Chapter 7 • The Right to a Fair Trial: Part II – From Trial to Final Judgement With regard to the minimum guarantees contained in article 14(3) of the Covenant with respect to criminal proceedings, the Human Rights Committee has pointed out in General Comment No. 13 that their observance “is not always sufficient to ensure the fairness of a hearing as required by paragraph 1”1 of article 14, which may thus impose further obligations on the States parties. In particular, when it comes to cases in which a capital sentence may be imposed, “the obligation of States parties to observe rigorously all the guarantees for a fair trial set out in article 14 of the Covenant admits of no exception”.2 Below, a few examples from universal and regional jurisprudence will show the diversity of situations in the course of trial proceedings that may amount to a violation of the right to a fair hearing. More details as to the fairness of hearings will be given in subsection 3.2.2 regarding “The right to equality of arms and adversarial proceedings”. The right to a fair trial in article 14(1) of the Covenant was violated in a case where the trial court failed “to control the hostile atmosphere and pressure created by the public in the court room, which made it impossible for defence counsel to properly cross-examine the witnesses and present” the author’s defence. Although the Supreme Court referred to this issue, it “failed to specifically address it when it heard the author’s appeal”.3 The right to a fair trial under article 14(1) was further violated in a case where the prosecutor entered a nolle prosequi plea in a trial after the author had pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The Committee considered that, in the circumstances of the case, the “purpose and effect” of the nolle prosequi “were to circumvent the consequences” of the author’s guilty plea, in that rather than using it to discontinue the proceedings against the author, it enabled the prosecution to bring a fresh prosecution against the author immediately on exactly the same charge.4 ***** 1 United Nations Compilation of General Comments, p. 123, para. 5. 2 Communication No. 272/1988, A. Thomas v. Jamaica (Views adopted on 31 March 1992), in UN doc. GAOR, A/47/40, p. 264, para. 13.l; emphasis added. 3 Communication No. 770/1997, Gridin v. Russian Federation (Views adopted on 20 July 2000), in UN doc. GAOR, A/55/40 (vol. II), p. 176, para. 8.2. The author alleged inter alia that the court room was crowded with people who were screaming that he should be sentenced to death; ibid., p. 173, para. 3.5. 4 Communication No. 535/1993, L. Richards v. Jamaica (Views adopted on 31 March 1997), in UN doc. GAOR, A/52/40 (vol. II), p. 43, para. 7.2. Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers 255