ECHR Judgment (Merits) – Lack of jurisdiction (complaint inadmissible); No violation of Art. 6-1; Not necessary to examine Art. 13.
The court discussed whether article 6 requires a discretion to be given to a judge to make an award of costs in favour of a successful defendant: As to whether a ‘dispute’ over a ‘right’ existed so as to attract the applicability of Article 6 (1), the Court will first address the issue whether a ‘right’ to the compensation claimed could arguably be said to be recognised under national law. In view of the status of the Convention within the legal order of the Netherlands, the Court observes firstly that the Convention does not grant to a person ‘charged with a criminal offence’ but subsequently acquitted a right either to reimbursement of costs incurred in the course of criminal proceedings against him, however necessary these costs might have been, or to compensation for lawful restrictions on his liberty. Such a right can be derived neither from Article (2) nor from any other provision of the Convention or its Protocols. It follows that the question whether such a right can be said in any particular case to exist must be answered solely with reference to domestic law. In this connection, in deciding whether a ‘right’, civil or otherwise, could arguably be said to be recognised by Netherlands law, the Court must have regard to the wording of the relevant legal provisions and to the way in which these provisions are interpreted by the domestic courts.’
Citations:
15346/89, [1995] ECHR 32, 15379/89
Links:
Statutes:
European Convention on Human Rights 6(1)
Jurisdiction:
Human Rights
Cited by:
Cited – Her Majesty’s Attorney General for Gibraltar v Shimidzu (Berllaque, Intervenor) PC 28-Jun-2005
(Gibraltar) The appellants sought to argue that the failure to allow an acquitted defendant any possible order for costs was a breach of the Constitution.
Held: Section 8 of the Constitution, like its analogue article 6 of the European . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Human Rights
Updated: 21 June 2022; Ref: scu.227245