II Council of Europe
| Published date | 01 September 1995 |
| Date | 01 September 1995 |
| DOI | 10.1177/016934419501300305 |
| Subject Matter | Part B: Human Rights News |
Human Rights News
His son M.P. was stopped on his bicycle by a group of four young men who on racist
grounds beat him that severely that he sustained a number of injuries necessitating plastic
surgery interventions. He claimed that the court proceedings against his son's aggressors
were biased with the result that one received a suspended prison sentence of 60 days,
whereas two others were only sentenced to pay ten daily fmes of 50 and 100 Danish
Kronors, respectively.
With respect to the author's dismissal by the Technical School the Committee decided
that domestic remedies were not exhausted. In the case of the criminal proceedings
against his son the Committee took into consideration that the public prosecutor for
Zealand appealed against the too lenient sentence and that the High Court finally imposed
a term
of
unconditional imprisonment of 40 days for the main aggressor given the violent
nature of his attack. Since the author did not substantiate his claim that either the police
investigation or the judicial proceedings were tainted by racially discriminatory
considerations, the Committee concluded that no primafacie case of aviolation of CERD
had been established and this part of the communication was, therefore, equally
inadmissible.
Commentary: It is difficult to understand why the Committee, after having examined
in detail all the information provided by the author and the Danish Government and after
balancing all the arguments including the appropriateness of the court sentence and the
fairness of the proceedings, did not render a decision on the merits pursuant to Articles
5(b) and 6 CERD.
II COUNCIL OF EUROPE
Leo
Zwaak
A. European Court of Human Rights
brought to
trial
within a reasonable time.
22 March 1995, Quinn (France), A 311. The applicant was arrested on 1 August 1988
and held in pre-trial detention charged with fraud and various offences against the
legislation on the issuing of securities. At 9 a.m. on 4 August 1989 the Court of Appeal
ordered his immediate release. At 5.30 p.m. on the same day the investigating judge
requested the public prosecutor's office to arrest the applicant with a view to his being
extradited. At 8 p.m. he appeared before the public prosecutor, who ordered him to.be
taken into custody pending extradition proceedings. On 14 March 1990 it was ruled that
the extradition could go ahead, and this ruling was upheld at last instance in January
1992. On 10 July 1991 the Criminal Court had convicted the applicant, and on 29
September 1992, after he had served his sentence he was extradited to Switzerland. The
applicant maintained that he had been arbitrarily kept in detention on 4 August 1989 in
order to leave the public prosecutor's office time to instigate the setting in motion of the
extradition proceedings and thus block the decision ordering the applicant's immediate
release taken the same morning by the Indictment Division of the Court of Appeal. His
detention pending extradition had simply amounted to the extension, on a different legal
basis, of the period of remand detention which had just come to an end in the proceedings
conducted in France. The Court acknowledged that some delay in executing a decision
ordering the release of a detainee was understandable.
It
noted, however, that in the
instant case the applicant remained in detention for eleven hours after the Indictment
Division's decision directing that he be released 'forthwith', without that decision being
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