EU Law Blog

Advocate General Jacobs refers to these provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights (eg in the Olive Oil case, p 14 at para 39). This is what the provisions say:

Article 6 – Right to a fair trial
In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law. Judgment shall be pronounced publicly but the press and public may be excluded from all or part of the trial in the interests of morals, public order or national security in a democratic society, where the interests of juveniles or the protection of the private life of the parties so require, or to the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the court in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice.
Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.
Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights:
to be informed promptly, in a language which he understands and in detail, of the nature and cause of the accusation against him;
to have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence;
to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing or, if he has not sufficient means to pay for legal assistance, to be given it free when the interests of justice so require;
to examine or have examined witnesses against him and to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his behalf under the same conditions as witnesses against him;
to have the free assistance of an interpreter if he cannot understand or speak the language used in court.

Article 13 – Right to an effective remedy
Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in this Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.

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It seems that Turkey has dropped the case against Orhan Pamuk for denigrating Turkishness by writing about the Armenian genocide. The case was written about as indicating that Turkey did not protect speech sufficiently for membership in the EU.

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Reciting the EU’s commitment to human rights protection, the European Parliament has set up a (temporary) committee to investigate whether the CIA has operated detention centres in the EU:

The temporary committee’s mandate will be to collect and analyse information to find out:
- whether the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or other US agents or intelligence services of other third countries have carried out abductions, “extraordinary rendition”, detentions at secret sites, torture, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners on EU territory or in acceding or candidate countries, or have used this territory to these ends, for example by through flights to or from such countries;
- whether such actions, which would have been carried out as part of the fight against terrorism, could be considered a violation of Article 6 of the EU Treaty, of certain provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights, of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and of other international treaties and agreements, including EU-US agreements on extradition;
- whether EU citizens or the candidate countries, or any other person entitled to protection from the EU have been detained;
- whether EU Member States or institutions have been involved or have been complicit in the illegal deprivation of the liberty of individuals.

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