NEUMEISTER v. AUSTRIA JUDGMENT
17
Investigating Judge examined numerous witnesses including Alfred
Neumeister, the Applicant’s brother (13 December 1966), had experts’
reports drawn up, had resort to the services of the Exchequer, the Vienna
Economic Police, and the police, the Post Office, Interpol, Swiss and
German authorities, etc. The accused do not seem to have been examined
again.
On 8 March 1966, the Regional Criminal Court of Vienna informed
Neumeister that a decision of the same day had, in pursuance of Section 109
of the Code of Criminal Procedure, discontinued (eingestellt) the
proceedings instituted against him in respect of two of the counts. The
amount of the loss imputed to the defendant was reduced by about 370,000
schillings.
27. The trial was resumed before the Regional Criminal Court of Vienna
on 4 December 1967. According to the information supplied to the Court
by the Government, it should last for between four and six months.
28. In his application instituting proceedings of July 1963 (No.
1936/63), the text of which was produced by the Commission at the request
of the Court, Neumeister claimed:
- that he had been arrested and detained without there being "reasonable
suspicion" of his having committed an offence and without there being
grounds for it to be "reasonably considered necessary" to prevent his fleeing
(Article 5 (1) (c) of the Convention) (art. 5-1-c);
- that he had reason to doubt the impartiality of those persons who were
competent both to pronounce upon his continued detention and also to
conduct the investigation (Article 6 (1)) (art. 6-1);
- that the procedure followed in the examination of his requests for
provisional release did not conform with the requirements of Articles 5 (4)
and 6 (1) and (3) (b) and (c) (art. 5-4, art. 6-1, art. 6-3-b, art. 6-3-c)
("equality of arms"; Waffengleichheit);
- that he had been neither brought to trial "within a reasonable time" nor
released pending trial. On this point, the Applicant in particular alleged that
the Investigating Judge, who was required to deal simultaneously with
several important cases, was no longer able to accomplish his task "within a
reasonable time" within the meaning of Articles 5 (3) and 6 (1) (art. 5-3, art.
6-1) of the Convention.
Neumeister complained, inter alia, of the decisions given some months
earlier by the Judges’ Chamber of the Regional Criminal Court of Vienna
and by the Court of Appeal.
In the course of a hearing before the Commission, the Applicant’s lawyer
also invoked Article 5 (2) (art. 5-2) of the Convention, affirming that his
client had not been informed in detail and in writing of the charges against
him.
The Commission decided upon the admissibility of the Application on 6
July 1964. It rejected, on the grounds of their being manifestly ill-founded,