PART 2: COMPILATION OF WRITTEN CONTRIBUTIONS DAY 1 - NIKOLAOS SITAROPOULOS Nikolaos Sitaropoulos* - “Unfair trial due to torture- tainted evidence - European Court of Human Rights’ judgments and their execution” *Head of Division, Department for the Execution of ECtHR Judgments, Council of Europe. Views expressed herein are strictly personal. Introductory remarks In its 2018 annual report (§65) the CPT observed that ill-treatment during or in the context of police interviews remains a very serious problem in a significant number of European states. In almost one third of the 47 Council of Europe member states, the CPT has collected evidence of police ill-treatment that may qualify as torture. The right to a fair trial under Article 6 ECHR, which is not an absolute right, in practice may be linked to Article 3 ECHR (prohibition of torture), which enshrines an absolute freedom. As the ECtHR has stated (Gäfgen v. Germany [GC] 2010, §178), the need to repress and effectively protect individuals from ill-treatment during investigations may require the exclusion from use at trial of real evidence which has been obtained as the result of any violation of Article 3. I. - ECtHR case-law concerning torture-tainted evidence Fair trial guarantees start with a criminal charge The guarantees surrounding the right to a fair trial under Article 6 ECHR apply from the moment that a “criminal charge” exists within the meaning of the ECtHR case-law. Thus they are relevant during pre-trial proceedings. The Court has noted that the investigation stage may be of particular importance for the preparation of the criminal proceedings: the evidence obtained during this stage often determines the framework in which the offence charged will be considered at the trial. An accused may therefore find themselves in a particularly vulnerable position at that stage, the effect of which may be amplified by increasingly complex legislation on criminal procedure, especially evidentiary ones (Ibrahim and Others v. UK [GC], 2016, §253). 15