Chapter vi  Equality of Arms and Rights to a Fair Hearing 137 hold the trial.597 The Committee added that the violation of the applicant’s right to be tried in his presence could have been remedied if he had been entitled to a retrial in his presence when he was apprehended in Italy.598 Similarly, in Colozza v Italy, the European Court of Human Rights stated that, when domestic law permits a trial to be held, notwithstanding the absence of a person charged with a criminal offence, that person should, once s/he becomes aware of the proceedings, be able to obtain a fresh determination of the merits of the charge from the court that had heard the charge in absentia.599 6.5.4 The right to be present at the hearing in non-criminal proceedings Any entitlement to an oral hearing in non-criminal proceedings relies on an inference to this effect being drawn from the overall right to a “fair” hearing in Article 14(1) of the ICCPR and Article 6(1) of the ECHR. The travaux préparatoires to the ICCPR recognize that in the legal system of many countries trials take place on the basis of written documentation, which is deemed not to place at risk the parties’ procedural guarantees, as the content of all these documents can be made public. In the individual opinion of Human Rights Committee member Bertil Wennergren, in Karttunen v Finland,600 the requirement in Article 14(1) must be applied in a flexible way and cannot, prima facie, be understood as requiring an oral hearing. He further considered that this explained why, at a later stage of the travaux préparatoires on Article 14(3)(d), the right to be tried in one’s own presence before the court of first instance was specifically inserted in the context of criminal proceedings. The Human Rights Committee has commented that Article 14(1) of the ICCPR “may” require that an individual be able to participate in person in civil proceedings. In such circumstances, the State Party is under an obligation to allow that individual to be present at the hearing, even if the person is a non-resident alien. In assessing whether the requirements of Article 14(1) were met in Said v Norway, the Committee noted that the applicant’s lawyer did not request a postponement of the hearing for the purpose of enabling the applicant to participate in person, nor did instructions to that effect appear in the signed authorization given to the lawyer by the applicant and subsequently presented by the lawyer to the judge at the hearing of a child custody case. In those circumstances, the Committee adopted the view that there was no violation by the State through any failure by the Oslo City Court to postpone the hearing, on its own initiative, until the applicant could be present in person.601 Regrettably, the Committee went no further to clarify when civil proceedings “may” require that an individual be able to participate in person in civil proceedings. 597 Maleki v Italy, HRC Communication 699/1996, UN Doc CCPR/C/66/D/699/1996 (1999), para 9.4. See also Lumley v Jamaica, HRC Communication 662/1995, UN Doc CCPR/C/65/D/662/1995 (1999), para 7.4. 598 Maleki v Italy, HRC Communication 699/1996, UN Doc CCPR/C/66/D/699/1996 (1999), para 9.5. 599 Colozza v Italy [1985] ECHR 1, para 29; Krombach v France [2001] ECHR 88, para 85; Sejdovic v Italy [2006] ECHR 181, para 82, 105, 109. See also CoE Committee of Ministers Resolution (75) 11 on the Criteria Governing Proceedings Held in the Absence of the Accused, para I (9). 600 Karttunen v Finland, HRC Communication 387/1989, UN Doc CCPR/C/46/D/387/1989 (1992). 601 Said v Norway, HRC Communication 767/1997, UN Doc CCPR/C/68/D/767/1997 (2000), para 11.3.