Headnotes:

Obligation to conduct an effective investigation stems from, inter alia, right to life pursuant to Article 2 of the Convention on Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (hereinafter “Convention”) and prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment pursuant to Article 3 of the Convention. This obligation is, however, one of means, not results.

Constitutionally enshrined principle of presumption of innocence, closely interconnected principle in dubio pro reo and principles of fair trial require that even existence of a number of prejudicial indicators cannot automatically lead a court to find the defendant guilty of hate crime. Even the prejudicial motive of a crime, which is oftentimes listed as a statutory precondition for application of stricter penalty for a crime, must be proven beyond any reasonable doubt.

Summary: 

I. The Petitioner acted as an injured party within the criminal proceedings conducted before the Regional Court in Brno. Within these criminal proceedings, the defendant was found guilty of the felony offence of an attempt to cause grievous bodily harm and the misdemeanour of hooliganism and sentenced to the imprisonment for seven and half years. However, the Regional Court failed to conclude that the secondary party had assaulted the Petitioner owing to his actual or presumed race, ethnicity, nationality, political opinion, or religion. The Petitioner pointed to the fact that the Regional Court had concluded on the secondary party’s inclination towards the neo-Nazi movement and neo-Nazi views. His violent past had also been established. The circumstance that the Petitioner could potentially be the target of an assault due to his ethnicity was thus not in dispute, according to the Petitioner.

II. The Constitutional Court first addressed the compliance with the procedural terms of the proceedings. Even though the Petitioner, as the injured party, was not a direct party to the criminal proceedings, the contested decision held on his rights or obligations and the constitutional complaint represents the only remedy to claim his rights. For this reason, the Constitutional Court held on the admissibility of the constitutional complaint. Furthermore, the Constitutional Court emphasised that the ECtHR case law on the right to effective investigation was formulated under significantly different procedural circumstances, pertaining to the situations in which the criminal prosecution was not initiated or the criminal prosecution was discontinued at a certain pre-trial stage and the very issue whether a hate-related assault had taken place was not at all assessed by the court. However, in the instant case, the public prosecution office deemed the hate-related motive as likely and pressed charges in this respect. In this context, the Constitutional Court emphasised that the duty to perform effective investigation was not a duty in terms of the result but rather a duty in terms of thoroughness, impartiality or speed of investigation.

Furthermore, the Constitutional Court recalled that the principles of a fair trial include the principle of the presumption of innocence and the in dubio pro reo principle, adding that the space for an intervention of the Constitutional Court would open in the present case only if the Regional Court’s assessment of the case was not sufficiently thorough or impartial within the meaning of the right to effective investigation. However, according to the Constitutional Court, the Regional Court dealt in detail with the issue whether it is appropriate to conclude on the hate motive of the perpetrator. The Regional Court tested a wealth of evidence on the issue of a possible hate-related motive and duly and convincingly substantiated its conclusion that the hate-related motive (in the spirit of the in dubio pro reo principle) had not been established beyond reasonable doubt. On the other hand, the Court found that the evidence tested (including camera footage) affirmed certain aspects of the testimonies of the secondary party and witnesses, indicating that the reason for the assault consisted in a previous verbal dispute between the Petitioner, the secondary party and some witnesses unrelated to the Petitioner’s ethnicity.

On the basis of the file, the Constitutional Court examined these essential factual conclusions and found that they were established on a rational and convincing interpretation of the evidence tested. According to the Constitutional Court, the Regional Court complied with its duty to perform effective investigation in relation to the potential hate-related motive pursuant to Art 2 in conjunction with Art. 14 of the Convention. For the above reasons, the Constitutional Court dismissed the complaint.

III. Vojtěch Šimíček served as the Judge Rapporteur in the instant case. None of the Judges submitted a dissenting opinion.