CYIL vol. 14 (2023)

CYIL 14 (2023) CONVICTION FOLLOWING AN APPEAL AGAINST AN ACQUITTAL IN CRIMINAL … it became convinced that the Court of First Instance was unable or unwilling to decide objectively and fairly. It therefore withdrew the case from the court pursuant to Section 262 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and assigned it to another court in its district – the Regional Court in Prague. 66 The complainant filed a constitutional complaint, which was found to be unfounded. The Regional Court in Prague found the complainant guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment. In the grounds for its judgment, the Court stated that, although the testimony of the main witness contained certain inconsistencies, it was more credible than the complainant’s allegations. Moreover, it was supported by the other evidence adduced. The complainant was successively unsuccessful in his appeal, appeal, and constitutional complaint, which was rejected in April 2012 for manifest lack of merit. Referring to its previous rulings, the Constitutional Court recalled that the High Court in Prague had legitimate reasons to entrust the hearing and decision of the case to another chamber and later to the court. 67 As regards the legal assessment, the complainant submits that the proceedings were unfair because the Court of Appeal arbitrarily removed the case from the competent court and remitted it to another court for hearing, which accepted as its own the Court of Appeal’s view of the credibility of a key witness, even though it had never heard the witness itself. Although the complainant alleged a violation of a number of partial guarantees of a fair trial, the ECtHR decided to examine his objections from the perspective of the fairness of the proceedings as a whole. 68 Indeed, compliance with the requirements of a fair trial must be assessed in each case in the light of the conduct of the proceedings as a whole and not on the basis of an isolated assessment of a single aspect or event, even though it cannot be excluded that this may in some cases have a decisive influence on the conclusion as to the overall fairness of the proceedings. 69 It is not for the ECtHR to review errors of law or fact that may have been committed by the national courts. Nor is it normally its role to assess what weight the national courts should have given to certain types of evidence, findings, or how to assess them. The Court should not act as a fourth instance and it is therefore not for it to question the national courts’ assessment of the evidence unless their conclusions can be regarded as arbitrary or manifestly unreasonable. 70 The courts of first and second instance dealt with the complainant’s case on a total of five occasions. The Constitutional Court was also involved in this process on three occasions. The High Court in Prague overturned the judgment of the Regional Court in Pilsen acquitting the complainant four times in a row. Referring to Article 262 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 71 the Supreme Court decided to withdraw the case and ordered it to be heard by a different panel of the same court, which heard the case twice. It later removed the case from 66 ECtHR decision in Tempel v. Czech Republic , § 25. 67 ECtHR decision in Tempel v Czech Republic , § 32. 68 ECtHR decision of the Grand Chamber in Ibrahim and Others v the United Kingdom of 13 September 2016, Application No. 50541/08, § 250. 69 ECtHR decision of the Grand Chamber in Beuze v Belgium of the of 9 November 2018, Application no. 71409/10, § 121. 70 ECtHR decision in Hodžić v Croatia of 4 April 2019, Application No 28932/14, § 58. 71 ŠÁMAL, P. Rozhodování o přikázání věci jinému senátu nebo soudu podle § 262 TrŘ ve světle judikatury Ústavního soudu (Deciding on the transfer of a case to another chamber or court under Section 262 of the Criminal Procedure Code in the light of the case-law of the Constitutional Court). Trestněprávní revue (Criminal Law Review), 2022, No. 3. pp. 127–128.

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