54
GÄFGEN v. GERMANY JUDGMENT
188. Accordingly, there has been no violation of Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 of
the Convention.
III. APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION
189. Article 41 of the Convention provides:
“If the Court finds that there has been a violation of the Convention or the Protocols
thereto, and if the internal law of the High Contracting Party concerned allows only
partial reparation to be made, the Court shall, if necessary, afford just satisfaction to
the injured party.”
A. Damage
190. The applicant did not claim any award for pecuniary or nonpecuniary damage, stressing that the objective of his application was to
obtain a retrial before the domestic courts. The Government did not
comment on this issue.
191. The Court accordingly does not make an award in respect of
damage. As to the specific measure requested by the applicant in
compensation, the Court considers, in view of the conclusion reached under
Article 6, that there is no basis for the applicant to request a retrial or the
reopening of the case before the domestic courts.
B. Costs and expenses
192. Submitting documentary evidence, the applicant upheld his claims
made before the Chamber and requested the payment of the costs of the
criminal proceedings which the Regional Court had directed him to pay
following his conviction. These amounted to 72,855.60 euros (EUR). He
left it to the Court’s discretion to decide which of these costs (which
included, inter alia, expert and other witness costs together with counsel’s
fees) had to be regarded as having been caused by violations of his
Convention rights. He argued that the costs of lodging an appeal on points
of law and a constitutional complaint to the Federal Constitutional Court
(the amount of which has not been further specified) had been incurred
solely in an attempt to rectify the violations of the Convention.
193. The applicant, who had been granted legal aid, further claimed a
total of EUR 22,647.85 in costs and expenses incurred in the proceedings
before the Court. These vouched or invoiced costs included legal fees, fees
for accessing case files from the domestic proceedings and for legal experts’
reports, copying costs, and travel, subsistence and accommodation
expenses, together with the costs of further proceedings pending before the
domestic courts.
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