The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has declared inadmissible the application submitted by Mikheil Kalandia, a Georgian citizen convicted in the murder of Davit Saralidze, and has issued its ruling.

According to the record on the European Court of Human Rights webpage, the application concerns the alleged unfairness of the criminal proceedings against the applicant, who was sentenced to imprisonment for aggravated murder.

“His trial, which attracted wide media coverage as it concerned the deaths of two teenagers following a school brawl in Tbilisi, was preceded by a parliamentary inquiry. The inquiry recommended, among other things, that criminal proceedings be instituted against him. The applicant invokes Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d) of the Convention.

On February 25, 2020, the Tbilisi City Court convicted the applicant as charged and sentenced him to eleven years and three months in prison. His conviction was based on, among other things, the evidence of G.J. and G.B., who had been prosecuted and convicted in connection with the same incident in a separate set of criminal proceedings. On July 21, 2020, the Tbilisi Court of Appeal, without hearing any of the witnesses, upheld the applicant’s conviction in full. On December 29, 2020, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal he lodged on points of law as inadmissible.

The applicant complained, under Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d) of the Convention, that he had not been afforded a fair trial because the Supreme Court, in upholding his conviction, had relied on the evidence of G.J. and G.B., whom he had not been able to examine after they had changed their statements during their trial. Additionally, he complained that his trial had been preceded by an investigation of the same facts by the special parliamentary commission of inquiry.

On November 22, 2023, the Court gave notice of the application to the Government. The parties were invited to inform it of their respective positions regarding a friendly settlement of the case and to make any proposals, if they wished, by 14 February 2024. The letter informed the applicant of the requirement of strict confidentiality regarding friendly settlement negotiations by Rule 62 § 2 of the Rules of Court.

As the attempt to reach a friendly settlement between the parties failed, on February 16, 2024, the Court invited the Government to submit its written observations on the admissibility and merits of the case. A corresponding letter referring to the information note on the proceedings after communication of an application was sent to the applicant’s representative.

On February 22, 2024, the Government informed the Court that the applicant had not respected the confidentiality of the friendly-settlement negotiations and had disclosed, among other things, the content of his own friendly-settlement proposal to the media. The Government provided two links to media interviews given by the applicant’s representative. In his first television interview, on February 11, 2024, he spoke about the friendly settlement proceedings launched by the Court, stating that the Government had three days left to submit its proposal and that the applicant was requesting his unconditional release from prison. In his second television interview, on February 19, 2024, he informed the public of the Government’s refusal to settle the case. He explained that settlement would imply their acknowledgement of a violation of the applicant’s right to a fair trial.

The Government raised an objection to abuse of the right of individual application and invited the Court to reject the application.

On March 8 and 10, 2024 the applicant presented his arguments and requested the Court to declare the application admissible and continue its examination. He submitted that his representative had only disclosed information concerning the procedural aspects of the examination of his case before the Court, such as the time limits. As regards the request for his unconditional release from prison, he asserted that this request was known to the general public as it had been consistently voiced before various authorities from the very outset of his trial.

The Court notes that, under Article 39 § 2 of the Convention, friendly‑settlement negotiations are confidential. This rule is repeated in Rule 62 § 2 of the Rules of Court. The rule that friendly settlement negotiations are confidential is absolute and does not allow for an individual assessment of how much detail has been disclosed. It prohibits the parties from making information concerning the friendly settlement negotiations public, either through the media, or by a letter likely to be read by a significant number of people, or by any other means.

Furthermore, the general purpose of the principle of confidentiality is to protect the parties and the Court against possible pressure. Consequently, an intentional breach of the duty of confidentiality of friendly-settlement negotiations may be considered an abuse of the right of the application and result in the application being rejected.

Turning to the circumstances of the present case, the Court finds that the applicant’s representative intentionally disclosed details of the friendly settlement negotiations, in particular, information concerning their procedural stages and the parties’ position on the settlement of the case. Article 39 of the Convention and Rule 62 § 2 of the Rules of Court were explicitly cited in the Court’s letter of November 22, 2023, when the friendly‑settlement proceedings were launched.

Furthermore, the information note referred to in the Court’s letter of February 16, 2024, made it clear that friendly settlement negotiations were strictly confidential. Hence, the applicant and his representative ought to have been aware of that requirement and should have complied with it at all stages of the proceedings. They did not do so and failed to provide any justification for this.

Given the above, the Court considers that such conduct on the part of the applicant’s representative amounts to a breach of the rule of confidentiality, which, in the light of the Court’s relevant case law, must also be regarded as an abuse of the right of individual application.

It follows that the application is inadmissible and must be rejected under Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention,” reads the court decision.