THIRD SECTION
DECISION
AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF
Application no. 11175/02
by Yevgeniy Dmitryevich BLOKHIN
against Russia
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 4 January 2007 as a Chamber composed of:
MrB.M. Zupančič, President,
MrC. Bîrsan,
MrA. Kovler,
MrV. Zagrebelsky,
MrsA. Gyulumyan,
MrE. Myjer,
MrsI. Ziemele, judges,
and Mrs F. Aracı, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 26 November 2001,
Having regard to the decision to apply Article 29 § 3 of the Convention and examine the admissibility and merits of the case together,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant, Mr Yevgeniy Dmitryevich Blokhin, is a Russian national who was born in 1944 and lives in Moscow. The respondent Government are represented by Mr P. Laptev, the Representative of the Russian Federation at the European Court of Human Rights.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
A. Proceedings concerning the demolition of the applicant’s balcony
On 9 June 1999 the Prefect of the Eastern Administrative District of Moscow decided that balconies of a block of flats in which the applicant lived were dilapidated and should have been demolished for safety reasons.
On 20 October 2000 the applicant appealed against the decision of 9 June 1999 to the Preobrazhenskiy District Court of Moscow. He argued that the demolition of his balcony had been unlawful and violated the requirements of the law.
On 1 February 2001 the Preobrazhenskiy District Court adjourned the examination of the action and asked the applicant to clarify his claims before 1 March 2001.
According to the Government, on 7 February 2001 the Preobrazhenskiy District Court sent a copy of the decision of 1 February 2001 to the applicant. The Government relied on a list of documents enclosed in the file of the applicant’s case showing that the local post office had accepted the letter of 7 February 2001 for delivery to the applicant. The applicant argued that he had not received the letter of 7 February 2001.
On 9 and 26 March 2001 the applicant complained about the court’s inactivity in his case. The Preobrazhenskiy District Court received the complaints on 15 March and 10 April 2001, respectively.
On 21 May and 1 June 2001 the President of the Preobrazhenskiy District Court sent two identical letters to the applicant informing him that on 1 February 2001 the Preobrazhenskiy District Court had suspended the adjudication of his action and granted him an extension until 1 March 2001 for clarification of his claim. The President also noted that due to the fact that the applicant had not corrected the defects, his statement of claim with accompanying documents would be returned to him. The applicant alleges that he only received the letters of 21 May and 1 June 2001 on 9 and 14 June 2001, respectively.
On 14 June 2001 the applicant received a letter of 6 June 2001 from the Preobrazhenskiy District Court. The District Court returned his statement of claim and accompanying documents because he had not complied with the decision of 1 February 2001.
On 4 February 2002 the applicant complied with the instructions set out in the decision of 1 February 2001 and resubmitted his complaint about the Prefect’s decision of 9 June 1999 to the Preobrazhenskiy District Court.
On 30 October 2002 the Preobrazhenskiy District Court dismissed the applicant’s action. The judgment became final on 30 January 2003 when the Moscow City Court upheld it on appeal.
B. Proceedings concerning a housing regulation
From 24 October 2000 the applicant was a party to a dispute in which he attempted to challenge a Moscow Government’s regulation of 13 June 1995 concerning assessment of living surface in housing premises.
On 27 February 2001 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, in the final instance, dismissed the applicant’s complaint.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complained under Article 6 of the Convention that the Preobrazhenskiy District Court had failed to notify him about the decision of 1 February 2001, that the proceedings concerning the decision to remove his balcony had been excessively long and that the both sets of the proceedings to which he was a party had been unfair because the domestic courts had erred in assessment of facts and application of the law.
THE LAW
1. The applicant complains under Article 6 of the Convention that he did not promptly receive a copy of the decision of 1 February 2001 and therefore he had no information on the outcome of his civil claim. Article 6 § 1 provides as follows:
“In the determination of his civil rights and obligations..., everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by [a] ... tribunal...””
Relying on an extract from registration logs of correspondence and a certificate prepared by the Preobrazhenskiy District Court, the Government argued that the applicant had been duly served with the decision of 1 February 2001. He had also received several letters from the District Court with information on the outcome of the proceedings. The Government pointed out that the applicant had not disputed the receipt of the letters from the Preobrazhenskiy District Court in May and June 2001. Furthermore, the applicant had complied with the instructions of the District Court as stated in the decision of 1 February 2001, had resubmitted his action and benefited from the judicial examination of his claims.
The applicant averred that he had not received a letter of 7 February 2001 from the Preobrazhenskiy District Court and thus he had only learnt about the decision of 1 February 2001 in May 2001. The applicant claimed that the respondent Government should have produced “more convincing proof” that the decision of 1 February 2001 had been sent to him.
The Court notes that Article 6 of the Convention does not provide for specific forms of service of documents. The question is whether an individual’s access to a court has been denied in the circumstances of the case (see, generally, Hennings v. Germany, judgment of 16 December 1992, Series A no. 251-A; Teuschler v. Germany (dec.), no. 47636/99, 4 October 2001).
The Court observes that the Government have submitted evidence showing that on 7 February 2001 the local post office had accepted for delivery a letter from the Preobrazhenskiy District Court. The letter was addressed to the applicant and contained a copy of the decision of 1 February 2001. The letter of 7 February 2001 was sent to the same address in Moscow which the applicant used in his correspondence with the Preobrazhenskiy District Court. The Court also observes that the letters of 21 May and 1 and 6 June 2001 indeed reached the applicant at that address.
Whilst the Court has no reason to doubt the applicant’s contention that he did not receive the letter of 7 February 2001, it reiterates its consistent case-law that the obligation on a government to ensure access to a court can not automatically include a requirement that decisions be sent to parties by registered mail or, for that matter, notified to a party by personal delivery against the party’s signature (see, for example, Bogonos v. Russia (dec.), no. 678798/01, 5 February 2004).
The Court further observes that the applicant did not live far from the Preobrazhensky District Court. In this respect, the Court finds it peculiar that after having learned about the decision of 1 February 2001 from the District Court’s letters of 21 May and 1 June 2001, the applicant did not take any steps to contact the court’s registry, consult the case-file and obtain a copy of the decision in question. The Court reiterates in this context that it is incumbent on the interested party to display special diligence in the defence of his interest (see, mutatis mutandis, Teuschler, cited above).
Furthermore, the Court notes that the decision of 1 February 2001 did not entail a conclusive termination of the proceedings. It rather had suspensive effect as the proceedings could be resumed if the decision were quashed by a higher court or if the applicant complied with the instructions set out in the decision and resubmitted his claim. In this respect, the Court does not lose sight of the fact that the applicant benefited from the latter avenue. It appears that he complied with the decision of 1 February 2001 and resubmitted his claim on 4 February 2002. The domestic courts examined the merits of the applicant’s action and dismissed it as unfounded.
Given that a copy of the decision of 1 February 2001 was sent to the applicant and the fact that he subsequently benefited from the adjudication of his claim in its merits, the Court considers that the applicant has not been denied access to court (see Bogonos, cited above, and Darnay v. Hungary, no. 36524/97, Commission decision of 16 April 1998).
It follows that this complaint is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
2. Invoking Article 6 of the Convention, the applicant further complained that the proceedings concerning the demolition of his balcony were unfair and excessively long. The invoked Convention provision is cited above.
As to the allegedly incorrect interpretation and application of the domestic law, the Court recalls that it is not called upon to examine the alleged errors of facts and law committed by the domestic judicial authorities, insofar as no unfairness of the proceedings can be detected and the decisions reached cannot be considered arbitrary. On the basis of the materials submitted by the applicant, the Court notes that within the framework of the civil proceedings the applicant was able to introduce all necessary arguments in defence of his interests, and the judicial authorities gave them due consideration.
As to the compliance with the “reasonable time” requirement, the Court considers it appropriate to take into account only the periods when the case was actually pending before the courts, that is the periods when there was no effective decision in the determination of the merits of the applicant’s dispute and when the authorities were under an obligation to pass such a decision (see Skorobogatova v. Russia, no. 33914/02, § 39, 1 December 2005).
Turning to the facts of the present case, the Court observes that the proceedings may be divided into two periods. The first period commenced when the applicant lodged his action before the Preobrazhenskiy District Court on 20 October 2000. It ended on 14 June 2001 when the District Court returned to the applicant the statement of claim with enclosures with the view to the applicant’s failure to comply with the decision of 1 February 2001. The second period began on 4 February 2002 when the applicant resubmitted his action and ended on 30 January 2003 with the final judgment of the Moscow City Court. Thus the period under consideration amounts to approximately twenty months.
The Court observes no substantial periods of the courts’ inactivity. On the contrary, the hearings were scheduled at regular intervals and the parties’ requests were examined at the same or in the following hearing. The Court also does not lose sight of the fact that the courts of two levels of jurisdiction were involved in the applicant’s case.
Having regard to the above, the Court concludes that the length of the civil proceedings in the present case did not exceed the “reasonable time” set out in Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.
It follows that this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.
3. The applicant further complained that the proceedings concerning a housing regulation of 13 June 1995 were unfair.
The Government, relying on the Court’s decision in the case of Kiryanov v. Russia (no. 42212/02, 9 December 2004) argued that the complaint was incompatible ratione materiae because the proceedings in question had not concerned the applicant’s civil rights and obligations. The applicant had attempted to challenge a regulation of general character which had not had any direct effect on his civil rights.
The applicant maintained his claims.
The Court finds that it is not necessary to examine the arguments presented by the parties as the complaint about the unfairness of those proceedings is in any event inadmissible for the following reasons.
The proceedings concerning the housing regulation of 13 June 1995 ended on 27 February 2001 with the final judgment of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. The applicant lodged his application before the Court on 26 November 2001. There is no indication in the submissions that the applicant was not immediately aware of the ruling of 27 February 2001.
It follows that this part of the application is introduced out of time and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Declares the application inadmissible.
Fatoş AracıBoštjan M. Zupančič
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy