quality of arms, in the case of Stoimenov v. "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (No. 17995/02, §§ 40 - 42, 5 April 2007) the Court also referred to "appearances" when concluding that an opinion submitted by the Forensic Science Bureau, a State agency, was akin to incriminating evidence used by the prosecution and that the refusal of an alternative expert examination and the applicant's inability to challenge the Bureau's report in the circumstances of that case had resulted in a violation of the equality of arms (see also Shulepova v. Russia, No. 34449/03, §§ 65 - 67, 11 December 2008).
33. The Court does not exclude the possibility that support by the prosecutor's office for one of the parties may be justified in certain circumstances, for instance for the protection of vulnerable persons who are assumed to be unable to protect their interests themselves, or where numerous citizens are affected by the wrongdoing concerned, or where identifiable State assets or interests need to be protected (compare Menchinskaya v. Russia, No. 42454/02, §§ 37 - 40, 15 January 2009, and Batsanina v. Russia, No. 3932/02, § 27, 26 May 2009).
34. Lastly, the Court points out at the outset that its task is not to review the relevant domestic law and practice in abstracto, but to determine whether the manner in which they were applied to or affected the applicant gave rise to a violation of Article 6 § 1 (see, among other authorities, Padovani v. Italy, 26 February 1993, § 24, Series A No. 257-B, and Hauschildt v. Denmark, 24 May 1989, § 45, Series A No. 154).
(b) Application of those principles in the present case
35. Turning to the circumstances of the present case, the Court observes at the outset that the applicant does not complain before the Court about the domestic courts' refusal to examine his action. Instead, the thrust of his complaint is on the public prosecutor's intervention at the appellate stage of those proceedings.
36. The Court notes that the applicant's opponents in the proceedings in question were State agencies. Their interests before national courts were defended by their representatives, at least one of whom was a lawyer. The prosecutor chose to support their position in the appeal proceedings. It appears that in his final statement at the closure of the hearing he upheld the first instance court's conclusions concerning the application of the statutory time-limit in the case.
37. In the present case, the Court does not discern any particular reason which would justify the prosecutor's participation in the appeal hearing in an ordinary civil case. It does not transpire that the prosecutor intended, for instance, to protect any identifiable State assets or interests at stake (see, by contrast, Batsanina, cited above, § 27). While it is uncontested that the prosecutor confined his participation in the proceedings to a mere statement of approval of the first-instance decision concerning the application of the statutory time-limit, the Court sees no reason to speculate on what effect such intervention may have had on the course of the proceedings. However it finds that the mere repeating by the prosecutor of the respondents' arguments on points of law, unless it aimed at influencing the court, appeared meaningless (see Menchinskaya, cited above, § 38). The foregoing considerations have led the Court to conclude that the principle of the equality of arms, requiring a fair balance between the parties, was not respected in the present case.
38. There has accordingly been a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.
II. Other alleged violation of the Convention
39. Lastly, the applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention about the allegedly excessive length of the proceedings. In the light of all the material in its possession, and in so far as the matt
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