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X. v. THE GERMANY - 2279/64 [1967] ECHR 6 (31 May 1967)
THE FACTSWhereas the facts as presented by the Applicant and appearing from thedocuments submitted by him and his lawyers may be summarised asfollows:The Applicant is a German citizen, born in 1924 and living at Münster.He has degrees in political economy and styles himself "socialattorney" (Sozialanwalt). When lodging his application he was detainedin prison at Berlin.In 1962 the Applicant has been charged with numerous acts of libel andslander, false accusation and similar offenses, amounting in all toabout 30 separate charges. Most of his offenses relate, directly orindirectly, to the death of Dr. B, a lawyer of Münster, who was foundshot dead in his home on .. August, 1961. The death certificatedescribed his death as a "private accident" and later the authoritiesdeclared it to be a case of suicide. But certain circumstances arousedthe suspicion of the father and brother of the deceased as well as thatof the Applicant, who had been consulted by them.After unsuccessfully attempting to have charges of murder broughtagainst unknown persons, the Applicant expressed his suspicion in aseries of pamphlets distributed since November, 1962. He alleged thatDr. B had been killed because he knew facts which, if revealed, wouldbe damaging to his partner Dr. P who was Mayor (Oberbürgermeister) ofMünster and also because of the relationships of Mrs. B with other men.He suggested that the authorities had been party to a conspiracy andhad deliberately, and almost completely, veiled the truth, namely thatB was murdered.On .. December, 1962, the body of Dr. B was exhumed and a post-mortemcarried out. On .. and .. January, 1963, the competent judge of theDistrict Court (Amtsgericht) ordered the arrest of B's widow and ofthree other persons on suspicion of murder. This order was, however,set aside on the next day by the Regional Court (Landgericht) ofMünster. In the meanwhile, the Public Prosecutor (Staatsanwaltschaft)of Münster had instituted criminal proceedings against the Applicantas a result of his allegations and the insulting expressions used byhim. On the basis of an expert opinion given by an officialpsychiatrist (Landesmedizinalrat), Dr. A, after a conversation with theApplicant on .. and .. December, 1962, the Public Prosecutor obtainedfrom the District Court an order for the Applicant's committal to amental hospital. However, this order and four subsequent orders, whichwere based partly on Article 126a of the Code of Criminal Procedure(provisional detention of an insane person for reasons of publicsecurity), and partly on Article 81 of that Code (detention for thepurpose of a psychiatric examination), were all set aside by theRegional Court of Münster on appeal (Beschwerde). On .. October, 1963,a sixth order was issued by the District Court providing for apsychiatric examination of the Applicant in a mental hospital over aperiod of 6 weeks. In addition, a warrant for arrest as issued on ..October, 1963, based on the assumption that the Applicant was found tobe sane.The warrant for arrest issued by the District Court of Münstermentioned 16 separate offenses, mainly libel and slander, of which theApplicant was said to be strongly suspected. The warrant then set outthat the Applicant was likely to flee from justice since, up to thattime, he had successfully evaded his psychiatric examination in amental hospital. The Court, however, suspended the execution of thewarrant on certain conditions which were intended to guarantee that theApplicant would be at the disposal of the Court at any time required.On .. October, 1963, the District Court ordered in addition that theApplicant should be brought before the judge in order to make thedeclarations which were the necessary conditions of the suspension ofthe execution of the warrant.On .. October, 1963, however, the Court revoked the conditionalsuspension of execution on the ground that the Applicant had fled. TheApplicant submits that neither he nor his mother nor his lawyer hadeven been informed of the conditional suspension of execution. On ..October, 1963, the Regional Court of Münster rejected an appeal lodgedby the Applicant's lawyer "against the warrant read in conjunction withthe decision of .. October, 1963 (revocation of the conditionalsuspension of the execution of the warrant)".In this decision the Regional Court stated that the Applicant wouldprobably be sentenced to a considerable term of imprisonment or wouldbe committed to a mental hospital if he should prove to be criminallyirresponsible; furthermore on the general presumption that an adultperson is criminally responsible, a warrant for arrest was necessaryas the Applicant had fled from justice and was likely to do so again.A further appeal (weitere Beschwerde) was rejected by the Court ofAppeal (Oberlandesgericht) of Hamm on .. December, 1963, in spite ofcertificates of 7 psychiatrists submitted by the Applicant on .. Mayand .. November, 1963 attesting to his sanity. These included, interalia, an opinion of Prof. Dr. C of Cologne.The Court held that the combination of a warrant for arrest and anorder for an examination in a mental hospital was legally possible as,on the one hand, the circumstances and the preliminary expert opinionof the university lecturer (Dr. habil.) A pointed towards theconclusion that the Applicant had acted in a state of irresponsibilityor reduced responsibility and, on the other hand, the medicalcertificates submitted by the Applicant together with the generalpresumption of the responsibility of adults supported by the hypothesisthat he was of sound mind.The Court also dismissed as being ill-founded the further grounds ofappeal raised by the Applicant's lawyer.[/align]