Постановление Европейского суда по правам человека от 28.05.2009 "Дело "Карягин, Матвеев и Королев (Karyagin, Matveyev and Korolev) против Российской Федерации" [рус., англ.]

of the judgment had been typed later, in compliance with the relevant requirements, and thus was of better quality. The Government emphasised that there were no significant differences between the two copies. The existing differences did not concern the evidence assessed by the court and did not change the meaning conveyed by the judgment. They were explained by the correction of grammar and technical mistakes and bringing the text in compliance with the requirements for official documents. The different number of pages was explained by larger interlinear spacing and different paragraph formatting.
18. The Government further pleaded that the quashing of the judgment in the applicants' criminal case for reasons of the differences between the two copies of the judgment would not be justified. It would involve summoning witnesses, victims and other participants to the proceedings for the fresh examination of the case and probably the applicants' detention pending retrial. It would entail a violation of the "reasonable time" requirement of Article 6 of the Convention. What is more, given the insignificance of the differences between the two copies of the judgments, the retrial would lead to the same outcome.
19. The Government asserted that the proceedings in the applicants' case complied with the fair trial requirements under Article 6. In the preparation of their appeals against the judgment the applicants had been free to consult the court records and the other documents from the case file and to signal any discrepancies in their appeals. Lastly, the applicants could have requested the criminal prosecution of the servant of the court's registry who was responsible for the inaccuracy in the preparation of the copies of the judgment, had they considered that the twenty-seven-page copy of the judgment had been falsified. The word "falsified" in the Supreme Court's letter of 31 May 2001 was not used in its legal meaning but simply referred to the absence of the judge's signature.

2. The applicants

20. The applicants asserted that the thirty-one-page copy had been prepared later than the twenty-seven-page copy as all the grammatical and stylistic errors which could be found in the twenty-seven-page copy had been corrected in the thirty-one-page copy. All the appeals had been lodged with judge Ms Ikryannikova at the Regional Court who had then forwarded them to the Supreme Court. She must have prepared the thirty-one-page copy of the judgment after the examination of those appeals.
21. The applicants argued that there were over 200 discrepancies between the two texts, about half of which could allegedly be said to have changed the meaning conveyed by the judgment in respect of the circumstances of the case, the evidence and the court's conclusions with the effect of intensifying the accusations against the applicants to their detriment. The other half concerned grammatical and stylistic changes which were mostly aimed at facilitating the understanding of the text. They further complained that references to pages and lines of the twenty-seven-page copy in their appeals had become meaningless for the appeal court, which had examined the thirty-one-page copy.
22. The applicants argued that the twenty-seven-page copy had been signed by judge Ms Ikryannikova and sealed with the official court's stamp. It had been officially served on them by the Regional Court and included in their personal convict files as a basis for them to serve their sentence.

B. The Court's assessment

23. The Court notes first that the applicants lodged a supervisory review request with the Presidium of the Supreme Court. The reaction of the Supreme Court in respect of the applicants' grievance about the discrepancies between the two copies of the judgment was that the applicants' copy of t

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