Can a judge assess decisive witnesses’ credibility without having heard them personally? The judgment in Miron and Others v. Romania, delivered on 27 October 2026, brings that question back to the substance of a fair criminal trial. The European Court of Human Rights ties its answer to the role of the particular evidence and the safeguards actually available, rather than an automatic rule governing every replacement of a judge.

The application number is 19565/15. The final Committee judgment finds a violation of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Its importance for practitioners and citizens lies in how it connects the principle of immediacy with an assessment of the proceedings as a whole.

Three points from the judgment

  • The judge who convicted the applicants had not personally examined crucial prosecution witnesses.
  • The transcripts were insufficient in these circumstances, particularly because of the evidence’s importance and the credibility issues raised.
  • Review by higher courts did not remedy the deficiency with adequate safeguards. The Court did not hold that every change of judge automatically causes a violation.

The procedural problem

The application concerned the assessment of witness evidence received without the convicting judge’s personal involvement. The Court did not consider replacement of the judge as an isolated administrative event. It examined what the change meant for a meaningful assessment of the evidence underpinning the finding of guilt.

The relevant findings appear particularly in paragraphs 25–28. They go beyond compliance with a formal rule about attendance. Where a conclusion depends on credibility and conflicting accounts, the question is whether the judge had an adequate basis for reaching an independent assessment. The mere availability of a written case file does not always answer that difficulty.

Immediacy as a safeguard for substantive assessment

Direct engagement with witness evidence allows a judge to follow the examination, the clarification of answers and the testing of the account. This is not an invitation to base decisions on unchecked impressions of behaviour. Its purpose is a reliable judicial assessment within a procedure offering a real opportunity to challenge and answer the evidence.

The judgment should be read in light of that function. Trials involve different forms of evidence, and not every statement carries equal weight. Immediacy therefore cannot be reduced to an arithmetic requirement to repeat every examination. The analysis begins with the issue the judge had to decide and how necessary personal engagement was to an assessment of the decisive material.

Why the transcripts were insufficient here

In this case, the Court attached weight to the prosecution witnesses’ central role, the conflicting versions and the credibility questions raised. It also considered that important witnesses had initially been questioned as suspects. That circumstance does not in itself invalidate testimony, but it helps explain why effective scrutiny of the evidence was particularly important.

Transcripts are an essential means of preserving proceedings. Yet recording words is not always equivalent to reproducing the entire examination and testing of a witness’s account. The Court’s conclusion was specific: in these circumstances, reading the recorded material was not an adequate substitute. It was not a general rejection of transcripts’ evidential value.

The proceedings as a whole and the appeal

In paragraphs 23–24, the Court places immediacy within its broader assessment of the overall fairness of criminal proceedings. It then considers whether review by higher courts cured the problem. The formal availability of an appeal is not enough; what was actually examined and which substantive safeguards were provided matter.

The appeal and further judicial review in this case did not make good the deficiency. The methodological lesson is broader, but it supplies no automatic solution: a remedy must address the substance of the defect. Repeating legal arguments does not necessarily resolve a problem concerning reliable assessment of decisive testimony. The adequacy of review depends on the court’s actual steps.

Why the other Miron case must be distinguished

Paragraph 29 expressly contrasts this case with Miron v. Romania, application 37324/16, decided on 5 November 2024. Similar case names do not permit conclusions to be transferred without examining the underlying facts and procedure. The earlier case presented different circumstances concerning the witnesses’ role, challenges to credibility and the safeguards available.

The comparison illustrates why individual assessment matters. A technical measure such as audio recording should not be described as a universal solution independent of the trial’s content. Equally, lack of personal examination must be connected to a specific evidential issue. Serious use of the case law depends on this comparison rather than a convenient case name alone.

What the Court did not decide

The Article 6 finding is not an acquittal. The Court did not prohibit every replacement of a judge or require every relevant witness to be heard again in all circumstances. The particular safeguards and the weight of the evidence remain decisive. The separate Article 7 complaint was rejected as manifestly ill-founded in paragraphs 34–38.

Paragraph 39 also requires care: reopening is described as the applicants’ request under Romanian law. It is not an order automatically reopening every comparable trial, nor a reference to a Greek procedural remedy. The distinction prevents misleading assumptions about the effect of a Strasbourg judgment in another national legal system.

How to read the judgment usefully

For analysis of a criminal case, Miron suggests a disciplined sequence of questions. Which evidence was decisive for guilt? Who examined it personally? Which specific credibility issues were raised? If the judge changed, what substantive safeguards survived or were supplied later? Answering these questions requires close study of the transcripts and judgments, rather than a description of the judicial composition alone.

The judgment’s relevance to Greek legal discussion lies primarily in this method of examining Convention safeguards. Without further analysis of the applicable national law, it establishes no particular Greek procedural outcome or deadline. A useful comparative reading identifies the underlying problem before examining precisely how it can be raised within the relevant institutional framework.

A fair process requires more than the existence of a complete case file. There must be a sound basis for the deciding judge’s assessment and an effective opportunity for the defence to test decisive evidence. That is Miron’s substantive contribution: reconnecting the actual taking of evidence, reasoned adjudication and the safeguards that make a criminal trial fair.

Primary source

ECtHR, Miron and Others v. Romania, 19565/15, 27 October 2026, particularly §§23–33, 34–39 and the operative provisions. Source checked: 28 October 2026.

Illustrative photograph of justice. Photograph: KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA / Pexels.