plicant had been substantially affected by the arrest on the specified date. Accordingly, the Court accepts that the criminal proceedings against the applicant concerning the charges on which he was convicted on 29 April 2002 commenced on 15 January 1999.
43. The Court observes that the criminal proceedings against the applicant lasted from 15 January 1999 to 19 December 2002, which spanned the investigation stage and the judicial proceedings where the courts reviewed the case at two instances. Accordingly, the period to be taken into consideration amounted approximately to three years and eleven months.
44. The Court reiterates that the reasonableness of the length of proceedings must be assessed in the light of the circumstances of the case and with reference to the following criteria: the complexity of the case, the applicant's conduct and the conduct of the competent authorities (see, among many other authorities, {Pelissier} and Sassi v. France [GC], No. 25444/94, § 67, ECHR 1999-II).
45. The Court accepts that the present case was complex, involving three co-defendants and multiple serious charges. It is further satisfied that there were no significant or unexplained periods of inactivity once the trial court received the case.
46. However, the Court is mindful of the fact that the authorities failed to provide any account for the time that elapsed between 15 January 1999, the date on which the applicant was arrested, and 2 July 2001, the date on which his case was forwarded to the trial court.
47. Having regard to the serious length of the delay and the lack of any account for it from the authorities, the Court finds that the period of the criminal proceedings against the applicant breached the "reasonable time" requirement (see, among other authorities, Barfuss v. the Czech Republic, No. 35848/97, §§ 82 - 83, 31 July 2000).
48. Accordingly, there has been a violation of Article 6 § 1 on account of excessively long proceedings.
III. Other alleged violations of the Convention
49. The applicant further complained under Article 6 § 1 that his case had not been heard by a jury; that the trial and appeal courts had not been impartial in view of continued examination of the case despite his complaints about the lay judges' expired terms of office and because it had tried to put pressure on the applicant's representative by means of an article published in the Molva newspaper; that on 30 July 2001 the trial court had refused to allow his representative Mr Kuvshinov to defend him; and that he had not had sufficient time to prepare his defence.
50. The Court considers that the complaint about the dismissal of the applicant's request to have his case heard by a jury is manifestly ill-founded. The jury trial is not an essential aspect of a fair hearing in the determination of a criminal charge (see Callaghan and Others v. the United Kingdom, No. 14739/89, Commission decision of 9 May 1989, DR 60, p. 296; Moiseyev v. Russia (dec.), No. 62936/00, 9 December 2004) and, furthermore, jury trials were introduced in the Vladimir Region only after the applicant's conviction. A similar complaint was examined and dismissed by the Court in the case of Klimentyev v. Russia (dec.), No. 46503/99, 17 September 2002. It follows that this complaint must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
51. The complaints of the trial court's lack of impartiality in view of the continued examination of the case despite the applicant's complaints of the lay judges' expired terms of office and in view of alleged pressure on the applicant's representative through publishing of a newspaper article were not raised in the grounds of appeal and are completely unsubstantiated. It follows that these complaints must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 1 and 3 of t
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