MIRON AND OTHERS v. ROMANIA (European Court of Human Rights)

Last Updated on April 24, 2019 by LawEuro

Communicated on 5 February 2019

FOURTH SECTION

Application no.19565/15
Yair MIRON and others
against Romania
lodged on 20 April 2015

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the criminal proceedings opened by the domestic authorities against the applicants. The proceedings ended with the final judgment of the High Court of Cassation and Justice of 21 October 2014 convicting the applicants either of trafficking cells of human origin and of organising a criminal group with the aim of trafficking cells of human origin or of complicity to the aforementioned offences. The applicants alleged under Article 6 of the Convention that the proceedings were unfair because (i) they were not informed in detail of the specific acts which constituted the criminal offences each of them was charged with and of the specific period of time when they had committed them, (ii) the domestic courts failed to provide reasons for their judgments as they failed to examine the arguments raised by the applicants, on the one hand, with regard to the lack of detailed information concerning the charges brought against each of them and, on the other hand, with regard to the absence of national law provisions criminalising the acts for which they were convicted, (iii) none of the courts had heard some of the witnesses in the case on whose testimonies the conviction was based, and (iv) the principle of immediacy had been breached as none of the members of the benches of judges of the three domestic courts which delivered the conviction verdict and sentence in their case had heard directly the applicants and the witnesses who testified in court. The applicants alleged under Article 7 of the Convention that they were convicted of acts which did not constitute a criminal offence under national law at the time when they were committed and that their convictions were the result of an excessively broad interpretation of the provisions of the relevant criminal legislation.

QUESTIONS tO THE PARTIES

1.  Did the applicants have a fair hearing in the determination of the criminal charges against them in accordance with Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (a) and (d) of the Convention, in so far as, (i) the applicants were not informed in detail of the charges brought against them, (ii) the domestic courts failed to provide reasons for their judgments, (iii) none of the courts had heard some of the witnesses in the case on whose testimonies the conviction was based, and (iv) the principle of immediacy had been breached in respect of the applicants and the witnesses who testified in court (see, for example, Schatschaschwili v. Germany [GC], no. 9154/10, § 101, ECHR 2015)?

2.  Were the applicants convicted of acts which constituted a criminal offence under national law at the time when they were committed? In particular, were their convictions the result of an excessively broad interpretation of the provisions of the relevant criminal legislation in breach of Article 7 of the Convention (see, for example, Vasiliauskas v. Lithuania[GC], no. 35343/05, § 154, ECHR 2015)?

List of applicants