. It had been up to the Presidium to decide whether or not to summon the applicant to the hearing; his presence had not been necessary, given that all facts had been correctly established at the court of first instance. The prosecutor's intervention at the hearing was confined to a mere reading out of the application for review.
44. The applicant stressed that he had not requested a reclassification of his offence. The reduction of his sentence had not negated the fact that he had not been afforded an opportunity to participate effectively in the supervisory review hearing. Thus, he had not had sufficient time to prepare his comments on the prosecutor's application; in any event, although he had submitted them both to the prosecutor's office and the Presidium court, they had disregarded them which had been evident from the decision of 3 October 2001, which had not referred to any of his arguments. In the same vein, all his requests to attend the hearing had been disregarded, which had deprived him of an opportunity to attend the hearing and to defend his position. In his opinion, the decision, delivered after a hearing where he had not been able to present his arguments in person or through some form of legal representation, had breached his right to a fair trial and the principle of equality of arms.
B. The Court's assessment
1. Admissibility
45. The Court notes that this complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention. It further notes that it is not inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible.
2. Merits
46. The Court has already found a violation of the fairness requirement of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention in the cases where the supervisory review courts adopted a different legal classification of the applicants' offence without summoning them to supervisory review hearings or affording them an opportunity to comment on the applications for supervisory review (see Vanyan v. Russia, No. 53203/99, §§ 63 - 68, 15 December 2005; Aldoshkina v. Russia, No. 66041/01, §§ 23 - 25, 12 October 2006; and Stanislav Zhukov v. Russia, No. 54632/00, §§ 23 - 25, 12 October 2006). As regards the Government's submission that the reclassification was not to the applicant's detriment, the Court observes that it has already examined and rejected similar arguments in the above-mentioned Vanyan and Stanislav Zhukov cases (both cited above, §§ 53 and 24, respectively; see also Sharomov v. Russia, No. 8927/02, § 44, 15 January 2009).
47. Having regard to its case-law on the subject and the material submitted by the parties, the Court notes that the Government have not put forward any fact or argument capable of persuading it to reach a different conclusion in the present case. The Presidium of the Supreme Court amended the applicant's sentence and adopted a different legal classification of his actions, thereby re-determining the criminal charge against him (see Stanislav Zhukov and Aldoshkina, both cited above, § 24 and § 24 respectively). The prosecution was present at the supervisory review hearing and made oral submissions in support of the reclassification. The Presidium court was under an obligation to exercise a full review of the case and could dismiss the application for supervisory review, quash the conviction and/or the previous judgments, discontinue the criminal proceedings, or amend any of the earlier decisions (see paragraph 40 above). In such circumstances the applicant should have been afforded an effective opportunity to have knowledge of and comment on the authorities' application for supervisory review and their oral submissions to the Presidium court and to plead his case in adversarial proceedings (see Vanyan, Aldoshkina and Stanislav Zhukov, all cited above, §§ 24, 24 and 67 respe
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