European Court of Human Rights

EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

629

16.9.2008

Press release issued by the Registrar

FORTHCOMING GRAND CHAMBER JUDGMENT

19 September 2008

The European Court of Human Rights will be holding a public hearing in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on Friday 19 September 2008 at 10 a.m. (local time) to deliver its Grand Chamber judgment in the case of Korbely v. Hungary (application no. 9174/02).

The press release and the text of the judgment will be available after the hearing on the Court’s Internet site (http://www.echr.coe.int).

Korbely v. Hungary

The case concerns an application brought by a Hungarian national, János Korbely, who was born in 1929 and lives in Szentendre (Hungary). The applicant is a retired military officer who was serving a sentence in Budapest Prison when the application was lodged.

In 1994 the Budapest Military Public Prosecutor’s Office indicted the applicant for his participation in the quelling of a riot in Tata during the 1956 revolution. He was charged with having commanded, as captain, a 15-strong squad in an assignment, on 26 October 1956, to regain control of the Tata Police Department building, which had been taken over by insurgents, and with having shot, and ordered his men to shoot at, civilians. Several people died or were injured in the incident.

On 29 May 1995 the Military Bench of the Budapest Regional Court discontinued the criminal proceedings against the applicant, holding that the offences with which he was charged constituted homicide and incitement to homicide, rather than crimes against humanity, and that such offences, even if proven, were statute-barred. The prosecution appealed against that decision, which was quashed by the Supreme Court’s appeal bench.

On 7 May 1998 the Military Bench of the Budapest Regional Court, after examining the case afresh, discontinued the criminal proceedings in a decision that was upheld by the Supreme Court’s appeal bench on 5 November 1998. These decisions were quashed on review. The case was eventually remitted to the Military Bench of the Budapest Regional Court, which held on 18 January 2001 that Mr Korbely was guilty of a crime against humanity in having committed and incited others to commit multiple killings. It ruled that the applicant should be prosecuted under Article 3(1) of the Geneva Convention (IV) of 12 August 1949 relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment and the loss of certain rights for a period of five years.

On appeal, the Supreme Court amended the judgment and increased his prison sentence to five years. Mr Korbely began serving his sentence on 24 March 2003 and on 31 May 2005 he was conditionally released.

Relying on Article 7 (no punishment without law) of the European Convention on Human Rights, the applicant submits that he was convicted in respect of an act which did not constitute a crime at the time it was committed. He further complains that the proceedings against him were unfair and excessively lengthy and relies on Article 6 (right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time).

On 3 May 2007 the Chamber to which the case had been allocated relinquished jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber, under Article 30¹ of the Convention. A hearing took place in public in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 4 July 2007.

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The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.