FIRST SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 15254/16
Ljubica BILIĆ KOENIG
against Croatia
The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting on 7 October 2021 as a Committee composed of:
Erik Wennerström, President,
Lorraine Schembri Orland,
Ioannis Ktistakis, judges,
and Viktoriya Maradudina, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 14 March 2016,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
FACTS AND PROCEDURE
The applicant, Ms Ljubica Bilić Koenig, was born in 1957. She was represented by Ms M.M. Jandras Crnalić, a lawyer practising in Zagreb.
The applicant’s complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention concerning the excessive length of civil proceedings related to trespassing were communicated to the Croatian Government (“the Government”). Complaints based on the same facts were also communicated under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.
THE LAW
In the present application, having examined all the material before it, the Court considers that, for the reasons stated below, the application should be struck out of its list of cases.
In particular, the Government submitted that the applicant had never informed the Court of the fact that she had already on 22 September 2014, that is before lodging her application with the Court on 14 March 2016, sold the plot of land in respect of which she had instituted the civil proceedings complained of. This was not contested by the applicant.
The Court reiterates that whenever an applicant omits, contrary to Rule 44C § 1 of the Rules of Court, to divulge relevant information of his or her own motion, depending on the particular circumstances of the case, the Court may draw such inferences as it deems appropriate, including striking the application out under either of the three sub-paragraphs of Article 37 § 1 of the Convention (see Belošević v. Croatia (dec.), no. 57242/13, § 48, 3 December 2019).
Having regard to its case-law (see, for example, Horvatin v. Croatia (dec.), no. 9869/17, §§ 33-37, 29 September 2020), the Court considers that the abovementioned fact, which the applicant failed to mention and which the Government brought to the Court’s attention, is the fact which undoubtedly constituted relevant, if not the key information for the purposes of deciding the admissibility and merits of the present application.
The applicant must have been aware that the information in question was of such relevance for the proper administration of justice that it had to be disclosed. The Court therefore considers that, by not divulging that information, the applicant failed to comply with her procedural obligations under Rule 44C § 1 of the Rules of Court.
In the Court’s view the appropriate inference, within the meaning of Rule 44C § 1 in fine, to be drawn from the applicant’s failure to divulge the said information, is that it is no longer justified to continue the examination of the application within the meaning of Article 37 § 1 (c) of the Convention (see, mutatis mutandis, Belošević, cited above, § 53). Furthermore, the Court is satisfied that respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and the Protocols thereto does not require it to continue the examination of the application (Article 37 § 1 in fine).
Accordingly, it is appropriate to strike the case out of the list.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases.
Done in English and notified in writing on 28 October 2021. 1} {signature_p_2}
Viktoriya Maradudina Erik Wennerström
Acting Deputy Registrar President