"In a last ditch bid to prevent them from paying out and to clear their names, the couple lodged an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights in July."
I think you said as much yesterday Stephen, well anticipated. Clearly money is a significant factor here.
"It should not be said that the appellants were cleared via the ruling announcing the archiving of the criminal case. In truth, that ruling was not made in virtue of Portugal's Public Prosecution Service having acquired the conviction that the appellants hadn't committed a crime.
"The archiving of the case was determined by the fact that public prosecutors hadn't managed to obtain sufficient evidence of the practice of crimes by the appellants.
"There is therefore a significant, and not merely a semantic difference, between the legally admissible foundations of the archive ruling. It doesn't therefore seem acceptable that the ruling, based on the insufficiency of evidence, should be equated to proof of innocence."
They added: "It's true that the aforementioned criminal inquiry ended up being archived, namely because none of the apparent evidence that led to the appellants being made 'arguidos' was subsequently confirmed or consolidated.
"However even the archive ruling raises serious concerns relating to the truth of the allegation that Madeleine was kidnapped."
Portuguese Supreme Court judgesIn my opinion the above content in the ruling by the judges sitting in the Portuguese appeal court almost certainly guaranteed that Kate and Gerry McCann would make an approach to the European Court of Human Rights for their case to be considered.
In my opinion the wording of that judgement indicates that their application to be heard by the ECHR will be accepted.
If their application proceeds it is my opinion the wording of that judgement ensures that the McCanns will almost certainly win their case in the European Court.
In my opinion the wording of the ruling made by the Portuguese judges was a game changer the ultimate consequence of which will not be as the authors intended. Unlike the sceptics who at the time rejoiced at the inclusion, I thought it was an entirely unnecessary step too far.
I think that will prove to be the case. Brilliant in the short term but not well thought through to the long term.
If the case is to be heard, it will only remain to be seen what the wording of the complaint the McCann legal team presents to the court will be.
The McCanns can safely be associated with that legal representation. They absolutely cannot be associated with the ramblings of tabloids and broadsheets.
It is patently wrong to do so.
EU strengthens right to the presumption of innocenceAccording to the directive,
member states will have to ensure that suspects and accused persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty under the law. The Directive provides two rights linked to this principle: the right to remain silent and the right not to incriminate oneself. In addition, member states will have to respect the following related obligations: before the final judgement, suspects and accused persons should not to be presented as being guilty through the use of measures of physical restraint and the burden of proof is on the prosecution while any reasonable doubts as to the guilt should benefit the accused. The right to be present at one's trial is also addressed by this directive.
Moreover, member states will have to ensure that suspects and accused persons have an effective remedy if their rights under this directive are breached.http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-63-2015-INIT/en/pdf