SECOND SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 48185/06
Vera DRAGIJEVIĆ
against Serbia
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 26 November 2013 as a Chamber composed of:
Guido Raimondi, President,
Peer Lorenzen,
Dragoljub Popović,
Nebojša Vučinić,
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque,
Helen Keller,
Egidijus Kūris, judges,
and Stanley Naismith, Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 7 November 2006,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS AND PROCEDURE
1. The applicant, Ms Vera Dragijević, was a Serbian national, who was born in 1926 and lived in Bor. She was represented before the Court by Mr M. Petković and Ms D. Videnović, lawyers practising in Bor.
2. The Serbian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr S. Carić.
3. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
4. In 1986 the applicant brought property-related civil proceedings against, and was countersued by her daughter M. Jenić, her son-in-law V. Jenić and her grandchildren D. Jenić, S. Jenić and L. Papić. The proceedings lasted twenty two years and seven months at two levels of jurisdiction.
5. On 22 December 2008 the Court gave notice to the Government of the applicant’s complaint under Article 6 of the Convention about the length of her civil proceedings and invited the parties to secure a friendly settlement.
6. After the failure of attempts to reach a friendly settlement and exchange of observations on the admissibility and merits, the Government informed the Court that the applicant had died on 5 May 2011.
7. On 23 February 2013 the Government’s observations were forwarded to one of the applicant’s representatives. The representative provided the final decision of the Court of First Instance (Osnovni sud) in Bor of 16 August 2011 declaring the applicant’s daughter M. Jenić and one of her granddaughters, A. Dragijević, her only heirs. The representative also informed the Court that the applicant’s grandson D. Jenić and his wife J. Jenić, who had signed a life-long maintenance contract with the applicant on 3 August 2009, wished to pursue the proceedings in the applicant’s case.
THE LAW
8. The Court reiterates that in a number of cases in which an applicant died in the course of the proceedings it has taken into account the statements of the applicant’s heirs or of close family members expressing the wish to pursue the proceedings before the Court. It has done so most frequently in cases which primarily involved pecuniary, and, for this reason, transferable claims. However, the question whether such claims are transferable to the persons seeking to pursue an application is not the exclusive criterion. In fact, human rights cases before the Court generally also have a moral dimension and persons near to an applicant may have a legitimate interest in seeing to it that justice is done even after the applicant’s death (see, among other authorities, Horváthová v. Slovakia, no. 74456/01, § 26, 17 May 2005).
9. Turning to the present case, the Court notes that the request to pursue the application was submitted by the applicant’s grandson, D. Jenić, and his wife, J. Jenić, who had allegedly kept a close relationship with the applicant in the last months of her life in accordance with the contract mentioned in paragraph 7 above. However, D. Jenić and J. Jenić are not the applicant’s heirs under national law and moreover, the applicant’s grandson, D. Jenić, was an opposing party in the applicant’s proceedings (see paragraph 4 above). Moreover, D. Jenić as a party to the domestic proceedings could have brought an application in his own name to complain about their length, but never did so.
10. In such circumstances, the Court is not persuaded that D. Jenić’s and J. Jenić’s intention to pursue the deceased applicant’s case before the Court has any other than financial dimension. D. Jenić and J. Jenić cannot therefore claim a legitimate interest justifying the continued examination of the application. Furthermore, the applicant’s heirs themselves have not sought to pursue the application.
11. Moreover, the Court does not see any question of general interest which would justify the continued examination of the complaint (see, by contrast, Karner v. Austria, no. 40016/98, § 26, ECHR 2003-IX).
12. Having regard to the above, the Court considers that it is no longer justified to continue the examination of the application and concludes pursuant to Articles 37 § 1 (c) of the Convention that the application should be struck out of its list of cases.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases.
Stanley NaismithGuido Raimondi
RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy