a weapon, and why the victim had waited for so long after the events before going to the police. The domestic authorities had not deployed sufficient efforts to obtain the attendance of witnesses. The insufficient funding of court bailiffs, preventing them from travelling to the witnesses' places of residence, did not release the authorities from the obligation to secure the applicants' right to a fair trial.
75. The Court reiterates its constant case-law that evidence must normally be produced at a public hearing, in the presence of the accused, with a view to adversarial argument. Although it may prove necessary in certain circumstances to refer to statements made during the investigative stage, the defendant should be given an adequate and proper opportunity to challenge such statements, for their admission in evidence to be compatible with Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d). The corollary of that, however, is that where a conviction is based solely or to a decisive degree on statements that have been made by a person whom the accused has had no opportunity to examine or to have examined, whether during the investigation or at the trial, the rights of the defence are restricted to an extent that is incompatible with the guarantees provided by Article 6 (see, most recently, Makeyev v. Russia, No. 13769/04, §§ 34 - 35, 5 February 2009, and, as a leading authority, Lucа v. Italy, No. 33354/96, § 40, ECHR 2001-II).
76. The applicants had to answer the charge of physically assaulting the victim Mr O. and forcing him to hand his car over to them. The beating had allegedly happened during a business meeting in an office in Miass in October 2001. Many people had attended the meeting but nearly all of them had been ordered to vacate the premises by the first applicant and had not seen what had been happening inside. However, Mr St. testified in open court that even before he left he had seen both applicants shout at the victim Mr O. and the first applicant brandish the chair leg. Ms E. - whose attendance in court was not secured - had stated in her pre-trial statement that she had remained outside but had seen through the window as the first applicant was administering blows to Mr O. with some kind of wooden stick. Some time later, as Mr O. was leaving the office, several eyewitnesses - who testified in court - had seen bloodstains on his head and clothing. In the circumstances where Mr O. had entered the office in good health, had remained there in the company of the applicants who had been seen shouting at him and brandishing objects, and had later emerged from the office covered in blood, the Court is unable to find that the statements by Ms E. and her description of what she had seen through the window played a crucial role for establishing the fact that Mr O.'s injuries had been caused by the applicants. Likewise, the statement by Mr B., who had been away from the scene for a quarter of an hour, merely corroborated the other testimony and did not contain any new relevant elements. Accordingly, the Court considers that their statements were not of decisive importance for the applicants' conviction (compare Makeyev, cited above, § 40).
77. It is further noted that, contrary to the applicants' submissions, the former traffic-police officer Mr U. did actually appear before the trial court. In any event, he did not clearly remember the registration of the transfer of ownership of Mr O.'s car and could not confirm or disprove the applicants' claim that it had been a bona fide transaction.
78. The investigator Ms P. had been interviewed at the trial and the applicants did not explain what evidence could have been obtained in the event of her repeated appearance. It was noted by the trial court and by the Government and not contested by the applicants that the investigator Ms K. had not taken any meaningful part in their case and that the forensic expert Mr Ku. had only
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