Communicated on 17 March 2014
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 77742/13
Leonardo BILOGLAV
against Croatia
lodged on 2 December 2013
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Leonardo Biloglav, is a Croatian national, who was born in 1965 and lives in Zagreb. He is represented before the Court by Mr M. Čaržavec, a lawyer practising in Zagreb.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
The applicant was a soldier in the Croatian Army.
On 11 September 2012 a medical board of the Ministry of Defence (Ministarstvo obrane Republike Hrvatske) declared him medically unfit for military service. The decision was based on his medical records. He was informed that he could appeal against that decision to the Ministry’s higher-level medical board.
The applicant appealed and on 10 January 2013 the higher-level medical board dismissed his appeal as ill-founded, endorsing the reasoning of the lower-level body. The applicant was informed that he could challenge the Ministry’s decision by lodging an administrative action with the Administrative Court (Upravni sud Republike Hrvatske).
On 20 February 2013 the applicant was discharged from the army.
On an unspecified date the applicant lodged an administrative action with the Administrative Court challenging the decision of the Ministry’s medical board of 10 January 2013.
On 13 September 2013 the Zagreb Administrative Court declared the applicant’s administrative action inadmissible on the grounds that the Ministry’s medical board was not a public authority against whose decisions an administrative action could be lodged and that the applicant could only lodge an action against the decision to terminate his employment in the army.
The applicant then lodged a constitutional complaint with the Constitutional Court (Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske) complaining, inter alia, that he did not have access to court.
On 30 October 2013 the Constitutional Court declared the applicant’s constitutional complaint inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded. That decision was served on the applicant on 18 November 2013.
B. Relevant domestic law
The relevant provision of the Military Service Act (Zakon o službi u oružanim snagama Republike Hrvatske, Official Gazette nos. 33/2002, 58/2002, 175/2003, 136/2004, 76/2007, 88/2009, 124/2009) reads:
Section 189
“(1) Military service shall terminate automatically:
...
- by decision of a medical board declaring [a soldier] medically unfit for military service – thirty days after the decision becomes final”
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains, under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, that he did not have access to court.
He also complains, under Article 13 of the Convention, that he did not have an effective domestic remedy for his complaints.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
1. Did the applicant have access to a court as required by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?
The Government are requested to submit two copies of all the relevant documents from the domestic proceedings.
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