Doubt in Favour of the Defendant, Guilty Beyond Reasonable Doubt In the case of Minelli632 the Court has considered that Article 6 (2) is breached by a decision of a national court which states that a person is guilty of an offence before that person has been tried and found guilty of it. In particular, the Court specified that “the presumption of innocence will be violated if, without the accused ‘s having previously been proved guilty according to law and notably without his having had the opportunity of exercising his right to defence, a judicial decision concerning him reflects an opinion he is guilty. This may be so even in the absence of any formal finding: it suffices that there is some reasoning suggesting that the (national) court regards the accused as guilty”633. In the above case a private prosecution for defamation against Mr. Minelli was dismissed because it had become statute-barred. Notwithstanding that, the national court ordered Mr. Minelli to pay part of the costs of the proceedings arguing that the defendant would have been probably convicted if the criminal offence had not extinguished because of prescription. The Court stated that Article 6 (2) had been violated by that decision, since the national court had shown that it was satisfied of the accused guilty on the basis of a mere estimation without any formal finding. In the case of Lagardere634 the applicant’s father, J.L. Lagardère, was chairman and managing director of two companies called Matra and Hachette. A third company, called Lambda, representing some shareholders in Matra and Hachette, lodged a complaint for misappropriation of corporate assets, together with an application to join the proceedings as a civil party. As a consequence, J.L. Lagardère, in his capacity as chairman and managing director of Matra and Hachette, was charged of having knowingly fraudulently misused assets of those companies against their interest. Afterwards the Paris Criminal Court declared the prosecution against J.-L. Lagardère time-barred and as a consequence also the civil party action was declared inadmissible. The decision was appealed by Lambda and the Supreme Court, after declaring that the prosecution had lapsed, this time as a result of the accused death, quashed the judgment of the Court of Appeal concerning the civil action and the case was sent before a different Court of Appeal. The latter court declared the instances of misappropriation of corporate assets committed in 1988 time-barred, but not those committed in the financial years 1989 to 1992 and considered that the late applicant’s father had acted against the interests of the companies Matra and Hachette. The conclusion of the Court of Appeal was that the system set in place by Mr J. L. Lagardère constituted the offence of misappropriation of corporate assets and ordered the heirs of the late J.L. Legardiere to pay the civil party Euros 14,345,452.52 in damages. The applicant appealed the above decision, but his request was not granted and he finally lodged an application with the ECHR: in the above Minelli v. Switzerland, no. 8660/79, ECHR, 25 March 1983. Ibid. § 37. 634 Lagardere v. France, no.18851/07, ECHR, 12.07.2012. 632 633 140