Strasbourg, France, Dec. 3, 2024 (Lusa) - The European Court of Human Rights (EHCtR) has rejected a complaint by Ricardo Salgado, former CEO of Portugal's one-time largest non-state bank, Banco Espírito Santo (BES), who claimed that statements made by the governor of the Bank of Portugal violated his right to an independent and impartial presumption of innocence in court proceedings against him.

In the judgement published on Tuesday on the ECtHR's official website, the Strasbourg-based court said that it had "unanimously decided that there has been no violation" of the articles on the right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence set out in the European Convention on Human Rights.

The complaint was filed in 2019 by the former banker, who faced criminal and administrative proceedings against him following the collapse of the Espírito Santo group. He had claimed that, due to various public statements made by the governor of the Bank of Portugal, he would not have a fair hearing by an independent and impartial court and thus his right to the presumption of innocence was undermined.

However, the ECtHR ruled "that the statements made by the Governor of the BoP do not violate the applicant's right to a fair hearing."

It recalls that the former CEO of BES, "one of Portugal's largest private banks, whose collapse was the subject of bankruptcy proceedings," was himself "sentenced to a prison term of one and a half years" while the bank was the subject of a resolution measure on the part of the Bank of Portugal, and a great deal of media attention.

SIM/ARO // ARO.

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