Information Note on the Court’s case-law No.
February 1996
A and Others v. Denmark - 20826/92
Judgment 8.2.1996
Article 6
Article 6-1
Reasonable time
Length of compensation proceedings initially brought by haemophiliac association and subsequently joined by individual haemophiliacs infected with HIV following blood transfusions: violation; no violation
[This summary is extracted from the Court’s official reports (Series A or Reports of Judgments and Decisions). Its formatting and structure may therefore differ from the Case-Law Information Note summaries.]
I.ARTICLE 6 § 1 OF THE CONVENTION
Applicability of provision not disputed.
A.Periods to be taken into consideration
Starting-point: changes with regard to plaintiffs' submissions and claims were not such as to warrant removing specific stages of the domestic court proceedings from Court's assessment of whether their duration reasonable – changes as to plaintiffs' identity of greater consequence – mere fact that applicants belonged to category on behalf of which association had acted not sufficient to consider their duration already from date when association instituted proceedings – it was only as from the dates when applicants identified as individual plaintiffs that they could claim to be victims, within meaning of Article 25, of the alleged breach of Article 6.
End: for three applicants, appeal proceedings before Supreme Court still pending, for one applicant, ended when withdrew from proceedings; for remaining applicants ended when High Court delivered judgment.
Total: different periods ranging between four years and more than six years.
B.Reasonableness of the length of the proceedings
Complexity of the case: although case of some complexity this alone could not justify considerable length of proceedings.
Applicants' conduct: when they complained to European Commission of Human Rights about length of the proceedings, these had already lasted for an appreciable period – although on that occasion they undeniably conveyed to High Court and to defendants that they found length of proceedings unacceptable, their attitude in this respect was contradicted by their own conduct before High Court – applicants to significant extent responsible for protracted nature of proceedings.
Conduct of administrative and judicial authorities: defendant authorities had themselves either asked for or accepted very large number of adjournments – despite their request to speed up proceedings they did not themselves significantly change their pattern of prolonging them – High Court, albeit familiar with case by time applicants joined and thus able already then to take on an active role in conducting proceedings, granted all of the parties' numerous requests for adjournments, hardly ever using its powers to require them to specify claims, clarify arguments, adduce relevant evidence or decide on who should be appointed as experts – competent authorities had not acted with exceptional diligence with respect to eight of the applicants, who were themselves victims of HIV, or relatives of deceased victims, suffering from incurable disease pending the proceedings and who had their life expectancy reduced.
Conclusion: violation in respect to eight of the applicants (six votes to three).
On the other hand, no duty of exceptional diligence applied with regard to two of the applicants.
Conclusion: no violation in respect to two of the applicants (unanimously).
II.ARTICLE 50 OF THE CONVENTION
A.Non-pecuniary damage: claims allowed in part.
B.Costs and expenses: partial reimbursement.
Conclusion: respondent State to pay specified sums (unanimously).
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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