The case of Evgeny Pirogov v. the Russian Federation. Views of the Human Rights Committee of October 20, 2021. Communication No. 2916/2016.
In 2016, the author of the communication was assisted in preparing a complaint. Subsequently, the complaint was communicated to the Russian Federation.
As seen from the text of the Considerations, the author claimed that the court violated his rights under article 14 of the Covenant, since it refused the defense to summon and interrogate experts who conducted psychological, linguistic and linguistic forensic examinations, the results of which the prosecution presented as evidence of his guilt. Later, the court rejected the defense's request to exclude the conclusions of two forensic examinations from the evidence, despite the arguments of the defense that they were conducted in violation of the Code of Criminal Procedure and that the defense was refused to interrogate experts (paragraph 3.4 of the Considerations).
The Committee's legal position: the court's refusal to call an expert as a witness may constitute a violation of [subparagraph "e" of paragraph 3] of article 14... Since the purpose of the participation of experts in the proceedings may, by analogy, be similar to the purpose of the participation of witnesses expressly mentioned in [subparagraph "e" of paragraph 3] of article 14 ..., in the sense that the testimony of both figures may be necessary to provide relevant information about the circumstances of the case (paragraph 9.2 of the Considerations) (See cases: "Brush v. Ukraine" (CCPR/C/102/D/1535/2006), paragraph 10.4; Fuenzalida v. Ecuador (CCPR/C/57/D/480/1991), para. 9.5.).
The Committee's assessment of the factual circumstances of the case: it is up to the State party to demonstrate that the author, who was tried for a serious hate crime punishable by imprisonment for up to five years, could to fully exercise their right to summon, ensure the appearance and interrogation of witnesses under the same conditions as the prosecutor (paragraph 9.2 of the Considerations).
[C]According to the information available in the materials, the conclusions of the two forensic examinations were crucial to the case, and the decision of the court of first instance was largely based on these conclusions. Moreover, the official charge under part 1 of article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation was brought against the author only after the conclusions based on the results of these two forensic examinations were handed over to the preliminary investigation authorities. In these circumstances, the Committee considered that the court of first instance was obliged to ensure the participation of experts and to allow the author and his counsel to ask them questions (paragraph 9.3 of the Views).
The Committee's conclusions: The information provided indicated a violation by the State party of the author's rights under article 14, paragraph 3 (e), of the Covenant.