ABSTRACT
Mr Francesco Goddi was a shepherd. On 6 June 1975, he was tried for various firearms offences and sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment and a serious offence fine. He appealed to the Bologna Court of Appeal. The hearing of 3 December 1977 was held in the absence of the applicant and his lawyer and also of the party seeking damages, the co-accused and his lawyer, and the three witnesses who had been summoned. The Court of Appeal declared the applicant to be unlawfully absent (he had been recently arrested). Mr Bezicheri, the applicant’s chosen lawyer, failed to appear, since he had not received the notification which had been sent to the applicant’s previous lawyers. At the hearing on 3 December, the Court of Appeal assigned another lawyer, Mr Straziani, to act for the applicant. Mr Straziani did no more than refer back to the grounds of appeal, which had been drafted by the previous lawyer. The hearing was concluded on the same day. The Court of Appeal accepted the senior public prosecutor’s submissions and imposed on the applicant heavier sentences. The applicant’s appeal to the Court of Cassation was dismissed on 8 November 1979. The applicant complained that he had not been able to appear at the hearing himself, that he had been deprived of the services of the lawyer of his own choosing, by reason of the fact that the date of the hearing had been notified to another lawyer, who was no longer acting for him, and that the defence provided by Mr Straziani, the officially appointed lawyer, had not been effective. Comm found unanimously V 6(3)(c).
