Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights is a provision of the European Convention

European Convention on Human Rights

The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms is an international treaty to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by the then newly formed Council of Europe, the convention entered into force on 3 September 1953...

 which protects the right to a fair trial

Right to a fair trial

The right to fair trial is an essential right in all countries respecting the rule of law. A trial in these countries that is deemed unfair will typically be restarted, or its verdict voided....

. In criminal law

Criminal law

Criminal law, is the body of law that relates to crime. It might be defined as the body of rules that defines conduct that is not allowed because it is held to threaten, harm or endanger the safety and welfare of people, and that sets out the punishment to be imposed on people who do not obey...

 cases and cases to determine civil rights it protects the right to a public hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal within reasonable time, the presumption of innocence

Presumption of innocence

The presumption of innocence, sometimes referred to by the Latin expression Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat, is the principle that one is considered innocent until proven guilty. Application of this principle is a legal right of the accused in a criminal trial, recognised in many...

, and other minimum rights for those charged in a criminal case (adequate time and facilities to prepare their defence, access to legal representation, right to examine witnesses against them or have them examined, right to the free assistance of an interpreter).

Text

Article 6 reads as follows.

Nature

The majority of Convention violations that the Court finds today are excessive delays, in violation of the "reasonable time" requirement, in civil and criminal proceedings before national courts, mostly in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 and France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. Under the "independent tribunal" requirement, the Court has ruled that military judges in Turkish state security courts are incompatible with Article 6.

Another significant set of violations concerns the "confrontation clause" of Article 6 (i.e. the right to examine witnesses or have them examined). In this respect, problems of compliance with Article 6 may arise when national laws allow the use in evidence of the testimonies of absent, anonymous and vulnerable witnesses.

Cases

• "Heaney and McGuinness v. Ireland" (2000) - Case involving two Irish citizens imprisoned for choosing to remain silent and to use their rights not to incriminate themselves when suspected of an IRA-related terrorist act. "The Court, accordingly, finds that the security and public order concerns relied on by the Government cannot justify a provision which extinguishes the very essence of the applicants' rights to silence and against self-incrimination guaranteed by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention."
• "Perez v France" (2004) - "the right to a fair trial holds so prominent a place in a democratic society that there can be no justification for interpreting Article 6 § 1 of the Convention restrictively"
• "Garcia Ruiz v Spain" - The Court has tended to follow the Fourth Instance doctrine, stating that 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.
• "Van Kück v Germany" (2003) - the court took the approach of considering the merits of the case and in finding a breach based on the fact that the German courts had failed to follow the Strasburg courts approach to medical necessity on hormone replacement therapy
  Hormone replacement therapy
  Hormone replacement therapy may refer to:*Hormone replacement therapy *Hormone replacement therapy *Hormone replacement therapy *Androgen replacement therapy -See also:...
  
   and gender reassignment surgery
  Sex reassignment surgery
  Sex reassignment surgery is a term for the surgical procedures by which a person's physical appearance and function of their existing sexual characteristics are altered to resemble...
  
  . This was in line and an expansion of the earlier ruling in Camilleri v Malta 2000 in which the courts were more willing to consider the merits of the courts decision which compromised fairness, stating that the decision had been 'arbitrary or manifestly unreasonable'.
• "Khamidov v Russia" (2007)- the court considered 'abundant evidence' contradicting the finding of the national court thus resulting in an unreasonableness of this conclusion is so striking and palpable on the face of it' that the decision was 'grossly arbitrary'. Thus once again showing the courts changing stance in considering the actual merits of a case. This therefore illustrates the court is developing an appellate function as opposed to a review function.

The Convention applies to contracting parties only, however in cases where a contracting party court has to confirm the ruling of a non-contracting state, they retain a duty to act within the confines of article 6, such was the case in Pellegrini v Italy 2001 case concerning the application of Vatican ecclesiastical court ruling on a divorce case.

1. In the determination of criminal charges
'Criminal' - Engel v Netherlands set out 3 criteria to determine meaning of criminal;
a) classification of the offense in the law of the respondent state, b) the nature of the offence; c) the possible punishment.
Funke v France states that if the contracting state classifies the act as criminal, then it is automatically so for the purposes of article 6.

• John Murray v United Kingdom (1996) 22 EHRR 29
• Benthem v Netherlands
  Benthem v Netherlands
  Benthem v Netherlands, in Dutch literature referred to as Benthem, was a legal case argued before the European Court of Human Rights, between the Netherlands and the Dutch national Albert Benthem....
  
  (ECtHR
  European Court of Human Rights
  The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...
  
  October 23, 1985)

Literature

• N. Mole, C. Harby The right to a fair trial. A guide to the implementation of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2006