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issued by the Registrar of the Court ECHR 117 (2018) 28.03.2018 Forthcoming Grand Chamber judgment concerning the prosecution of a lawyer and the fact that he was not permitted to conduct his own defence The European Court of Human Rights will be delivering a Grand Chamber judgment1 in the case of Correia de Matos v. Portugal (application no. 56402/12) at a public hearing on 4 April 2018 at 4 p.m. in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg. The case concerns the criminal proceedings brought against the applicant, a lawyer, for insulting a judge, and the fact that he was not permitted to conduct his own defence in those proceedings because the domestic courts required him to be represented by a lawyer. Principal facts and complaints The applicant, Mr Carlos Correia de Matos, is a Portuguese national who was born in 1944 and lives in Viana Do Castelo (Portugal). On 28 February 2008, in the context of a set of civil proceedings in which he was acting as a lawyer, Mr Correia de Matos criticised the decisions taken by the judge hearing the case. The judge lodged a complaint with the public prosecutor's office alleging that he had been insulted. On 10 February 2010 the public prosecutor's office at the Baixo-Vouga District Court filed the prosecution's submissions against Mr Correia de Matos on a charge of insulting a judge and appointed counsel for him on the basis of Article 64 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. On 12 March 2010 Mr Correia de Matos requested the opening of adversarial investigation proceedings and sought leave to conduct his own defence. On 7 September 2010 the District Court agreed to open the investigation but held that the applicant was not entitled to act in the proceedings without the assistance of defence counsel. Mr Correia de Matos appealed against the decision not to allow him to conduct his own defence in the criminal proceedings. The appeal was dismissed. At the end of the adversarial investigation proceedings, the investigating judge upheld the charges and referred the case to the Baixo-Vouga Criminal Court. Mr Correia de Matos lodged a constitutional appeal against the investigating judge's decision. On 11 May 2012, the Constitutional Court declared the appeal inadmissible. By a judgment of 12 December 2013 the Baixa-Vouga Criminal Court convicted the applicant of the offence of aggravated insult of a judge. His appeal against that judgment was dismissed on the grounds that it had not been signed by the lawyer representing him. Mr Correia de Matos also lodged an appeal against that decision, which was dismissed on the same grounds. Relying on Article 6 � 3 (c) (right to defend oneself in person or through legal assistance of one's own choosing) of the European Convention on Human Rights, the applicant complains of the decisions of the domestic courts refusing him leave to conduct his own defence in the criminal proceedings against him and requiring that he be represented by a lawyer. 1. Grand Chamber judgments are final (Article 44 of the Convention). All final judgments are transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for supervision of their execution. Further information about the execution process can be found here: www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution. Procedure The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 4 August 2012. On 13 September 2016 the Chamber relinquished jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber. A hearing was held on 8 February 2017. This press release is a document produced by the Registry. It does not bind the Court. Decisions, judgments and further information about the Court can be found on www.echr.coe.int. To receive the Court's press releases, please subscribe here: www.echr.coe.int/RSS/en or follow us on Twitter @ECHRpress. Press contacts [email protected] | tel.: +33 3 90 21 42 08 Denis Lambert (tel: + 33 3 90 21 41 09) Tracey Turner-Tretz (tel: + 33 3 88 41 35 30) Inci Ertekin (tel: + 33 3 90 21 55 30) Patrick Lannin (tel: + 33 3 90 21 44 18) Somi Nikol (tel: + 33 3 90 21 64 25) The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. 2