Articolul 6 din Convenție (materie penală). Neîncălcare. Imparțialitate. Același judecător a făcut parte din două complete de apel în două cauze disjunse între care exista o legătură și care îl priveau pe reclamant.
Article 6 of the Convention (in Criminal Matters). Noninfringement. Impartiality. The same judge was a part of two appeal panels of two separate cases, between which there was a connection and which concerned the applicant.

Summary/Abstract: Article 6 para. (1) of the Convention requires the court to be impartial. Impartiality denotes the absence of any prejudice or bias. According to the E.C.H.R. jurisprudence, to establish whether a court is impartial within the meaning of art. 6 para. (1), there are two tests: the first (subjective) test involves the establishing the personal conviction of a certain judge in a given case. The personal impartiality of the judge must be presumed until proven otherwise. As regards the second (objective) test, it presupposes that, regardless of the personal conduct of the judge, there were facts that could be ascertained and which could raise doubts about the judge's impartiality. With regard to the subjective test, the Court was not convinced that the judge who was a part of both panels that judged, during the appeal, the plaintiff's cases would have shown, during the second trial, a lack of impartiality with the plaintiff . From the perspective of the objective test, the Court considered that there were no objective reasons for the applicant's concern regarding the impartiality of the judge. The latter made a request for abstention, as a precautionary measure, which was rejected by a perfectly reasoned decision. The fact that another judge who was part of the same appeal panels was removed from the second trial was not considered by the Court to be determinative, as this decision was taken for several reasons, in particular the conduct of that judge who – has expressed its opinion on the second cause under appeal. Except for the similarity between the two criminal cases in respect of the applicant accused of committing economic crimes, the Court considered that there are no objective reasons to justify his doubts regarding the impartiality of the judge who was part of the appeal panel, during the second trial.

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