The case of Dvorski v Croatia 25703/11 has been suggested as countering the application of Salduz to Amanda Knox's application to ECHR on her calunnia conviction.
First, it should be noted that Dvorski has been appealed to and will be heard by the Grand Chamber, which potentially could judge differently than has the Chamber. This, by the way is an indication of the importance of such Article 6.3c with Article 6.1 cases to the ECHR. However, even if the Grand Chamber judgment agrees with that of the Chamber on Dvorski, the cases are so different that the Dvorski ruling would not be relevant.
In the Dvorski case, the police prevented Dvorski, who was under arrest and to be interrogated, from meeting with his lawyer of choice, who was summoned to the police station by Dvorski's father. Instead, the police had Dvorski choose a lawyer from a list (which was not provided to the Court); this lawyer had previous association with the police and never accepted payment from Dvorski. Dvorski was interrogated and signed a confession. He was tried and renounced his confession, but was convicted. He did use his lawyer of choice during the trial.
The ECHR Chamber judgment found that there was no violation of Convention Article 6.3c with Article 6.1 in this case. The reasons in brief are:
1. There was substantial additional evidence presented at trial of Dvorski's guilt.
2. The Court did not find credible Dvorski's claim of coercion.
3. The confession was not the sole or decisive element in his conviction.
4. There was no indication of impropriety by the lawyer chosen from the police.
5. The Court saw no other indication of violation of rights regarding this area in the trial.
These above four statement may be contrasted with the circumstance of Amanda Knox's interrogation, false statement, and trial for calunnia.
1. The only evidence of the calunnia is her statement(s).
2. She claims the statement(s) were the product of coercion.
3. The statement(s) made by Amanda Knox were the sole evidence and decisive for the conviction of calunnia.
4. She did not have the counsel of a lawyer during her interrogation on Nov. 5/6, and the police should have provided her with a lawyer because:
4.1 She was under police interrogation as soon as she was asked to enter the interrogation room to answer questions.
4.2 She had made an incriminating statement by 1:45 am, stating that she had observed a murder.
5. There are other violations apparent in her trial; for example, the Hellmann court did not consider all her defenses, such as expert opinion testimony relating to suggestibility during interrogation, in the motivation report, and there are other indications of arbitrariness in the Hellmann court reasoning.
CASE OF DVORSKI v. CROATIA 25703/11 28/11/2013 {excerpts; bolding added}
106. Furthermore, the Court notes that the applicant’s confession was not the central platform of the prosecution’s case (see, by contrast, Magee v. the United Kingdom, no. 28135/95, § 45, ECHR 2000‑VI), and that the trial court relied on his statement interpreting it in the light of a complex body of evidence assessed by the court (compare Bykov, cited above, § 103). Specifically, when convicting the applicant, the trial court relied on the statements of a number of witnesses cross-examined during the trial, numerous expert reports and the records of the crime-scene investigation and searches and seizures, as well as relevant photographs and other physical evidence (see paragraphs 29-43 and 45-46 above). In addition, the trial court had at its disposal the confessions made by the applicant’s co-accused at the trial and neither the applicant nor his co-accused ever argued that any of their rights had been infringed when they had made those statements.
107. Therefore, although the applicant was not represented by a lawyer selected on the basis of a fully informed choice during the police questioning, the Court does not consider that this rendered the proceedings as a whole unfair (compare O’Kane v. the United Kingdom (dec.), no. 30550/96, 6 July 1999), since all the applicant’s rights were adequately secured during the trial and his confession was not the sole, let alone the decisive, evidence in the case and as such did not call into question his conviction and sentence (compare Gäfgen v. Germany [GC], no. 22978/05, § 187, ECHR 2010; and, by contrast, Martin v. Estonia, no. 35985/09, § 95-96, 30 May 2013).
108. Against the above background, and in view of the principle that the requirements of Article 6 § 3 are to be seen as particular aspects of the right to a fair trial guaranteed by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see, for example, Zagorodniy, cited above, § 51) and the requirement for the Court to evaluate the fairness of the criminal proceedings as a whole (see Al-Khawaja and Tahery v. the United Kingdom [GC], nos. 26766/05 and 22228/06, § 118, ECHR 2011), the Court considers that it has not been shown that the applicant’s defence rights have been irretrievably prejudiced or that his right to a fair trial under Article 6 has been adversely affected (see, mutatis mutandis, Mamaç and Others v. Turkey, nos. 29486/95, 29487/95 and 29853/96, § 48, 20 April 2004, and Sarıkaya v. Turkey, no. 36115/97, § 67, 22 April 2004; and, by contrast, Martin, cited above, § 97).
109. Accordingly, in the light of these considerations, given the particular circumstances of the present case, the Court concludes that there has been no violation of Article 6 § 1 read in conjunction with § 3 (c) of the Convention .
