Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights is a provision of the European Convention which protects the right to a fair trial in criminal law cases and in cases to determine civil rights. It protects the right to a public hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal within a reasonable time, the presumption of innocence, right to silence and other minimum rights for those charged in a criminal case (adequate time and facilities to prepare their defence, access to legal representation, right to examine witnesses against them or have them examined, right to the free assistance of an interpreter).
Article 6 reads as follows.
The concept of "civil rights and obligations" at the beginning of Article 6 applies to ones granted at the level of the Council of Europe, and not at the national level. Accordingly, the applicability of Article 6 is contingent on the existence of a breach of such "civil rights and obligations" regardless of the national classification, a relevant "right" that is breached, and a judgment that provides a decisive outcome from the dispute. Firstly, to determine the existence of a breach, the dispute must have a concrete matter with contentious details (e.g., in Omdahl v. Norway (2021), the court dealt with the matter of time in which the applicant would be entitled to his grandfather's possessions). Thus, relevant violations come from excessive delays, due to the "reasonable time" requirement in civil and criminal proceedings before national courts.
Secondly, although the CoE maintains autonomy under the rights of the ECHR, it still necessitates an arguable basis under the contracting stateâÂÂs national law. Thus, the breached relevant "right" must be determined, particularly whether an applicant's argument is "sufficiently tenable". The exception to the reliance on national law rights is when the national law provides for a right that is not recognized by the ECtHR. Due to the autonomy of the ECtHR, underscored by the "independent tribunal" requirement, the Court overruled a Turkish decision in Assanidze v. Georgia (2004) and rendered the Turkish military tribunal's decision incompatible with Article 6.
Finally, when assessing the applicability of Article 6 to determine a fair trial right violation, the Court examines whether the "right" at hand is civil under the domestic setting to ascertain a decisive outcome. Like precedents established in other rights guaranteed in the ECtHR, such as , the Court determines violations according to their tangible content and penal repercussions, as opposed to solely off of national statutory provisions. In states that either are negligent in guaranteeing rights relevant to a fair trial or deliberately penalize an actor against the rights that are guaranteed in Article 6, the ECtHR considers such matters to provide a relevant decisive outcome.
The Convention applies to contracting parties only; however, in cases where a contracting party court has to confirm the ruling of a non-contracting state, they retain a duty to act within the confines of article 6. Such was the case in Pellegrini v Italy (2001), a case concerning the application of a Vatican ecclesiastical court ruling on a divorce case.
In the determination of criminal charges, Engel v Netherlands set out three criteria to determine meaning of "criminal": a) the classification of the offense in the law of the respondent state, b) the nature of the offence, c) the possible punishment. Funke v France states that if the contracting state classifies the act as criminal, then it is automatically so for the purposes of article 6.