Strasbourg court rules Serbia must compensate COVID-19 protester after unfair trial

In the Iskrenovic case, the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d) (right to a fair trial / right to obtain attendance and examination of witnesses) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The case concerned Iskrenovic’s conviction in 2020 in minor-offence proceedings for insulting the police, amid social unrest sparked by governmental restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, the press release specified.

The Court found that the whole case had hinged on the credibility of the arresting police officer’s account which had differed from the one given by Iskrenovic.

“Mr Iskrenovic’s request that the Serbian courts hear an eyewitness and obtain video footage from surveillance cameras had therefore been neither unreasonable nor vexatious. Such evidence could have shed light on whether Mr Iskrenovic had been near enough to the police officers to insult them or whether it had been the officers who had noticed him and then trailed him. The national courts had, however, failed to properly consider the relevance of such evidence and had not provided sufficient reasons for refusing to obtain and examine it,” the judgment stated.

The ECHR concluded that Iskrenovic’s conviction had ultimately been based essentially on the testimony of the arresting police officer, making it impossible for the defense to effectively challenge the prosecution’s case which had undermined the overall fairness of the proceedings.

The Court ruled that Serbia is to pay Iskrenovic 3,600 euros in respect of non-pecuniary damage.