készíti: Gellért Ádám
email/elérhetőség: gadam107@yahoo.com

“The only necessary for "evil" to triumph is for a few good men to do nothing”


2011. december 30., péntek

Az emberiesség elleni bűncselekmények büntetendőségéről és elévülésének kizárásáról, valamint a kommunista bűncselekményekről szóló törvény

Az Országgyűlés ma délután elfogadta „Az emberiesség elleni bűncselekmények büntetendőségéről és elévülésének kizárásáról, valamint a kommunista diktatúrában elkövetett egyes bűncselekmények üldözéséről” szóló törvényt és kérte a köztársasági elnöktől annak sürgős kihirdetését. (T/4714/18. számú iromány)

Az LMP, az MSZP, valamint a független képviselők (Pősze Lajos kivételével) nem vettek részt a szavazáson. A törvényt 290 igen (a FIDESZ, a KDNP és a JOBBIK jelen lévő képviselői), egyetlen ellenszavazat illetve tartózkodás nélkül fogadta el az Országgyűlés.

2011. december 28., szerda

Az emberiesség elleni bűncselekmények büntetendőségéről és elévülésének kizárásáról szóló törvényjavaslat kiegészítése

Az Országgyűlés Emberi Jogi Bizottság által ma beterjesztett zárószavazás előtti módosító javaslat (T/4714/15) kibővíti a T/4714-es törvényjavaslatot (T/4714/14).

A zárószavazás előtti módosító javaslat az Alaptörvény Átmeneti Rendelkezéseiről szóló törvényjavaslat (egységes javaslat: T/5005/62) 2. §-ának végrehajtását végzi el, amely így szól:

(1) Nem tekinthető elévültnek azoknak a törvényben meghatározott, a pártállam nevében, érdekében vagy egyetértésével a kommunista diktatúrában Magyarország ellen vagy személyek ellen elkövetett súlyos bűncselekményeknek a büntethetősége, amelyeket az elkövetéskor hatályos büntetőtörvény figyelmen kívül hagyásával politikai okból nem üldöztek.

Az emberiesség elleni bűncselekmények büntetendőségéről és elévülésének kizárásáról, valamint a kommunista diktatúrában elkövetett egyes bűncselekmények üldözéséről szóló törvény zárószavazására december 30-án fog sor kerülni.

2011. december 23., péntek

Strasbourg (EJEB): a közvetlenség elve a büntetőeljárásban (a megfélemlített , vagy elhunyt tanú vallomása és a "sole or decisive" szabály)

December 15-én az EJEB Nagytanácsa egy korábban itt a blogon kétszer is tárgyalt témában hozott döntést (Al-Khawaja and Tahery v. The UK, Applications nos. 26766/05 and 22228/06):

„147. The Court therefore concludes that, where a hearsay statement is the sole or decisive evidence against a defendant, its admission as evidence will not automatically result in a breach of Article 6 § 1. At the same time where a conviction is based solely or decisively on the evidence of absent witnesses, the Court must subject the proceedings to the most searching scrutiny. Because of the dangers of the admission of such evidence, it would constitute a very important factor to balance in the scales, to use the words of Lord Mance in R. v. Davis (see paragraph 50 above), and one which would require sufficient counterbalancing factors, including the existence of strong procedural safeguards. The question in each case is whether there are sufficient counterbalancing factors in place, including measures that permit a fair and proper assessment of the reliability of that evidence to take place. This would permit a conviction to be based on such evidence only if it is sufficiently reliable given its importance in the case.

159. The Court considers that appropriate enquiries were made to determine whether there were objective grounds for T’s fear. The trial judge heard evidence from both T and a police officer as to that fear. The trial judge was also satisfied that special measures, such as testifying behind a screen, would not allay T’s fears. Even though T’s identity as the maker of the incriminating statement was publicly disclosed, the conclusion of the trial judge that T had a genuine fear of giving oral evidence and was not prepared to do so even if special measures were introduced in the trial proceedings, provides a sufficient justification for admitting T’s statement.

165. The Court therefore considers that the decisive nature of T’s statement in the absence of any strong corroborative evidence in the case meant the jury in this case were unable to conduct a fair and proper assessment of the reliability of T’s evidence. Examining the fairness of the proceedings as a whole, the Court concludes that there were not sufficient counterbalancing factors to compensate for the difficulties to the defence which resulted from the admission of T’s statement. It therefore finds that there has been a violation of Article 6 § 1 read in conjunction with Article 6 § 3 (d) of the Convention in respect of Mr Tahery.”

Védőről való lemondás a nyomozati kihallgatásnál, a gyanúsított jogai, a bizonyítékok felhasználása a brit LB előtt (EJEB Salduz-biztosítékok)

Nagy Britannia Legfelsőbb Bírósága 4:1-es arányú decemberi döntésében (McGowan (Procurator Fiscal, Edinburgh) v B (Scotland) [2011] UKSC 54) a következőket mondta ki:

“In order to be effective as a waiver of a Convention right, the acts from which the waiver is to be inferred must be voluntary, informed and unequivocal [21], and must be attended by the minimum safeguards commensurate to the importance of the right [27]. None of the Strasbourg cases indicate that an accused who acts of his own free will in waiving his right to legal assistance must always have access to legal advice before he can be held validly to have waived that right. This also reflects the position of the Supreme Courts of Canada and the United States [37-44]. There is no generally internationally recognised human rights standard on the issue of waiver that would support the conclusion that access to legal advice is an essential prerequisite to an effective waiver by a detainee of the right of access to a lawyer when he is being questioned by the police [45].”

Az LB októberben egy hasonló ügyben pedig megállapította, hogy (HM Advocate v P (Scotland) [2011] UKSC 44):

“the Salduz principle is not restricted to admissions made without access to legal advice during police questioning (Gafgen v Germany (2010) 52 EHRR 1).The question is whether the rule extends to evidence derived from a detainee’s answers but which can speak for itself, without it being necessary to refer for support or explanation to anything the detainee said in his police interview [9]. In this case, the statement allegedly made by the accused to his friend in the telephone call was at least partly incriminatory, in relation to the fact of sexual intercourse taking place at the locus. But this of itself does not make it inadmissible. The assumption is that the police would not have obtained this evidence but for what the accused told the police when he was arrested. If that is the case, the question is whether the fact that the source of the friend’s information was the accused himself renders the friend’s evidence inadmissible [15]. In Gafgen, the ECtHR noted that there is no clear consensus about the exact scope of application of the exclusionary rule. In particular, factors such as whether the impugned evidence would, in any event, have been found at a later stage, independently of the prohibited method of investigation, may have an influence on the admissibility of such evidence [22]. Where the boundary lies between what the Convention requires to be automatically excluded because it is derived from what the person has said and what is not remains unclear [23], and there have been no other cases dealing with the issue since Gafgen. Strasbourg has not, however, suggested that leading evidence of the fruits of questioning that is inadmissible because the accused did not have access to a lawyer when he was being interviewed will always and automatically violate the accused’s rights under Article 6(1) and (3)(c).”

Egy másik október elején meghozott döntésben (HM Advocate v Ambrose & Ors (Scotland) (Joined cases) [2011] UKSC 43) a bíróság szintén a Salduz-szabályokat értelmezte:

„The issues in these cases are whether the right of access to a lawyer prior to police questioning, which was established by Salduz, applies only to questioning which takes place when the person has been taken into police custody; and, if the rule applies at some earlier stage, from what moment does it apply.”

„The correct starting point when considering whether the person’s Convention rights have been breached is to identify the moment at which he is ‘charged’ for the purposes of Article 6(1); that is whether his situation is substantially affected (Deweer v Belgium (1980) 2 EHRR 439, para 46; Eckle v Germany (1982) 5 EHRR 1, para 73). That will be the case as soon as the suspicion against him is being seriously investigated and the prosecution case compiled [62]. The fact that a person who has become a suspect and is not in custody is questioned without access to legal advice will be a relevant factor in the assessment whether the accused was deprived of a fair hearing, but it will be no more than that.”

Az eltévedt gólyó esete Nagy Britanniában (joint enterprise, transferred malice)

Egy héttel ezelőtt Nagy Britannia Legfelsőbb Bírósága egy igen érdekes büntetőjogi ügyben döntött. A R v Gnango [2011] UKSC 59 ügyben a következő volt az eldöntendő kérdés:


“If (1) D1 and D2 voluntarily engage in fighting each other, each intending to kill or cause grievous bodily harm to the other and each foreseeing that the other has the reciprocal intention, and if (2) D1 mistakenly kills V in the course of the fight, in what circumstances, if any, is D2 guilty of the offence of murdering?”

Az LB 6:1 arányban kimondta, hogy:

„the defendant [D2] was guilty of murder not as an accessory but as a principal to an agreement to engage in unlawful violence specifically designed to cause death or serious injury, and on the facts of this case whether the defendant is correctly described as a principal or an accessory is irrelevant to his guilt.”