When Does the Length of Criminal Proceedings Become Unreasonable According to the European Court of Human Rights?

Abstract

Since the mid-90s the European Court of Human Rights has engaged in a war with excessively lengthy judicial proceedings at the national level, particularly in relation to criminal proceedings. In 2012 alone, the Court rendered 72 judgments regarding the length of criminal proceedings and found a violation of the reasonable time requirement, as enshrined in Article 6(1) ECHR, in 62 of those cases. The present study will show that the determination of the relevant period, as well as the criteria considered by the Court in deciding whether a reasonable length has been exceeded, are rather clear. Less predictable however is the overall assessment of the circumstances of the case by the Court and in particular the interaction between and the weight given to the various criteria. The present study concludes upon a 3-5-7 schematic: a period short of 3 years does not usually infringe Article 6(1) ECHR and after 7 years the length of the proceedings is usually considered unreasonable. It is around the 5 years mark that the predictions are the most hazardous and a balance of the criteria in favour of, respectively against, reasonableness must be made.