issued by the Registrar of the Court
ECHR 207 (2025)
16.09.2025
Judgments of 16 September 2025
The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing four judgments1:
two Chamber judgments are summarised below;
two Committee judgments, concerning issues which have already been examined by the Court, can
be consulted on Hudoc and do not appear in this press release.
The judgments summarised below are available only in English.
Seppern v. Estonia (application no. 31722/22)
The applicant, Alar Seppern, is an Estonian national who was born in 1986 and lives in Jõhvi.
The case concerns the use of unlawfully obtained evidence in criminal proceedings. The applicant had
been suspected of several criminal offences and during the related criminal investigation his
telephone was wiretapped and various conversations were recorded. That evidence was subsequently
declared inadmissible. Several excerpts from the transcripts of those conversations were,
nonetheless, disclosed at trial, following a request by the prosecutor, and used to assess the
applicant’s credibility during his cross-examination. The applicant’s trial statements were excluded as
unreliable and on 19 April 2021 he was convicted of various offences, including tax evasion and fraud.
Relying on Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial) of the European Convention on Human Rights, the applicant
complains that his trial was unfair as the domestic courts had used unlawfully obtained evidence to
find that his statements, made during the trial, were unreliable.
No violation of Article 6 § 1
Cantemir v. Romania (no. 9915/19)
The applicant, Tiberiu Cantemir, is a Romanian national who was born in 1964 and lives in Bucharest.
The case concerns the effectiveness of a criminal investigation into ill-treatment and injury sustained
by participants in anti-government demonstrations in Romania in December 1989. The main
investigation in that connection, which included consideration of the ill-treatment sustained by the
applicant, was opened in 1990. Most recently, in 2019, the investigation was discontinued in respect
of 627 injured persons, including the applicant.
Relying on Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment) of the European Convention,
the applicant complains that the criminal investigation into his ill-treatment was not effective.
Violation of Article 3 (investigation)
Just satisfaction:
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Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, Chamber judgments are not final. During the three-month period following a Chamber
judgment’s delivery, any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Court. If such a request is made, a panel
of five judges considers whether the case deserves further examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a
final judgment. If the referral request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day. Under Article 28 of the Convention,
judgments delivered by a Committee are final.
Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for supervision of its execution.
Further information about the execution process can be found here: www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution
non-pecuniary damage: 12,500 euros (EUR)
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States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.
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