i Appropriate and coherent reasoning of a decision

The right to a fair trial includes the right of a party to the proceedings to be informed of the decisive reasons for a court decision, as that enables the party to appropriately use legal remedies.¹³⁴¹ However, Article 6, paragraph 1 of the ECHR does not require the court to reason all arguments presented by the parties to the proceedings before the court, but only those that the court finds relevant for the decision. Therefore, although there is an obligation of the court to consider all arguments presented by the parties to the proceedings, Article 6, paragraph 1 of the ECHR may not be interpreted in such a way as to impose an obligation on the court to include in its judgment all the arguments presented.¹³⁴² Furthermore, in relation to the substratum of the facts, relevant are such facts on which the application of the very legal norm depends. Should the court fail to present a relevant factual description, the judgment might be considered arbitrary or uninformed.¹³⁴³ Finally, the court must present and assess crucial evidence and present it clearly in the judgment.¹³⁴⁴

Final decisions of courts of appeal, in principle, do not have to contain thorough reasoning for decision-making.¹³⁴⁵ However, if the first instance court has made certain omissions in relation to providing reasoning for the claims, from the constitutional and legal standpoint, no objections to such omissions may be raised if the second instance court corrects them.¹³⁴⁶

A violation of the right to a fair trial may exist in a case when the court of appeal has provided contradictory argumentation for its judgment and has failed to correct the apparent omissions in the challenged judgment of the first instance court. Thus, if the domestic criminal courts sentenced a person for certain criminal acts, concerning which the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia – due to the lack of a reasonable suspicion – had not allowed the furtherance of criminal proceedings, that would not be in compliance with Article 6, paragraph 1 of the ECHR. A clearance issued by the international prosecutor under the so-called Rules of the Road,¹³⁴⁷ is compulsory and it constitutes an obstacle for the conduct of a criminal proceedings unless, during the course of the proceeding, and following the refusal to issue a clearance for the conduct of a proceeding, new evidence has been presented convincing the court of the guilt of the accused.¹³⁴⁸