Hudoc Judgment (Merits and just satisfaction) Violation of Art. 6-1; Non-pecuniary damage – financial award; Costs and expenses award – Convention proceedings
On 1 April 1992, the applicant, charged with sale of drugs (detenzione di sostanze stupefacienti a fine di spaccio), was arrested in Benevento but then released. After many adjournments, in a judgment of 9 February 1998, he was acquitted. This decision became final on 27 March 1998. He complained that he had not been given a timely trial. According to the applicant, the overall duration of the proceedings is in breach of the ‘reasonable time’ requirement laid down in Article 6 ss 1 of the Convention. The Government rejected this allegation, on the ground that several hearings were postponed either by reason of lawyers’ strikes, or because of the political elections, or finally because of the absence of some witnesses. They furthermore relied on the excessive workload of the Benevento District Court.
Held: A delay in the criminal proceedings caused by a lawyers’ strike cannot be attributed to the State, whereas the period of time elapsed between the end of the strike and the new hearing is to be imputed to the conduct of the authorities. Having regard to the conduct of the authorities dealing with the case, the Court considered that an overall length of five years, eleven months and twenty-six days for one degree of jurisdiction is excessive. There has accordingly been a violation of Article 6 ss 1 of the Convention.
CL Rozakis, President, B. Conforti, G. Bonello, V. Straznicka, P. Lorenzen, M. Fischbach, M. Tsatsa-Nikolovska
45264/99, [2001] ECHR 321
Worldlii, Bailii
European Convention on Human Rights 6.1
Human Rights
Cited by:
Cited – Pulcini v Italy ECHR 17-Apr-2003
Hudoc Judgment (Merits and just satisfaction) Violation of P1-1 ; Violation of Art. 6-1 ; Pecuniary damage – financial award ; Non-pecuniary damage – financial award
The applicant complained of undue delay . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 24 August 2021; Ref: scu.166096
