Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 73
March 2005
Bako v. Slovakia (dec.) - 60227/00
Decision 15.3.2005 [Section IV]
Article 34
Victim
Loss of victim status in light of just satisfaction award by domestic court for excessive length of proceedings: inadmissible
Article 6
Civil proceedings
Article 6-1
Reasonable time
Constitutional Court decision examining the length of proceedings must be capable of covering their overall length
The applicant brought two sets of civil proceedings against his employer (one in 1993 and one in 1994), seeking compensation for unpaid salaries. The cases travelled back and forth between the District Court, the Regional Court and the Supreme Court. In 2004 the Constitutional Court agreed with the applicant’s constitutional complaint in which he had argued, inter alia, that the proceedings had lasted too long. It limited its finding, in the first case to a period of some eight years during which the District Court had failed to proceed effectively and in the second case to various periods of inactivity likewise imputable to the District Court. It ordered the District Court to proceed with its examination without further delay and granted the applicant SOK 120,000 (about EUR 3,000 at the time) as just satisfaction for non-pecuniary damage suffered because of the delays.
Before the Court the applicant complained inter alia that that the Constitutional Court had failed to take into account that the Regional Court had been responsible for delays totalling 17 months in the first set of proceedings. He also argued that the just satisfaction awarded to him by the Constitutional Court was not appropriate.
The Court noted that the Constitutional Court had examined separately the length of the proceedings before the District Court and the Regional Court respectively. This practice was based on the need for the Constitutional Court to separately identify the authorities which may be liable for a violation of the plaintiff’s human rights and fundamental freedoms and which, as the case may be, it then orders to provide appropriate redress to the person concerned. This approach was different from that of the Court which consists in examining the overall length of the proceedings. The Court therefore had to satisfy itself in each individual case whether the protection of a person’s right granted by the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic was comparable with that which the Court can provide under the Convention. In cases concerning the length of proceedings this requirement would only be met where the Constitutional Court’s decision, while structured so as to make a separate assessment of each of the individual stages of proceedings, was capable of covering all stages of the proceedings complained of and thus, in the same way as decisions given by the Court, of taking into account their overall length.
The Court found no reason for disagreeing with the Constitutional Court’s conclusion that the District Court was liable for substantive delays in the proceedings contrary to the requirements of Article 6 § 1 and that any delays imputable to the Regional Court were not such as to justify that conclusion. In these circumstances, and since the constitutional review covered both levels of the domestic proceedings, the protection provided by the Constitutional Court could not be said to have been inappropriate merely on the ground that no substantial delays were found at a particular stage of the proceedings. In sum, the Constitutional Court’s finding constituted, in the particular circumstances of the case, a sufficient acknowledgment of the infringement of the applicant’s right under consideration.
In examining whether the redress afforded by the Constitutional Court had been adequate and sufficient the Court noted that, under the existing case-law, there was no requirement that the domestic authorities should award the same sum by way of compensation as the Court would be likely to award under Article 41. The level of just satisfaction granted at national level must nevertheless not be manifestly inadequate in the particular circumstances of the case, in which event an applicant could still claim to be a victim of a violation of his or her rights under the Convention. The just satisfaction awarded in this case was lower than the sums usually awarded by the European Court for comparable delays. Whether the amount awarded could be regarded as reasonable, however, fell to be assessed in the light of all the circumstances of the case. These included not merely the duration of the proceedings in the specific case but the value of the award judged in the light of the standard of living in the State concerned, and the fact that under the national system compensation will in general be awarded and paid more promptly than would be the case if the matter fell to be decided by the European Court. In the light of all the material, including the promptness of the finding and award made by the Constitutional Court, the sum awarded to the applicant could not be considered as unreasonable. In conclusion, the applicant could no longer claim to be a “victim” within the meaning of Article 34 of the alleged violation of his right to a hearing within a reasonable time: manifestly ill‑founded.
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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