still pending before the firstinstance court. 23. On 25 February 2011 the applicant lodged a complaint with the Łódź Court of Appeal under the Law of 17 June 2004 on complaints about a breach of the right to a trial within a reasonable time (ustawa o skardze na naruszenie prawa strony do rozpoznania sprawy w postępowaniu przygotowawczym prowadzonym lub nadzorowanym przez prokuratora i postępowaniu sądowym bez nieuzasadnionej zwłoki – “the 2004 Act”). He sought a finding that the length of the criminal proceedings against him had been excessive and 20,000 Polish zlotys (PLN) in compensation. 24. On 11 May 2011 the Łódź Court of Appeal dismissed the applicant’s complaint. The appellate court found that, considering the complexity of the case and the number of co-accused, who actively tried to obstruct the proceedings, the first-instance court had conducted the proceedings in a correct and timely manner. Consequently, the court refused to award the applicant compensation.