Last Updated on October 3, 2020 by LawEuro
FOURTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 84052/17
István KÁDÁR against Hungary
and 3 other applications
(see list appended)
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 26 March 2019 as a Chamber composed of:
Jon FridrikKjølbro, President,
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque,
FarisVehabović,
Iulia AntoanellaMotoc,
Georges Ravarani,
Marko Bošnjak,
PéterPaczolay, judges,
and Marialena Tsirli, Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above applications lodged on the various dates indicated in the appended table,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
1. A list of the applicants is set out in the appendix.
2. The facts of the cases, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.
3. The applicants – officials whose service was governed by Act no. XLIII of 1996 on Service Relations of Career Members of Armed Organisations (“the Service Act”) – were charged with having passed language exams by way of bribery and of having received extra pay for language competences from their employing organisations.
4. On 29 August 2014 the public prosecutor ultimately suspended their indictments (vádemeléselhalasztása), without a conviction, for two years, at the end of which period the cases were to be discontinued if the applicants committed no further offences in the meantime.
5. The applicants did not file complaints against the decisions of the public prosecutor. Notably, they did not dispute the factual findings contained therein which described the offences attributed to them.
6. Subsequently, the applicants’ employers carried out examinations to see if their conduct as public officials met the requirement of irreproachability. They found that it did not, within the meaning of section 37/B(3)(c) of the Service Act. In particular, the applicants had not filed complaints against the public prosecutor’s decisions and findings, that is to say, they had not done their utmost to clear themselves of the charges. On this ground, the applicants were dismissed from service in June 2015.
7. The applicants – after an unsuccessful service dispute – initiated labour lawsuits against their employers, challenging the termination of their service as a consequence of the above disciplinary proceedings. They referred to the fact that they had not been actually convicted of a criminal offence and argued that the dismissal decisions were not sufficiently reasoned. After a rejection of their claims at first and second instance, the applicants submitted petitions for review to the Kúria.
8. In its final decisions, the Kúria dismissed the applicants’ actions on various dates in 2017. It held that the applicants’ failure to challenge the findings of fact contained in the public prosecutor’s decisions – namely, that they had obtained language exams unlawfully and received financial benefits by virtue of those exams – was sufficient to justify the employers’ loss of trust in the applicants; and that such loss of trust was a valid reason for dismissal on the ground of “reproachable conduct” in the context of the special requirements governing the applicants’ service. The Kúria explained that the notion of irreproachable conduct could not be equated with a clean criminal record but was wider than that: the mere fact that a person’s criminal liability had not been established by the criminal court, or such a court had not imposed a sentence of a kind that entailed the consequences of a criminal conviction, did not mean that the person’s conduct was irreproachable for the purposes of their service. In the context of the latter, the applicants were expected to demonstrate a conduct that was worth of citizens’ respect, and gave no reason for doubting their honour or for citizens’ disapproval.
9. Only Mr Fábián (the applicant in application no. 48449/18) challenged the final decision in a complaint to the Constitutional Court, but his constitutional complaint was rejected in 2018.
COMPLAINTS
10. The applicants complained of their dismissals as a perceived consequence of the criminal proceedings in which they had not been convicted. They relied on Articles 3, 6 §§ 1 and 2, 7 and 14 of the Convention as well as on Article 1 of Protocol No. 12.
THE LAW
11. Given the similarity of the applications, the Court decides to order their joinder in accordance with Rule 42 § 1 of the Rules of Court.
12. The applicants complained that, in the labour litigations, the domestic courts held against them, in an unfair procedure and contrary to the presumption of innocence, the occurrence of prosecution, even if they had not been found guilty of a criminal offence.
13. In so far as the applicants’ complaint may be understood to concern assessment of the evidence and the result of the proceedings before the domestic courts, the Court reiterates that, according to Article 19 of the Convention, its duty is to ensure the observance of the engagements undertaken by the Contracting Parties to the Convention. In particular, it is not its function to deal with errors of fact or law allegedly committed by a national court unless and in so far as they may have infringed rights and freedoms protected by the Convention. Moreover, while Article 6 of the Convention guarantees the right to a fair hearing, it does not lay down any rules on the admissibility of evidence or the way it should be assessed, which are therefore primarily matters for regulation by national law and the national courts (see García Ruiz v. Spain [GC], no. 30544/96, § 28, ECHR 1999‑I). In the present case, there is no appearance that the courts lacked impartiality, that their decisions were arbitrary or that the proceedings were otherwise unfair.
14. To the extent that the applicants’ complaints may be understood to concern the presumption of innocence, the Court notes that the labour litigations did not concern in any manner the applicants’ guilt under criminal law in respect of the offences of which they had not been convicted. As the Kúria pointed out (see paragraph 8 above), the subject matter of the labour cases was not the determination of the applicants’ guilt, but the assessment of their conduct in the perspective of labour law – in particular their special service relation which required irreproachability. The employers had done no more than observe the fact that, differently from what could be expected from individuals in their situation, the applicants had not challenged the factual findings contained in the public prosecutor’s decisions. The employers or the labour courts had not implied the applicants’ guilt under the criminal law. Pointing out that the requirements of irreproachability were wider than the mere absence of a criminal record, the Kúria was satisfied that the impugned state of affairs was a valid reason for the employers’ loss of trust – in the context of the requirement of irreproachable conduct prescribed by the applicants’ service relations – and that the dismissals were well-reasoned and compliant with the relevant domestic legislation. For the Court, this conclusion does not reveal any indication of a violation of the applicants’ rights under either Article 6 § 1 or Article 6 § 2 of the Convention. In respect of the latter provision, the Court recalls that a distinction should be drawn between decisions which describe a “state of suspicion” and decisions which contain a “finding of guilt”; only the second category is incompatible with Article 6 § 2 of the Convention (see, amongst many other authorities, Marziano v. Italy, no. 45313/99, § 31, 28 November 2002; Del Latte v. the Netherlands, no. 44760/98, § 31, 9 November 2004, and Allen v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 25424/09, § 121, ECHR 2013).
15. Moreover, the Court is satisfied that the applicants’ submissions do not indicate any appearance of a violation of their rights under Articles 3, 7 and 14 of the Convention, either. It follows that this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) and must be rejected, pursuant to Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.
16. Lastly, Hungary has not ratified Protocol No. 12 to the Convention. This complaint is therefore incompatible ratione personae with the provisions of the Convention, within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) and must be rejected, pursuant to Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court
Decides,unanimously,to join the applications;
Declares, by a majority, the applications inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 18 April 2019.
Marialena Tsirli JonFridrikKjølbro
Registrar President
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