Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 134
October 2010
DMD Group, a.s., v. Slovakia - 19334/03
Judgment 5.10.2010 [Section IV]
Article 6
Civil proceedings
Article 6-1
Tribunal established by law
Decision by district-court president acting in his administrative capacity to reassign case to himself for judicial decision: violation
Facts – The applicant company sought to enforce a substantial financial claim against another company through proceedings in a district court. In 1999 a newly appointed president of the court in question decided to reassign the case to himself. On the same day he ruled that the enforcement of the applicant company’s claim by the sale of shares was improper and discontinued the proceedings. The applicant company had no right of appeal. It subsequently brought a constitutional complaint in which it alleged that the president’s decision to reassign the case to himself had deprived it of a hearing by a tribunal established by law and that frequent modifications to the district court’s work schedule had made the process of assigning and reassigning cases uncontrollable and opaque. Dismissing that complaint, the Constitutional Court found that the case had been reassigned to help ensure the equal distribution of cases concerning enforcement proceedings and complied with the applicable rules. Between 1 March and 15 July 1999, a total of 348 cases were reassigned between the various sections of the district court in question, 49 of them to the president’s section. The president made further amendments to the work schedule throughout the year.
Law – Article 6 § 1: The object of the term “established by law” was to ensure that judicial organisation in a democratic society did not depend on the discretion of the executive, but was regulated by law emanating from Parliament. Nor, in countries where the law was codified, could the organisation of the judicial system be left to the discretion of the judicial authorities, although that did not mean that the courts did not have some latitude to interpret relevant domestic legislation. Where a judge combined both judicial and administrative functions, the paramount importance of judicial independence and legal certainty required rules that were of particular clarity and clear safeguards to ensure objectivity and transparency, and, above all, to avoid any appearance of arbitrariness in the assignment of cases. The rules that had been applied in the applicant company’s case were far from exhaustive and left significant latitude to the district-court president, as evidenced by the number of modifications made to the court’s work schedule in 1999 and the absence of specific safeguards, such as a requirement to notify a superior court. Furthermore, the applicant company’s case had been reassigned by an individual decree rather than as part of a general reorganisation of the workload. It was not possible, on the basis of the information available, to verify whether it had been reassigned on objective grounds or whether any administrative discretion had been exercised within transparent parameters. What was clear though was that the president of the district court had, in his judicial capacity, ruled on the applicant company’s case (involving a claim of approximately EUR 2,900,000) in private on the same day that, acting in his administrative capacity, he had reassigned it to himself. Since his judicial decision had completed the proceedings and was not subject to appeal, the applicant company had been deprived of the possibility of raising any objections and of potentially challenging him for bias. It followed that the reassignment of the case was not compatible with the applicant company’s right to a hearing before a tribunal established by law.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41: EUR 4,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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