The European Court of Human Rights and the Evidence from Quasi-Criminal Procedures

Besides criminal procedures, national systems endorse also quasi-criminal procedures, in which public legal responsibility is enforced and the relevant authority possesses powers similar to the ones from criminal procedure. An issue, therefore, immediately arises whether evidence from such quasi-criminal procedures could be imported into criminal procedure to establish criminal responsibility. The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the European Court of Human Rights do not discuss this issue directly. However, this paper confirms the thesis that the European Court of Human Rights acknowledges the limited possibility of exclusion of evidence, obtained in quasi-criminal procedures, from the evidence in criminal procedure. This is made via an analysis of the Court’s case law on the substantive boundaries of human rights, exclusion of evidence and especially of evidence obtained by violation of the convention in quasi-criminal procedures.

Key words: human rights, evidence, exclusion of evidence, quasi-criminal procedure, fair trial, criminal charge