ECtHR, XX v. France, No. 78477/11, 2017
- 2017
- France
Topics
Membership in a terrorist organisation Violent extremismLegal bases
European Convention on Human Rights Protocol No. 7 to the Convention (ECHR) for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, ETS No.117Courts
European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)Laws
Right to a fair trial Right to lifeFacts
The applicant, and Algerian national, was extradited from the UK to France on charges related to a series of terrorist attacks in 1995 in Paris. He complained about an alleged error in the reasoning of the judgment delivered by a special bench of the Assize Court of Appeal which convicted him. He also complained about a violation of the ne bis in idem principle (no legal action can be instituted twice for the same cause of action) owing to his criminal conviction despite his previous final conviction by the ordinary criminal courts.
Legal grounds
Article 2 of the ECHR, Article 6§1 of the ECHR; Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 of the ECHR.
Findings
The Court held that there had been no violation of Article 6§1. It found in particular that the applicant in the present case had benefited from sufficient safeguards to enable him to understand his conviction by the special bench of the Assize Court of Appeal, considering that in view of the combined consideration of the three closely reasoned committal orders, the discussions during the hearings of the applicant, as well as the many detailed questions put to the Assize Court, he could not claim not to know the reasons of his conviction. The Court also held that there had been no violation of Article 4 of Protocol No. 7, finding that the applicant had not been prosecuted or convicted in the framework of the criminal proceedings for the facts which had been substantially the same as those of which he had been finally convicted under the prior summary proceedings. The Court reiterated in particular that it was legitimate for the Contracting States to take a firm stance against persons involved in terrorist acts, which it could in no way condone, and that the crimes of complicity in murder and attempted murder of which the applicant had been convicted amounted to serious violations of the fundamental rights under Article 2 of the Convention, in respect of which States are required to pursue and punish the perpetrators, subject to compliance with the procedural guarantees of the persons concerned, as was the situation for the applicant in the present case.