The right is set out as follows:

(1) In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law. Judgment shall be pronounced publicly, but the press and public may be excluded from all or part of the trial in the interest of morals, public order or national security in a democratic society, where the interests of juveniles or the protection of the parties so require, or to the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the court in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice.

(2) Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.

(3) Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights:

(a) to be informed promptly, in a language which he understands and in detail, of the nature and cause of the accusation against him;

(b) to have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence;

(c) to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing or, if he has not sufficient means to pay for legal assistance, to be given it free when the interests of justice so require;

(d) to examine or have examined witnesses against him and to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his behalf under the same conditions as witnesses against him;

(e) to have the free assistance of an interpreter if he cannot understand or speak the language used in court.

Article 6(1) guarantees the general right to a fair trial and is to be given a broad and purposive interpretation (Moreiva de Azvedo v Portugal). In considering whether the rights of the defence under Art 6 have been respected, the European Court of Human Rights will have regard to the proceedings as a whole, including appellate proceedings, and may consider whether or not the appellate proceedings have rectified any defect which arose at the first instance hearing (Adolf v Austria). The minimum guarantees set out in Art 6(3)(a) to (e) are specific aspects of the general right to a fair trial and are not therefore exhaustive. The relationship between Art 6(1) and (3) ‘is that of the general to the particular’; accordingly, a trial could fail to fulfil the general conditions of Art 6(1), even though the minimum rights guaranteed by Art 6(3) are respected (Jespers v Belgium). In Brown v Stott (2001), Lord Bingham observed that whilst the overall fairness of a criminal trial cannot be compromised, the constituent rights comprised, whether expressly or implicitly, within Art 6 are not themselves absolute.

In R v A (No 2) (2002), Lord Steyn observed that it was well-established that the right to a fair trial in Art 6 was absolute in the sense that a conviction obtained in breach of it cannot stand. The only balancing permitted was in respect of what the concept of a fair trial entails; account could be taken of the familiar triangulation of interests of the accused, the victim and society. In that context proportionality had a role to play.

The application of Art 6(1) is limited to circumstances in which there is a ‘criminal charge’. In considering whether proceedings are ‘criminal’ for the purposes of Art 6, the European Court will be guided by the classification applied by the relevant state, such a classification being the starting point (Engel v Netherlands (1976)). It will also look at the nature of the offence, whether the offence applies to a specific group or is of