In today’s Chamber judgment in the case of Vinci Construction and GMT genie civil and services v. France (applications no. 63629/10 and 60567/10) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:

a violation of Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial) of the European Convention on Human Rights, and

a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life, for the home and for correspondence).

The case concerned inspections and seizures carried out by investigators from the Department for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention on the premises of two companies. The central question was the weighing up of interests relating, on the one hand, to the legitimate search for evidence of offences under competition law, and, on the other, respect for home, private life and correspondence, and particularly for the confidentiality of lawyer-client exchanges.

The Court considered that the safeguards provided by domestic law, regulating inspections and seizures conducted in the area of competition law, had not been applied in a practical and effective manner in this case, particularly since it was known that the documents seized contained correspondence between a lawyer and his client, which was subject to increased protection. The Court held that where a judge was called upon to examine reasoned allegations that specifically identified documents had been seized, although they were unrelated to the investigation or were covered by legal professional privilege, he or she was required to examine in detail the documents in question and to order their return where appropriate.

In today’s Chamber judgment in the case of S.C. Uzinexport S.A. v. Romania (application no. 43807/06) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:

a violation of Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair hearing) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The case concerned the dismissal of a claim by a company seeking to obtain default interest for late payment in respect of a sum owed to it by the State.

The Court took the view that there was no reason for the High Court of Cassation and Justice to have found the company’s claim out of time, when faced with sufficiently clear case law and legal standards which contradicted such a finding. Observing that the role of a supreme court was to resolve any divergences in case-law that were inherent in any judicial system, it concluded that the High Court’s decision in the applicant’s case was arbitrary and incompatible with the principle of legal certainty.

In its decision in the case of Constancia v. the Netherlands (application no. 73560/12) the European Court of Human Rights has unanimously declared the application inadmissible. The decision is final.

The case concerned Mr Constancia’s complaint about being detained as a person of “unsound mind” in the absence of a precise diagnosis of his mental state. Mr Constancia, who was convicted of the violent manslaughter of an eight-year old boy, had refused to be examined, making the assessment of his mental condition impossible.

The Court found in particular that Mr Constancia’s trial court, in the face of his complete refusal to cooperate, had been entitled to conclude from the information obtained – notably via existing psychiatric reports drawn up on previous occasions, the opinion of a psychologist and a psychiatrist on Mr Constancia’s complete case file, including the audio and audio-visual recordings of his interrogations, as well as the trial court’s own investigation of the case file – that he was suffering from a genuine mental disorder which was of a kind or degree warranting compulsory confinement.

This is the first case in which the Court allowed other existing information to be substituted for a medical examination of the applicant’s mental state.

In today’s Chamber judgment in the case of Gallardo Sanchez v. Italy (application no. 11620/07) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:

a violation of Article 5 § 1 (f) (right to liberty and security) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The case concerned the excessive length of a Venezuelan national’s detention in Italy with a view to his extradition to Greece.

The Court found that deprivation of liberty could be lawful in terms of domestic law but still arbitrary and thus contrary to the European Convention. Deprivation of liberty under Article 5 of the Convention was justified only for as long as extradition proceedings were being conducted.

Accordingly, where the proceedings were not conducted with due diligence the detention ceased to be justified.

The Court held in particular that in the context of an extradition allowing the requesting State to try a defendant, the criminal proceedings were still pending, the person detained with a view to extradition was presumed innocent, their ability to exercise their defence rights was considerably

limited, or even non-existent, and the authorities of the requested State were debarred from undertaking any examination of the case on the merits. For all those reasons the requested State was required to act with special diligence. However, Mr Gallardo Sanchez had been detained with a view to extradition for one and half years and the judicial phase.

In today’s Chamber judgment in the case of İsmail Sezer v. Turkey (application no. 36807/07) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:

a violation of Article 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the European Convention on Human Rights, and

a violation of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy)

The case concerned a disciplinary measure taken against a teacher, who held office in a union, for taking part in a panel discussion organised by a political party.

The Court found in particular that the reprimand imposed on Mr Sezer constituted a disproportionate restriction of his freedom of association as guaranteed by Article 11. The Court took account of the discretion shown by Mr Sezer during the panel discussion, his capacity as union officer on that occasion and the potentially chilling effect of such a sanction on the participation of other union members in events to defend their members’ interests.

The Court also found that the only remedy open to Mr Sezer to dispute the lawfulness of the sanction, namely an administrative appeal to a higher authority, had not constituted an effective remedy for the purposes of Article 13.

In today’s Chamber judgment in the case of Corbet and Others v. France (applications nos. 7494/11, 7493/11 and 7989/11) the European Court of Human Rights held:

by a majority, that the applicants’ complaint under Article 6 §§ 1 and 2 (right to a fair trial / right to be presumed innocent) of the European Convention on Human Rights was inadmissible;

unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 1 (right to liberty and security) on account of Mr Corbet’s detention on 24 July 2003.

The case concerned the applicants’ prosecution and conviction for misappropriating assets from the airline Air Liberté before it was put into compulsory liquidation.

The Court found that it had not been established that the use in criminal proceedings of statements made by the applicants before a parliamentary commission of inquiry had had any impact on their conviction or sentence.

The Court further held that Mr Corbet’s detention on 24 July 2003 had had no lawful basis and reiterated that at the time of the events there had been no provisions in French law governing detention from the expiry of a period in police custody until the detainee was brought before an investigating judge.