Chapter iii  Right to a Hearing by a Competent, Independent and Impartial Tribunal Established by Law 73 ent impartiality of the judge (See also 3.3.2) or otherwise interfere with the practical enjoyment of fair trial rights.287 In Kyprianou v Cyprus, a defence lawyer was convicted for contempt of court. The lawyer had directed his criticism to the manner in which individual judges had been conducting the proceedings. The same judges took the decision to prosecute, tried the issues arising from the applicant’s conduct, determined his guilt and imposed the sanction, in his case a term of imprisonment. In such a situation, the confusion of roles between complainant, witness, prosecutor and judge could self-evidently prompt objectively justified fears as to the conformity of the proceedings with the time-honoured principle that no one should be a judge in her/his own cause and, consequently, as to the impartiality of the bench based on the objective criteria of impartiality (See also 3.3.2 (b)).288 This is also one of the few cases in which the violation of impartiality of the court was found by the European Court also with regard to the subjective test (See also 3.3.2 (a)). The European Court held that the judges had not succeeded in detaching themselves sufficiently from the situation for various reasons, including that: The judges in their sentencing of the applicant acknowledged that they had been “deeply insulted… as persons” by the applicant; the emphatic language used by the judges throughout their decision conveyed a sense of indignation and shock, which runs counter to the detached approach expected of judicial pronouncements; and the judges expressed the opinion early on in their discussion with the applicant that they considered him guilty of the criminal offence of contempt of court and, after deciding that the applicant had committed the offence, they gave the applicant, the choice either to maintain what he had said and to provide reasons why a sentence should not be imposed on him or to retract the statement. In the latter respect, the lawyer was effectively asked to mitigate “the damage he had caused by his behavior” rather than to defend himself. For all these reasons the European Court found there had been violation of Article 6(1) of ECHR.289 287 UN Human Rights Committee, CCPR General Comment 32 (2007), para 25. 288 Kyprianou v Cyprus [2005] ECHR 873, para 127. 289 Kyprianou v Cyprus [2005] ECHR 873, paras 130, 135.