If there is a determination of a person’s civil rights and obligations or a criminal charge against him, a person has a right to a fair trial complying with the requirements of Article 6 of the Convention. The Court’s primary concern under Article 6 §1 is to assess the overall fairness of the proceedings. In making this evaluation, the Court will look at the proceedings as a whole, having regard to the rights of the defence, the interests of the public and the victims and, where necessary, to the rights of witnesses , while ensuring that the right to have the crime properly prosecuted is upheld.

The wording of Article 6 requires first of all that there is a right to a public trial within a reasonable time in an independent and impartial court or tribunal and that the judgment is pronounced publicly. The criminal proceedings must satisfy the additional requirements of presumption of innocence and the special guarantees established in Article 6 §3.

The right to a fair trial does not only contain the rights expressly mentioned in Article 6 but also those rights which cannot be directly inferred by its wording but which have been added to its scope by the case-law of the Court. Such rights are, for example, the right of access to a court, the right to be heard, the protection of an individual from incriminating him- or herself, equality of arms and the right to have a reasoned judgment or decision.