Resolution ResDH(2005)65
concerning cases relating to the excessive length of proceedings before administrative courts in Greece (Pafitis and others against Greece and 14 other cases – see table in Appendix)
(Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 18 July 2005
at the 933rd meeting of the Ministers' Deputies)
The Committee of Ministers, under the terms of former Articles 32 and 54 and of Article 46, paragraph 2, of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms as amended by Protocol No. 11 (hereinafter referred to as “the Convention”);
Having regard to the Committee's decision adopted under former Article 32 of the Convention in the case of “Dimitrios Koutsoumbos, Technical, Commercial and Tourist Co. Ltd” (Interim Resolution DH(99)271);
Having regard also to the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, in the case of Pafitis and others and in the other cases (see Appendix), transmitted to the Committee of Ministers once they had become final under Article 46 of the Convention;
Recalling that all these cases originated in applications lodged against Greece lodged with either the European Commission of Human Rights nder former Article 34 or the European Court of Human Rights under Article 34 and that the European Commission or the European Court declared admissible In particular the applicants' complaints relating to the excessive length of proceedings concerning civil rights and obligations before administrative courts;
Recalling that in the cases of Varipati, Savvidou and “Dimitrios Koutsoumbos, Technical, Commercial and Tourist Co. Ltd”, the applicants' complaints relating to the breach of their right to respect for their property on account of the excessive length of proceedings, were also declared admissible;
Recalling that the Committee of Ministers or the European Court found that in all these cases there had been violations of Article 6, paragraph 1, on account of the excessive length of proceedings before administrative courts;
Recalling that the Court had found certain other violations relating to structural shortcomings already examined by the Committee of Ministers in the context of other cases (see below): in the case of Pafitis and others a violation related to the length of proceedings before civil courts and in the Savvidou case a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention;
Recalling finally that in all these cases Greece was required to pay the applicants certain sums in just satisfaction (see details in Appendix);
Having regard to the Rules adopted by the Committee of Ministers concerning the application of Article 46, paragraph 2, of the Convention, which Rules are applicable by decision of the Committee of Ministers to cases under former Articles 32 and 54;
Having invited the Greek government to inform it of the measures which had been taken in consequence of the European Court's judgments and the Committee's decisions, having regard to Greece's obligation under former Articles 32 and 53 and under current Article 46, paragraph 1, of the Convention to abide by them;
Having satisfied itself that the Greek government paid the applicants the sums awarded by the European Court or the Committee of Ministers as just satisfaction and that in three cases where default interest was due, this was waived by the applicants (see details in Appendix);
Having noted the individual measures taken by the authorities to grant the applicants full redress for the violations found (restitutio in integrum), in particular by accelerating as much as possible domestic proceedings which were still pending after the finding of violations by the Court (see details in Appendix)
Considering the information provided by the Greek government as regards the general measures taken to accelerate the proceedings before administrative courts (see appendix);
Welcoming in particular the measures taken to prevent unreasonably lengthy proceedings before the Council of State and the administrative courts, including the constitutional and legislative reforms adopted by Greece following the Court's judgments and the Committee's decisions in these cases and considering that these and other measures adopted constitute a major step towards preventing new violations of the Convention in this respect;
Noting that certain other problems relating to the excessive length of proceedings before administrative courts have notably been highlighted in more recent judgments of the Court (see in particular Manios against Greece, judgment of 11/03/2004), and are being addressed by the Greek authorities, under the Committee's supervision, in the context of the execution by Greece of those judgments;
Recalling that the Committee of Ministers has found that the other two violations in the Savidou and Pafitis cases have already been remedied in the context of its examination of earlier cases: the problem at the basis of violation of property rights in the Savvidou case has thus already been addressed (see ResDH(2002)103 and ResDH(2002)105 in the cases of Katikaridis and Tsomtsos against Greece) and certain aspects are being further examined by the Committee in the context of execution by Greece of the Court's judgments in the Azas case (judgment of 19 September 2002) and other similar cases; and the problem of excessively lengthy civil proceedings raised in the Pafitis case has been resolved not least through the comprehensive reform of the Greek civil procedure (see ResDH(2005)64 in Academy Trading Ltd and 3 others cases);
Declares, after having taken note of the information supplied by the Greek government, that it has exercised its functions under former Articles 32 and 54 and Article 46 of the Convention in these cases.
Appendix to Resolution ResDH(2005)65
Information provided by the Government of Greece concerning measures taken to comply with the Committee of Ministers' decisions and the European Court's judgments
Payment of just satisfaction
Case
Application
Date of
Judgments or Committee Decisions
Amounts awarded
by the European Court or the Committee
Date-limit
for payment
Date of payment
Pafitis and others
20323/92
26/02/98
(Jointly to 6 of the applicants)
Non-pecuniary damages: 7 500 000 drachmas;
Costs and expenses: 9 000 000 drachmas
26/05/98
28/05/98
Varipati Maria
38459/97
26/10/99
Non-pecuniary and pecuniary damages: 3 000 000 drachmas; Costs and expenses: 1 000 000 drachmas
26/04/00
January 2000
Protopapa Patra and Marangou Anna
38971/97
28/03/00
(Each applicant) Non-pecuniary damages: 2 000 000 drachmas; Costs and expenses: 500 000 drachmas
28/09/00
05/10/00
Tsingour Djahit
40437/98
06/07/00
Pecuniary damages: 3 000 000 drachmas; Non-pecuniary damages: 1 000 000 drachmas; Costs and expenses: 1 000 000 drachmas
06/01/01
03/01/01
Savvidou lena
38704/97
01/08/00
Pecuniary damages: 51 690 000 drachmas; Non-pecuniary damages: 3 000 000 drachmas; Costs and expenses: 3 000 000 drachmas
01/02/01
31/01/01
Fatourou Athina
41459/98
03/08/00
Non-pecuniary damages: 1 000 000 drachmas; Costs and expenses: 1 000 000 drachmas
03/02/01
16/01/01
Messochoritis Athanassios
41867/98
12/04/01
Pecuniary damages: 1 000 000 drachmas; Non-pecuniary damages: 1 000 000 drachmas; Costs and expenses: 1 000 000 drachmas
12/10/01
10/10/01
E.H.
42079/98
25/10/01
Non-pecuniary damages: 1 500 000 drachmas
27/06/02
20/06/02
Xenopoulos Christos
55611/00
28/03/02
Non-pecuniary damages: 13 000 euros
04/12/02
03/12/02
Sakellaropoulos Yeoryios
46806/99
11/04/02
Non-pecuniary damages: 6 000 euros; Costs and expenses: 5 000 eurso
11/10/02
08/10/02
Angelopoulos Nikolaos and Anastasia
49215/99
11/04/02
Non-pecuniary damages: 10 000 euros; Costs and expenses: 1 500 euros
11/10/02
08/10/02
Spentzouris Nikolaos
47891/99
07/05/02
Non-pecuniary damages: 6 000 euros
07/11/02
25/10/02
Koumoutsea and others
56625/00
06/03/03
Non-pecuniary damages: 1 000 euros
06/09/03
25/08/03
Kanakis and others
59142/00
23/10/03
(To each of the 17 individual applicants) Non-pecuniary damages: 3 000 euros; Costs and expenses: 117 euros
23/04/04
21/04/04
“Dimitrios Koutsoumbos, Technical, Commercial and Tourist Co. Ltd.”
34569/97
Committee of Minister's decisions of 15/04/99 and of 10/04/00
(Interim Resolution DH(99)271)
Non-pecuniary damages: 2 000 000 drachmas
10/07/00
13/07/00
Individual measures
In all these cases, except in those of Pafitis, Protopapa and Marangou, and Angelopoulos, the domestic proceedings impugned by the European Court had been concluded by the time the Court delivered its judgments. As regards the three cases in which the proceedings were still pending, the competent courts' attention was drawn to the European Court's findings with a view to accelerating the proceedings as far as possible so as to compensate for the time lost and thus restore as far as possible the right to trial within a reasonable time. Subsequently, these proceedings have also been brought to an end.
General measures
A. The problem of excessive length of judicial proceedings before administrative courts
The Government recalls that in Greece the European Convention on Human Rights, as applied by the European Court, constitutes an international treaty ratified by a Law. Thus, it constitutes an integral part of the domestic legal order and prevails over any contrary provision of the law (Article 28, paragraph 1, of the Constitution).
The violations of Article 6, paragraph 1, of the Convention found by the European Court in these cases originated in excessively lengthy proceedings before administrative courts. Following the above judgments of the European Court, a series of constitutional, legislative and administrative measures have been taken by Greece with a view to accelerating proceedings before administrative courts and thus to preventing new similar violations.
1. Constitutional amendments
The constitutional reform adopted in April 2001 was intended to eliminate the excessive procedural formalism and to speed up the proceedings before administrative courts, especially the Council of State, in particular through a redistribution of competence between the latter and lower courts.
The new provision (Article 94, paragraph 3) added to the Constitution reads as follows:
“In special cases and in order to achieve uniform application of the same legislation, a law may assign the adjudication of categories of private disputes to administrative courts or the adjudication of categories of substantive administrative disputes to civil courts”.
Similarly, Article 95, paragraph 3, of the Constitution was redrafted and now reads as follows:
“The trial of categories of cases which come under the Council of State's jurisdiction for annulment may by law come under ordinary administrative courts, depending on their nature or importance. The Council of State has the jurisdiction of second instance, as specified by law”.
These constitutional amendments allowed the subsequent adoption of legislation (see below) for redistribution of the administrative courts' competence with a view in particular to alleviating the excessive burden of the Council of State, which was at the basis of many violations in these cases.
2. Legislative amendments rearranging administrative courts' jurisdiction
The first major legislative amendment, following the European Court's judgments, was that of Law 2721/1999. The new Law:
- transferred to the jurisdiction of the Administrative Courts of Appeal the judicial review of certain categories of cases which had previously fallen under the jurisdiction of the Council of State (Article 29, paragraph 1);
- added Article 34A to Presidential Decree 18/1989 on the Council of State, providing that this Court may reject appeals that are, inter alia, manifestly inadmissible or unfounded (Article 33);
- provided that judgments of administrative courts are not subject to judicial review by the Council of State after the lapse of three years following publication of the judgments, and also when the amount at dispute is less than 500,000 drachmas (Article 36).
In accordance with Article 95, paragraph 3, of the Constitution, as amended in April 2001 (see above), Law 2944/2001 was adopted and entered into force on 8 October 2001.This Law (Article 1) transferred more categories of cases from the Council of State to the administrative appeal courts. For some of these categories there is no right of appeal before the Council of State (Articles 1 and 3). In addition, the above Law (Article 5) increased to 2,000,000 drachmas the amount at dispute above which judicial review proceedings before the Council of State may be initiated.
3. New legislation increasing the posts of judges and of administrative staff
Law 3160/2003 (Article 58, paragraphs 4-5) provided for 29 more judges in all administrative instances, as from 1 July 2003. Law 3258/2004 (Article 3, paragraph 1) has further increased by 7 the number of posts of judges in the Council of State, as from 29 July 2004.
In 2002, 680 new posts for courts' administrative staff were created.
4. Practical measures improving courts' infrastructure
A project to build 25 new court premises is under way. Nine of theses premises are ready, among which are the Administrative Courts of Athens and Thessaloniki. The rest of the courts are scheduled to be ready by 2006.
Finally, a project to computerise courts is also under way. This project concerns, inter alia, the computerisation of the services of the Council of State and of lower administrative courts. It also aims at improving courts' legal databases in order to give judges faster and easier access.
5. Further reforms underway
The government considers that the constitutional, legislative and practical measures adopted by Greece constitute an adequate response to the Court's judgments and have decisively contributed to resolution of the problem at the basis of the violations found. As regards certain additional problems in this field, which were in particular highlighted in more recent judgments of the Court (see for example Manios again Greece, judgment of 11 March 2004), these are being addressed by the Greek authorities, under the Committee's supervision, in the context of the execution by Greece of the latter judgments. The problem of lack of domestic remedies in respect of the excessive length of domestic proceedings is also being considered in this context. In pursuing its examination of the measures required, the government is taking into account the Recommendations referred to in the Declaration adopted by the Committee of Ministers at its 114th session in May 2004, and in particular those relating to the importance of domestic remedies and professional training.
B. Other problems raised by the Court's judgments
As regards the problem of the excessive length of proceedings before civil courts, which was also raised by Pafitis judgment, Greece has adopted a series of specific measures also to remedy this problem (see Resolution on the case of Academy Trading Ltd and others and other cases against Greece ResDH(2005)64).
The problem at the basis of violation of property rights by the application of irrebuttable presumption of benefit in expropriation proceedings in the Savvidou case, has already been addressed by the authorities in the past (see Final Resolutions ResDH(2002)105 and ResDH(2002)103 in Katikaridis and Tsomtsos against Greece) and is being further examined by the Committee in the context of execution by Greece of the Court's judgments in Azas (judgment of 19 September 2002) and other similar cases.
Conclusion
In view of the foregoing, the government is of the opinion that Greece has complied with its obligations to abide by the Court's judgments and the Committee's decisions in the present cases.
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy