The law firm Soulez Larivière Avocats represented a corporation before the Strasbourg Criminal Court in a case where the corporation was charged with employing an individual engaged in undeclared work.
The company, which specializes in the telecommunications sector, was accused of subcontracting part of its operations to a firm that had set up a scheme to fraudulently exploit the “auto-entrepreneur” status.
An investigation was launched, following which the company was brought before the Strasbourg Criminal Court as a defendant.
However, the firm’s attorneys’ analysis of the preliminary investigation file revealed numerous irregularities.
Two versions of the criminal case file had in fact been digitized successively. However, the numbering of the official reports and their total number differed between the two versions of the case file. Furthermore, certain official reports, which appeared identical at first glance, had in fact been altered in the second version of the criminal case file.
Under these circumstances, and prior to any defense on the merits, the law firm Soulez Larivière Avocats had filed a motion to set aside the proceedings, arguing, on the one hand, that the minutes drawn up during the preliminary investigation were devoid of any probative value, and, second, that the criminal case file to which the defense had been granted access made it impossible to effectively exercise the rights of the defense, in violation of the requirements for a fair trial.
Consequently, the defense sought the annulment of the entire proceeding and the acquittal of the defendant company.
At the hearing, the representative of the public prosecutor’s office opposed the annulment of the proceedings.
Nevertheless, the Strasbourg Criminal Court ruled that the existence of multiple altered police reports within the proceedings deprived the proceedings of any reliability or fairness; and that a judgment based on such proceedings would constitute a serious violation of the right to a fair trial.
Pursuant to Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Court therefore declared the entire proceeding null and void and acquitted all of the defendants.
