Strasbourg court orders Serbia to compensate COVID-19 protester over unfair trial

The European Court of Human Rights has ordered Serbia to pay 3,600 euros in damages to a participant in Belgrade's anti-COVID protests. The ruling stems from an unfair trial in 2020, where the individual was convicted of insulting police.

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Serbia must pay 3,600 euros in non-pecuniary damages to a participant in Belgrade’s anti-COVID protests who was convicted in 2020 in an unfair proceeding

The court found that Serbia violated Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, specifically concerning the right to a fair trial and the right to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses. The case centered on the conviction of Mr. Iskrenovic, which hinged on the credibility of the arresting police officer's account.

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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.

Crucially, the ECHR determined that the Serbian courts failed to adequately consider the relevance of evidence requested by Iskrenovic. This included hearing an eyewitness and obtaining surveillance footage, which could have clarified whether the alleged insult occurred or if the officers initiated the encounter. The national courts' refusal to examine this evidence, without sufficient justification, undermined the overall fairness of the proceedings and prevented the defense from effectively challenging the prosecution's case.

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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