BOUŠA proti České republice

FIFTH SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 34067/23
Ondřej BOUŠA
against the Czech Republic

The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 3 June 2025 as a Chamber composed of:

María Elósegui, President,
Kateřina Šimáčková,
Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström,
Georgios A. Serghides,
Gilberto Felici,
Andreas Zünd,
Diana Sârcu, judges,
and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 1 September 2023,

Having regard to the decision to give notice of the application to the respondent Government,

Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

1. The applicant, Mr Ondřej Bouša, is a Czech national who was born in 1997. At the time of the lodging of the present application, he was serving a prison sentence in Pankrác Prison in Prague. He was represented by Mr P. Kohút, a lawyer practising in Prague.

2. The Czech Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr P. Konůpka, of the Ministry of Justice.

The circumstances of the case

3. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.

1. Background to the case

4. On 9 August 2020 a criminal prosecution was brought against K.B., M.P. and D.K. for manufacturing and dealing in illegal drugs.

5. During his questioning on 9 October 2020 and on 19 April 2021 K.B. stated, inter alia, that on two occasions he had bought several thousand ecstasy pills from a person who was identified as the applicant.

6. On 5 March 2021 a criminal prosecution was brought against the applicant on account of manufacturing and dealing in illegal drugs. He exercised his right to remain silent.

7. On 24 June 2021 a formal indictment was filed against the applicant and the above-mentioned co-accused; all of them were committed for trial in the Hradec Králové Regional Court. According to the indictment the applicant had sold a high number of ecstasy pills to K.B. on several occasions between autumn 2018 and October 2019 (the last time also in part exchange for a car).

8. All the accused, including the applicant, attended a court hearing on 9 September 2021, where they indicated their willingness to enter into plea‑bargain negotiations with the prosecutor. M.P. and D.K. reached such agreements (independently of one another), while the applicant and K.B. remained undecided.

9. At the hearing of 14 September 2021, which was attended by the applicant and his lawyer, the prosecutor stated that he had struck a plea‑bargain agreement with K.B. The applicant, who refused to plead guilty, was heard by the court and stated that he had met K.B. only with a view to purchasing a car – which he had finally bought on 22 October 2019; he also proposed that P.K. and J.F. be heard as defence witnesses. The court then heard K.B. (in his capacity as an accused person), who gave a statement that was consistent with his statements of 9 October 2020 and 19 April 2021.

10. The applicant’s case was then separated into different sets of proceedings and adjourned until December 2021.

2. Separate conviction of co-accused

11. On the same date – that is, on 14 September 2021 – after the applicant and his lawyer had left the courtroom, the Regional Court issued a judgment by which it endorsed the plea‑bargain agreements reached by the applicant’s co-accused and the prosecutor. It found K.B., M.P. and D.K. guilty of manufacturing and dealing in illegal drugs in that they had been – together with the separately prosecuted applicant – trafficking illegal drugs with a view to their further distribution. The factual description of their criminal activity in the operative part of the judgment indicated, with regard to “K.B., together with the separately prosecuted [applicant]” (who was identified by his full name and date of birth), that the applicant had, on an unspecified date in autumn 2018, sold 1,500 ecstasy pills to K.B. (who had intended to sell them on). K.B. was sentenced to seven and a half years’ imprisonment.

12. All the parties having waived their right to appeal, the judgment did not contain any reasoning.

3. Applicant’s trial

13. On 6 December 2021 the Regional Court, sitting as a chamber composed of the same presiding judge and the same two lay assessors that had heard the case of the above co-accused, held a hearing in respect of the applicant’s case; the hearing was attended by the applicant and his lawyer. The court heard the defence witness P.K., who stated that a certain O. from Prague (who had offered him ecstasy pills) was a different person from the O. (that is, the applicant) who had been interested in purchasing the above-mentioned car from K.B.; it further read out the statement of a witness, D.H., and examined written evidence from the file concerning the applicant’s former co-accused. The hearing was adjourned in order that the defence witness J.F. could be heard at a later date.

14. At the hearing of 9 March 2022, which was attended by the applicant and his lawyer, the court heard K.B. – that is to say the applicant’s former co‑accused – who was questioned as a witness and who maintained the statements that he had previously made in his capacity as an accused. The court also heard the defence witness J.F., who stated that he had brought the applicant, in autumn 2019, to a meeting with a person (who had been unknown to him) from whom the applicant had bought a car. The applicant denied having sold any illegal drugs and maintained that he had met K.B. only with a view to buying a car.

15. After a twelve-minute suspension of the hearing for the purposes of allowing the chamber to deliberate, the court issued a judgment by which it convicted the applicant of manufacturing and dealing in illegal drugs, consisting of on three occasions selling ecstasy pills to K.B. (in exchange for money and also a car) – including the occasion described in the judgment of 14 September 2021 (see paragraph 11 above). The applicant was given an aggregate prison sentence of eight years.

The court reasoned, in particular, that the applicant’s statement that he had met K.B. solely with a view to purchasing a car was reliably refuted by the available evidence – in particular having regard to the temporal context of the car purchase (which had been concluded only at the beginning of June 2019) and the convincing statements of K.B. In this respect, the court emphasised that K.B. had identified the applicant spontaneously when he had first been questioned on 9 October 2020 (when the police had not yet had any knowledge of the applicant’s involvement), and that his statements had remained unchanged and consistent throughout the proceedings (including after his conviction, when he had been questioned as a witness); moreover, those statements had been corroborated by the witness statement given by D.H. Furthermore, the court considered as highly unreliable the statements given by P.K. (see paragraph 13 above) and J.F., which appeared illogical, given the context of the established facts.

16. In his subsequent appeal, the applicant – relying on the in dubio pro reo principle and the presumption of innocence – complained that the Regional Court had erred when hearing K.B. on 9 March 2022 as a witness and not as an accused person, and that it had made a one-sided assessment of the evidence and had not established his guilt beyond reasonable doubts.

17. On 15 July 2022 the Prague High Court dismissed the appeal lodged by the applicant, having found that the rights of the defence had been fully respected and their arguments refuted, and that there had been no procedural defects in the proceedings before the Regional Court. It considered, inter alia, that in view of the fact that K.B. had been heard as an accused person on 14 September 2021 (when he had clearly implicated the applicant), there had been no need to hear him as a witness, but acknowledged that this had been done in order to be able to address in detail to the applicant’s defence arguments. The court emphasised that K.B. had not at any point changed his statement regarding the applicant and that no motive had been found to indicate that he could have implicated him falsely.

18. The applicant lodged an appeal on points of law, complaining, firstly, that there had been a discordance between the factual findings made by the lower courts and the evidence examined and, secondly, that the High Court had held the appellate hearing in his absence, having dismissed a request that he had lodged (citing health issues) for an adjournment.

19. On 21 December 2022 the Supreme Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal on points of law as being manifestly ill-founded.

20. In his subsequent constitutional appeal the applicant complained, under Article 6 §§ 1 and 2 of the Convention, that by its judgment delivered in respect of his co-accused’s case the Regional Court had breached his right to be presumed innocent, which had compromised that court’s impartiality in his own trial; he also asserted that the criminal proceedings against him had not been fair.

21. By its decision no. IV. ÚS 878/23 of 2 May 2023 the Constitutional Court dismissed the appeal lodged by the applicant, holding that after the applicant’s case had had to be disjoined because his co-accused had concluded plea-bargain agreements, any change in the composition of the Regional Court’s chamber subsequently hearing his case would have amounted to a violation of his right to a lawful judge or would have protracted the proceedings. It further observed that the applicant had been convicted on the basis of K.B.’s detailed statements, which had remained consistent throughout the proceedings and had been corroborated by other evidence.

RELEVANT DOMESTIC LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND PRACTICE

1. Code of Criminal Procedure

22. The concept of plea bargaining as an alternative way of dealing with criminal cases was introduced into the Czech Code of Criminal Procedure with effect from 1 April 2012. It is governed by Articles 175a, 175b and 314o‑314s, which, in sum, provide that a prosecutor and an accused person may reach an agreement whereby the accused declares that he has committed the criminal offence for which he or she is being prosecuted and waives his right to a trial, in exchange for a more lenient sentence. Such an agreement must be endorsed by the court.

Under Article 175a §§ 1 and 3, plea-bargain negotiations may only be entered into if the results of the relevant investigation sufficiently demonstrate that the act in question indeed occurred, that it amounted to a criminal offence and that it was committed by the person charged; agreement can only be reached if the person charged pleaded guilty and if there are no reasonable doubts about the veracity of such a plea.

23. Article 23 § 1 allows a court to separate the case of one of several co‑accused from the joint proceedings in the interests of accelerating the proceedings or on other important grounds.

2. Domestic practice concerning plea bargaining

24. The 2022 Report of the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office observed, with reference to the Court’s judgment in Mucha v. Slovakia (no. 63703/19, §§ 57‑58, 25 November 2021), that if plea-bargain agreements are struck with the accused in grouped cases and these are subsequently submitted to the court for endorsement, the facts must be described in such a way as to avoid violating the principle of the presumption of innocence.

25. On 27 January 2023 the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office published Guidelines on Plea-bargaining Procedure for prosecutors; inter alia, the Guidelines deal with a situation whereby only some co-accused are ready to enter into plea-bargain negotiations. In such a case, the pivotal issue to be addressed by the prosecutor is whether to continue conducting joint proceedings involving all of the accused (Article 20 of the Code of Criminal Procedure) or whether to exercise the option to separate proceedings against any of them from the joint proceedings (Article 23 § 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). Referencing the Court’s judgment in Mucha (cited above), the guidelines indicate that particular attention must be paid to the description of the offence – especially if one and the same court is to decide both on the endorsement of a plea-bargain agreement and on the guilt of the remaining accused. It is necessary to ensure that those of the accused who have not entered into a plea-bargain agreement are not referred to as perpetrators; instead, it must explicitly be stated that they have not yet been convicted or that proceedings against them are pending.

26. In its decision no. IV. ÚS 1340/22 of 26 April 2023, the Constitutional Court deemed that – given that the court in question had, in a judgment endorsing the plea-bargain agreement of other co-accused, expressly referred to the applicant as a person who was being prosecuted separately – it was clear from that reference that the criminal proceedings against the applicant had still been pending and the court had not in the course of the plea-bargain proceedings decided on the latter’s guilt. The fact that the applicant had not been named as a guilty party in the judgment endorsing the plea-bargain agreement and that the court had by that judgment ruled on the guilt of the co-accused (who had described the applicant’s alleged activities) had not breached the applicant’s rights under the Convention.

27. In its decision no. 11 Tdo 1025/2022 of 23 March 2023, the Supreme Court, referring to the Court’s judgments in Mucha (cited above) and Adamčo v. Slovakia (no. 45084/14, 12 November 2019) and referring to the principle of the presumption of innocence, upheld objections of bias raised by the appellants on the grounds that the description of facts in the plea‑bargain agreements reached with their co-accused had implicated the appellants as having participated in the commission of the offence before a final decision had been reached in their case. In the agreement struck by the co-accused, the appellants had been identified as accomplices, their specific role in the commission of the offence had been precisely described and they had been obliged to pay compensation to the civil parties alongside with those of their co-accused who had entered into plea-bargain agreements.

28. In its decision no. 5 Tdo 459/2023 of 7 June 2023, the Supreme Court, referring to the Court’s judgments in Mucha (cited above) and Adamčo (cited above), upheld the objection of bias raised by the appellant on account of the bias demonstrated by the fact that the first-instance court had ruled both on his guilt and on the plea-bargain agreement of his co-accused. The court noted that although the judgment endorsing the plea-bargain agreement had not directly established the appellant’s guilt, the wording used in the description of the circumstances of the case in question – which had related exclusively to the appellant’s involvement in the criminal activity – had made it clear that the court had failed to reflect the procedural status of the appellant as an accused person whose guilt remained to be determined.

29. In its decision no. 8 Tdo 546/2023 of 19 September 2023, the Supreme Court, referring to the Court’s judgment in Mucha (cited above), held that if the same court was involved both in a decision on the guilt of some co-accused and in a later decision on the guilt of other co-accused, then that court was required to prevent the arising of objectively justified doubts as to its impartiality. In that regard, it had, inter alia, to take care when referring to any accused person whose guilt was not being determined and his specific participation in a joint criminal activity, in order to make it clear that the guilt of that accused person was not under consideration; the findings of fact and the account of that person’s participation in the criminal activity had to be worded in such a way as to avoid any possible pre-judgment regarding the guilt of that person. In the case at hand, the Supreme Court found that the trial court had not satisfied the said requirements – primarily because it had not at all indicated that the individuals in question were persons whose guilt was yet to be determined in a separate decision and in respect of whom it thus could not be assumed that the elements of the offence had been made out. Furthermore, the court had failed to revise the description of the offence committed so as not to specify in which manner those persons had participated in the criminal activity of the person already convicted. On the contrary, the court had repeatedly employed a wording that had conveyed a relatively clear message that all the co-accused had been specifically involved in the criminal activity in question.

COMPLAINTS

30. The applicant complained under Article 6 §§ 1 and 2 of the Convention that in describing his actions in the wording of the ruling that it had delivered in his co-accused’s case, the Regional Court had breached his right to be presumed innocent, which had compromised that court’s impartiality in his subsequent trial; he also asserted that the criminal proceedings against him had not been fair.

THE LAW

1. The Government’s preliminary objections

31. With regard to the applicant’s complaint of the lack of impartiality of the tribunal, the Government objected, firstly, that the applicant had never raised an objection of bias before the Regional Court. Had he done so, the courts would have examined (in line with the case-law of the Czech Supreme Court – see paragraph 27-28 above) whether the court that had endorsed his co-accused’s plea-bargain agreements had also taken a definitive position on his involvement in the offence. Secondly, the applicant had failed to raise that complaint in his appeal and appeal on points of law.

32. Concerning the alleged breach of the presumption of innocence, the Government observed that since the co-accused’s plea-bargain agreements had been endorsed before the applicant’s case had been disjoined, the applicant had been acquainted with the contents thereof and could have challenged – during the criminal proceedings against him – the failure to respect the principle of the presumption of innocence in his regard. However, he had only raised that issue before the Constitutional Court.

The Government also objected that the applicant should have sought compensation under the State Liability Act for any non-pecuniary damage suffered on account of the alleged violation of the presumption of innocence in the Regional Court’s judgment endorsing the co-accused’s plea-bargain agreements.

33. Citing the respective wording of his appeal and appeal on points of law (see paragraphs 16 and 18 above), the applicant submitted in response that he had raised before the relevant courts complaints regarding the lack of impartiality and breach of the presumption of innocence – at least in substance. This was corroborated by the fact that the Constitutional Court had dealt with those complaints on the merits.

34. He further argued that an objection of bias did not constitute an effective remedy because, inter alia, it was ruled on by the judge whose bias was being challenged. Moreover, a court in such a situation should examine its own possible bias of its own motion, which the Regional Court had failed to do – thereby indicating that it had not considered itself to be biased.

35. The applicant also observed that he had not availed himself of any direct remedy against the plea-bargain agreements because he had not participated in the relevant proceedings and had left the courtroom before the judgment endorsing the agreements had been issued (see paragraph 11 above). He submitted, lastly, that lodging a civil claim under the State Liability Act would have been inappropriate, since it could not have afforded redress for unfairly conducted criminal proceedings and an unlawful conviction.

36. The Court does not find it necessary to examine the Government’s preliminary objections, because the present case is in any event inadmissible for the reasons stated below.

2. Alleged violation of Article 6 §§ 1 and 2 of the Convention

37. The applicant complained that the Regional Court had expressed its view on his guilt in the ruling that it had delivered in his co-accused’s case, which had compromised that court’s impartiality in the subsequent proceedings against him. He relied on Article 6 §§ 1 and 2 of the Convention which, in so far as relevant, reads as follows:

“1. In the determination of ... any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair ... hearing ... by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law.

2. Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.”

1. The parties’ submissions

(a) The Government

38. Referring to the Court’s case-law, the Government submitted at the outset that the Regional Court dealing in the applicant’s case had been impartial and the fact that it had been heard by the same chamber as that which had heard the case of the applicant’s co-accused was not sufficient to cast doubts on its impartiality. In this respect the Government pointed to the Constitutional Court’s view (see paragraph 22 above) that proceeding differently would have amounted to a violation of the applicant’s right to a lawful judge or would have protracted the proceedings.

39. The Government further argued that the Regional Court’s judgment endorsing the plea-bargain agreements – which had preceded the Court’s judgment in Mucha v. Slovakia (no. 63703/19, §§ 57-58, 25 November 2021), and which had since been duly implemented (see paragraphs 24-29 above) – had required that reference be made to the applicant, since the criminal activities of all the co-accused had been interconnected and had related to each other. The applicant’s conduct had had to be clearly recounted in order that the actions of the persons involved – in particular, K.B – could be comprehensively described. It had therefore been impossible to omit mention of him entirely from that judgment (here the Government referred to Bauras v. Lithuania, no. 56795/13, 31 October 2017), but the reference to him had been made only to the extent necessary. Acknowledging that the applicant had been referred to by his full name, the Government maintained that this had been owing to the fact that all the co-accused had been first tried in joint proceedings and that their identity had been known to the court.

40. The Government submitted, furthermore, that given that the summary judgment in question had not contained any reasoning (see paragraph 12 above), the findings of fact and law set out therein had been minimal compared to the findings set out in the judgment concerning the applicant, and it could not be inferred from its acceptance of the plea-bargain agreements that the court had found or considered the applicant to be guilty of the charges laid against him. This was all the more so given that the reference to the applicant had always been accompanied by the observation that he was being prosecuted separately and that no final judgment had yet been delivered in his case. Thus, the Regional Court had avoided, as far as possible, giving the impression that it had prejudged the applicant’s guilt (here the Government referred to Karaman v. Germany, no. 17103/10, §§ 69‑70, 27 February 2014).

41. The Government emphasised that, in the subsequent separate proceedings against the applicant, the Regional Court had been in no way bound by the judgment endorsing the plea-bargain agreements of the applicant’s co-accused and that, unlike in the case of Mucha (cited above)(§ 56), the co-accused’s convictions had not constituted a “substantive and homogeneous part” of his case. With the aim of reaching its own findings, the court had held two trial hearings at which it had engaged in thorough evidence-taking, had heard the applicant, K.B. and the defence witnesses P.K. and J.F., and had read out the above-mentioned witness statement given by D.H. (see paragraphs 13 and 14 above); the applicant had had the opportunity to question the witnesses and to challenge the evidence against him. The court had then very carefully reasoned its judgment, emphasising the consistency of K.B.’s statements (which had not constituted the only incriminating evidence) and explaining why it considered it to be reliable. Moreover, given that K.B. had been sentenced to seven and a half years’ imprisonment – that is, only half a year less than the lower limit set out by the Criminal Code – he could not be said to have derived a significant advantage from his plea bargain. The Government also noted that the higher courts had duly addressed the applicant’s objection that K.B. should not have been heard as a witness. Lastly, the fact that the final deliberations had lasted only twelve minutes was, in the Government’s view, devoid of any significance since the members of the chamber had been conferring on an ongoing basis and the last deliberations had only been devoted to a final articulation of the judges’ opinions and to a final vote on guilt and punishment.

(b) The applicant

42. The applicant submitted that his doubts about the impartiality of the Regional Court were objectively justified because he had not only been found guilty by the same chamber that had previously convicted his co-accused in the plea-bargain proceedings, but the judgment endorsing the plea-bargain agreements had also contained a detailed assessment of his involvement in K.B.’s criminal activities and an unambiguous description of the offence committed by him (together with his personal details) – thereby presuming his guilt. He added in that connection that the mention of him being “separately prosecuted” had not changed anything in respect of the fact that no reference had been made to his innocence or absence of any proof of his guilt.

43. The applicant further argued that the bias had operated not only in relation to his guilt but also in relation to the evidence, since both of the defence witnesses – who, under pain of perjury had confirmed his version of the events – had been found unreliable (see paragraph 15 in fine above). On the other hand, the statements given by K.B. (which had constituted the only incriminating evidence) had been deemed to constitute an absolute truth – even though the fact that he had first been heard as an accused person meant, in view of the principle of non-self-incrimination, that he could not have been found to have committed perjury when he had been later heard as a witness. This imbalance – combined with the fact that the final deliberations had only lasted twelve minutes – showed in his view that the Regional Court’s assessment of the available evidence had not been critical enough but had rather been intended to fit in with the findings reached in the plea-bargain proceedings concerning his co-accused (including its preconceived opinion regarding his own guilt). The applicant emphasised in that connection that when the Regional Court had ruled on his case, it must have already been aware of the Court’s judgment in Mucha (cited above).

2. The Court’s assessment

(a) Principles related to impartiality

44. General principles in respect of impartiality – including those relating to impartiality within the context of a judge’s participation in previous decisions concerning the same subject matter – have been set out in the Court’s judgment in Meng v. Germany (no. 1128/17, §§ 42-52, 16 February 2021). The Court would nonetheless note that in applying the subjective test, it has consistently held that the personal impartiality of a judge must be presumed until there is proof to the contrary (see also Morel v. France, no. 34130/96, § 41, ECHR 2000‑VI; Kyprianou v. Cyprus [GC], no. 73797/01, § 119, ECHR 2005‑XIII; and Miminoshvili v. Russia, no. 20197/03, § 113, 28 June 2011).

45. Regarding the objective test, the principles most relevant to the issue at the heart of the present case can be summarised as follows (see Mucha, cited above, § 49, 18 March 2021, and Gorše v. Slovenia, no. 47186/21, § 50, 6 March 2025, not final):

- The mere fact that a trial judge has made previous decisions concerning the same offence cannot be held in itself to justify fears as to his impartiality. Likewise, the mere fact that a judge has already ruled on similar but unrelated criminal charges or that he or she has already tried a co-accused in separate criminal proceedings is not in itself sufficient to cast doubt on that judge’s impartiality in a subsequent case.

- An issue as to the judge’s impartiality arises, however, where the earlier judgment already contains a detailed assessment of the role of a person who has been charged in relation to an offence committed by several persons but who has not yet been tried (and, in particular, where the earlier judgment contains a specific categorisation of the involvement of the applicant in the offence or a clear determination that the person yet to be tried has fulfilled all the criteria required to be found to have committed a criminal offence). Given the circumstances of the specific case, that would be seen to prejudge the issue of guilt of the person on trial in the subsequent proceedings and would thus lead to objectively justified doubts that the domestic court had a preconceived view of the merits of the defence of that person at the outset of his or her trial.

(b) Principles related to the presumption of innocence

46. The Court reiterates that the presumption of innocence enshrined in Article 6 § 2 is one of the elements of a fair criminal trial that is required by paragraph 1 of that Article (see, among many other authorities, Allenet de Ribemont v. France, 10 February 1995, § 35, Series A no. 308, and Natsvlishvili and Togonidze v. Georgia, no. 9043/05, § 103, ECHR 2014 (extracts)). Article 6 § 2 prohibits the premature expression by the tribunal of the opinion that the person “charged with a criminal offence” is guilty before he or she has been so proved according to law (see, among many other authorities, Minelli v. Switzerland, 25 March 1983, § 37, Series A no. 62, and Peša v. Croatia, no. 40523/08, § 138, 8 April 2010).

47. The Court reiterates in this connection that a fundamental distinction must be made between a statement that someone is merely suspected of having committed a crime and a clear declaration, in the absence of a final conviction, that an individual has committed the crime in question. The use of language is of critical importance in this respect (see Daktaras v. Lithuania, no. 42095/98, § 41, ECHR 2000-X; Böhmer v. Germany, no. 37568/97, § 56, 3 October 2002; and Khuzhin and Others v. Russia, no. 13470/02, § 94, 23 October 2008). The Court has further pointed out that whether a statement made by a public official is in breach of the principle of the presumption of innocence must be determined in the context of particular circumstances in which the disputed statement was made (see Daktaras, cited above, § 43; A.L. v. Germany, no. 72758/01, § 31, 28 April 2005; and Paulikas v. Lithuania, no. 57435/09, § 55, 24 January 2017). When regard is had to the nature and context of the particular proceedings, even the use of some unfortunate language may not be decisive. The Court’s case-law provides some examples of instances where no violation of Article 6 § 2 has been found, even though the language used by domestic authorities and courts was criticised (see Nealon and Hallam v. the United Kingdom [GC], nos. 32483/19 and 35049/19, § 176, 11 June 2024, and Allen v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 25424/09, § 126, ECHR 2013, and the cases cited therein).

48. The Court has further recognised that the principle of the presumption of innocence may in theory also be infringed on account of premature expressions of a suspect’s guilt made within the scope of a judgment against separately prosecuted co‑suspects (see Karaman, cited above, § 42). It has nevertheless accepted that in complex criminal proceedings involving several persons who cannot be tried together, references by the trial court to the participation of third persons, who may later be tried separately, may be indispensable for the assessment of the guilt of those who are on trial. Criminal courts are bound to establish the facts of the case that are relevant for the assessment of the legal responsibility of the accused as accurately and precisely as possible, and they cannot present established facts as mere allegations or suspicions. This also applies to facts related to the involvement of third persons. However, if such facts have to be introduced, courts should avoid giving more information than is necessary for the assessment of the legal responsibility of those persons who are accused in the trial before it (see Karaman, cited above, § 64; Mucha, cited above, § 58; and C.O. v. Germany, no. 16678/22, § 60, 17 September 2024, and further references therein).

(c) Application of these principles to the present case

49. The Court notes that the applicant’s complaints stem from the fact that the Regional Court, which convicted him of manufacturing and dealing in illegal drugs, had previously convicted his co‑accused in relation to essentially the same facts on the basis of plea-bargain agreements – and had referred to his role in the offence in the operative part of its judgment endorsing those plea-bargain agreements. Having regard to the interconnected nature of the issues raised by the applicant – namely, the alleged lack of impartiality of the trial court and the presumption of innocence, the Court will examine the two aspects together.

50. At the outset, the Court observes that while the criminal prosecution for manufacturing and dealing in illegal drugs had been first brought against K.B., M.P. and D.K. and only later against the applicant, all the accused were committed to trial together and subject to a single set of proceedings during a certain period (see paragraphs 4-7 above). It was because the applicant’s co-accused entered into plea-bargain agreements that the applicant’s case was later split into separate proceedings (see paragraph 10 above), in line with the Czech Code of Criminal procedure (see paragraphs 23 and 25 above).

51. The Court further notes that the court chamber that convicted the applicant consisted of the same presiding judge and the same two lay assessors as those that had heard the case of his co-accused (see paragraph 13 above). As a professional judge, the president of the chamber must be considered to have been better trained and well able, given her experience, to disengage herself from the discussions and findings of the previous proceedings against K.B., M.P. and D.K. (see Meng, cited above, § 55, and Gorše, cited above, § 56). The Court, having regard to the material before it, finds that there is nothing to suggest that the presiding judge or the lay assessors acted with any personal prejudice in the proceedings against the applicant. Consequently, their personal impartiality must be presumed (the subjective test, see paragraph 44 above).

52. The Court also observes that in the proceedings against the applicant the court chamber itself examined witnesses and documentary evidence and that in arriving at its judgment convicting the applicant it was required to reach its own findings of fact and law on the basis of the evidence examined in the proceedings against him (see paragraph 41 above; compare also Mucha, cited above, § 51).

53. However, while these are important elements in the examination of the question of whether the trial court met the requirement of impartiality under Article 6 § 1 in the applicant’s case, those elements do not exempt the Court from the duty to examine whether the judgment endorsing the plea‑bargain agreements of K.B., M.P. and D.K. contained findings that actually prejudged the issue of the applicant’s guilt and whether it undermined, in the objective sense, the impartiality of the court chamber that convicted the applicant.

54. In this connection the Court should examine two principal issues – namely, whether it was necessary to refer to the participation of the applicant in the criminal offence for which K.B. was convicted in the judgment of 14 September 2021, and, if so, whether that reference was limited to what was necessary for the finding of K.B.’s guilt and was worded in such way so as to avoid any potential prejudice to the applicant (see paragraphs 47 and 48 above; see also Mucha, cited above, § 60). These questions arise even though the judgment against K.B. and the other co-accused was based on their plea‑bargain agreements.

55. The Court reiterates that it is primarily for Contracting States – in particular the national legislature – to decide on the most suitable procedure to be applied when charges against co-defendants who are alleged to have participated in the same crime are not decided simultaneously. States’ approaches to this issue will likely depend on the particularities of the legal and court systems concerned and will relate to domestic criminal justice policy, and they may therefore differ – as can be seen from the comparative law data available to the Court (see Gorše, cited above, §§ 36-40 and 59). Nevertheless, regardless of what approach is taken, the national authorities’ actions and decisions must conform with the requirements of the Convention.

56. As to the circumstances of the present case, the Court notes that in view of the nature of the offence of which K.B., M.P. and D.K. were accused, a reference to third parties and to the role allegedly played by the applicant may have been unavoidable when setting out the facts of their offence – in particular the drug supply chain (see paragraph 11 above). Regarding the fact that the applicant was referred to by his full name and date of birth, the Court takes account of the Government’s argument (see paragraph 39 above) that this was due to the fact that all the co-accused had first been tried in joint proceedings and that their identities had been known to the court. It observes in this respect that it seems to be common practice in the majority of the Council of Europe member States to name a defendant whose criminal liability has not yet been determined (see Gorše, cited above, § 38) – all the more so given that the latter’s identity is usually perfectly well known to the trial court. In the Court’s view, the judgment in Mucha (cited above, § 62) cannot be interpreted as preventing a trial court, in any circumstances, from identifying a defendant who is yet to be tried under his full name.

57. It remains to be determined whether, regard being had to the level of detail and the wording used, the above-noted reference to the applicant undermined the guarantees of Article 6 §§ 1 and 2.

58. The Court notes in this connection that the judgment endorsing the applicant’s co-accused’s plea-bargain agreements contained a factual description of their offence (including the applicant’s role in it) and a factual description of criminal conduct that was attributed to the applicant. Indeed, it stated in the operative part that the applicant had, on an unspecified date in autumn 2018, sold a certain quantity of ecstasy pills to K.B. (see paragraph 11 above). Although such a statement is formulated in a manner clearly imputing criminal conduct to the applicant, the court appears to have used it not to declare the applicant guilty but to characterise the actions of his co-accused K.B. who had bought the drugs from the applicant and intended to sell them on. There is no indication that the impugned statements were unnecessary under domestic law for the assessment of K.B.’s criminal liability – irrespective of the fact that he had confessed to the offence. In the Court’s view, efforts appear to have been made to avoid giving more information than necessary for the assessment of the legal responsibility of K.B., who was being tried (see paragraph 48 in fine). Most importantly, the judgment makes no legal assessment of the applicant’s action and does not refer to the applicant as a person who had fulfilled the constituent elements of the criminal offence of which he had been accused or as a “perpetrator” of that offence (contrast C.O. v. Germany, cited above, § 62, and Gorše, cited above, §§ 62-63). The court also refrained from making any findings regarding the applicant’s “guilt” (compare C.O. v. Germany, cited above, § 64).

59. The Court further observes that, according to the Government’s submissions (see paragraph 41 above), which the applicant did not contest, the impugned statements had no binding effect under Czech criminal law in the subsequent proceedings against him and that, as an accused person, he was protected by the presumption of innocence until his conviction.

60. The Court also finds it important to emphasise that the references to the applicant in the judgment convicting his co-accused were worded so as to indicate that at that point he was being “separately prosecuted”. Although – as the applicant pointed out (see paragraph 42 in fine) – no express statement to the effect that his guilt had not been legally established appears in that judgment (see Mucha, cited above, § 61, and Gorše, cited above, § 63; contrast Karaman, cited above, §§ 69 and 70), the court made it thereby clear that it was not called upon to determine the applicant’s guilt but was only concerned with assessing the criminal liability of those accused within the scope of the proceedings at issue – namely, K.B., M.P. and D.K. (compare C.O. v. Germany, cited above, § 68).

61. In view of the above-noted considerations, the Court concludes that even if the wording of the operative judgment against the applicant’s co-accused is not exempt from criticism (see paragraph 60 above), it was not prejudicial to the applicant’s right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and the applicant’s doubts as to the impartiality of the trial court are not objectively justified.

62. Accordingly, the applicant’s complaints under this head must be rejected as being manifestly ill‑founded, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

63. Finally, the Court notes that the judgment concerning the applicant’s co-accused was issued on 14 September 2021 – that is prior to the Court’s judgment in Mucha (cited above), which has since been duly implemented by the domestic authorities (see paragraphs 24-29 above).

3. Remaining complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention

64. The applicant further complained that the criminal proceedings against him had not been fair because he had been convicted essentially on the basis of the statements made by K.B., whose testimony as a witness should not have been admitted; moreover, both the defence witnesses had been considered unreliable.

65. The Court reiterates that, while Article 6 guarantees the right to a fair hearing, it does not lay down any rules on the admissibility of evidence or the way it should be assessed, which are therefore primarily matters for regulation by national law and the national courts (see, for example, García Ruiz v. Spain [GC], no. 30544/96, § 28, ECHR 1999‑I). The task of the Court is to ascertain whether the proceedings as a whole, including the way in which evidence was taken, were fair (see Doorson v. the Netherlands, 26 March 1996, § 67, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996‑II, and Gossa v. Poland, no. 47986/99, § 52, 9 January 2007).

66. The Court notes in this connection that in the course of his trial the applicant, who was represented by a lawyer, was able to provide his own version of the events and had an opportunity to point out any incoherence in the statements of the witnesses heard at trial or to disclose any inconsistency of the residual means of evidence referred to by the domestic courts. As regards the statements made by K.B., which admittedly constituted key incriminating evidence, the Court finds it relevant to note that since the applicant knew him personally, it was open to him to identify any motives the witness might have had for lying and to challenge the accuracy of his statements. It appears, furthermore, that those statements had been corroborated by the witness statement given by D.H. and that the courts duly examined K.B.’s reliability as well as the issue whether he could be heard as a witness after his conviction (see paragraphs 15 and 17 above). Lastly, the reasons advanced by the court for its conclusion that the defence witnesses were to be considered highly unreliable (see paragraph 15 above) do not disclose any sign of arbitrariness.

67. Having regard to the above considerations, the Court is satisfied that the domestic courts were able to conduct a fair and proper assessment of the applicant’s case and that the criminal proceedings against the applicant did not result in a breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.

68. It follows that this complaint is also manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected, in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court, by a majority,

Declares the application inadmissible.

Done in English and notified in writing on 26 June 2025.

Martina Keller María Elósegui
Deputy Registrar President