SECOND SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 73341/12
László Béla CSELÉNYI
against Hungary
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 9 July 2013 as a Committee composed of:
Peer Lorenzen, President,
András Sajó,
Nebojša Vučinić, judges,
and Atilla Nalbant, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 7 November 2012,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant, Mr László Béla Cselényi, is a Hungarian national, who was born in 1951 and lives in Budapest. He was represented before the Court by Mr D. Lehoczky, a lawyer practising in Budapest.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
The applicant’s employment in a State-owned broadcasting company was terminated by mutual agreement on 15 July 2010, with effect from 22 July 2010. On 22 July 2010 the applicant received 10.5 months’ salary as severance under the termination agreement.
On the same day, a new law, Act no. XC of 2010 (“the Act”) was adopted, introducing a special 98% tax on the upper bracket of severance paid upon termination of public sector employments. The Act, applicable to the severance received by the applicant, entered into force on 1 October 2010 but was to be applied to the relevant revenues as from January 2010.
The Act was amended on 9 May, published in the Official Gazette on 13 May and entered into force as of 14 May 2011, finalising the conditions of the 98% tax. The amendment provided that the tax be deducted by the employer upon payment of the taxable benefits. In case of lack of such a deduction, it was the taxpayers’ duty to pay the tax. The deadline of this payment expired on the twelfth day of the month following the receipt of the benefits.
The 98% tax was applicable to the applicant. However, the tax could not be deducted upon the payment of his severance on 22 July 2010. Therefore, according to the amendment, the payment of the tax should have been due on 12 August 2010. This date being earlier than the entry into force of the amendment, the date of the latter, that is, 14 May 2011 was to be considered as the deadline of the payment.
The applicant refused to pay the tax, therefore enforcement proceedings were instituted against him. In the course of these proceedings, he paid 100,000 Hungarian forints (HUF) on 26 September 2012. In order to levy the remaining part of the tax (that is, HUF 23,686,607), the enforcement proceedings continued.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 – read alone and in conjunction with Article 13 of the Convention – about the confiscatory nature of the 98% tax. He also complained under Article 7 about the Act’s retroactive effect. Lastly, he invoked Article 14, complaining of the tax’s discriminatory purpose.
THE LAW
Article 35 § 1 of the Convention provides as relevant:
“The Court may only deal with the matter ... within a period of six months from the date on which the final decision was taken.”
The Court recalls that the object of the six-month time-limit under Article 35 § 1 is to promote legal certainty, by ensuring that cases raising issues under the Convention are dealt with in a reasonable time and that past decisions are not continually open to challenge. The rule also affords the prospective applicant time to consider whether to lodge an application and, if so, to decide on the specific complaints and arguments to be raised (see Worm v. Austria, 29 August 1997, §§ 32-33, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997‑V). As a rule, the six-month period runs from the date of the final decision in the process of exhaustion of domestic remedies. Where it is clear from the outset however that no effective remedy is available to the applicant, the period runs from the date of the acts or measures complained of, or from the date of knowledge of that act or its effect on or prejudice to the applicant (see Dennis and Others v. the United Kingdom (dec.), no. 76573/01, 2 July 2002).
The Court considers that in the present case the six-month period started to run on 14 May 2011, when the amendment to the Act finalised the conditions of the impugned tax, therefore the tax became definitively payable and enforceable with regard to the applicant. The relevant amendment was published in the Official Gazette on 13 May 2011; therefore the applicant must be regarded as having taken cognisance of it by 14 May 2011. However, the application was only submitted on 7 November 2012, that is, more than six months later.
It follows that the application must also be rejected for non-compliance with the six-month time-limit, laid down in Article 35 § 1 of the Convention, and rejected, pursuant to Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Declares the application inadmissible.
Atilla NalbantPeer Lorenzen
Acting Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy