SECOND SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 36673/11
FORESTA-FORT S.R.L.
against the Republic of Moldova
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 5 February 2019 as a Committee composed of:
Ivana Jelić, President,
Valeriu Griţco,
Darian Pavli, judges,
and Hasan Bakırcı, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 30 May 2011,
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, Foresta-Fort S.R.L., is a company incorporated in Moldova. It was represented before the Court by Mr I. Moscal, a lawyer practising in Chişinău.
The Moldovan Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr O Rotari.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
By a final court judgment of 11 November 1998 the applicant company was ordered to pay company M.R. 225,148 United States Dollars (USD).
In its application to the Court, the applicant company submitted that enforcement proceedings in respect of the above judgment were initiated by company M.R. only some ten years later and that the domestic courts had failed to dismiss them as time-barred. The Court was led to believe that the enforcement proceedings were initiated in breach of the three-year time‑limit provided for by the domestic law for the enforcement of a final judgment.
After the communication of the case, the respondent Government informed the Court intel alia that, between 1998 and 2008, there were several unsuccessful attempts by Company M.R. to have the judgment of 11 November 1998 enforced.
The applicant company did not dispute the fact that there had been several attempts to enforce the impugned judgment between 1998 and 2008. However, it did not provide the Court with an explanation for the omission to mention those attempts in its application to the Court.
B. Relevant domestic law
According to Articles 18 and 19 of the Code of Enforcement of Final Judgments, as in force at the material time, the time-limit to request the enforcement of a writ of enforcement is three years. If enforcement proceedings have been discontinued, a new three-year time limit starts running from the moment of discontinuation.
COMPLAINT
The applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 and Article 13 of the Convention and under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 that, contrary to the three‑year time-limit, domestic courts ordered the enforcement of the judgment of 11 November 1998 some ten years later.
THE LAW
The Court recalls that an application may be rejected as abusive under Article 35 § 3 of the Convention, among other reasons, if it was knowingly based on untrue facts (see Varbanov v. Bulgaria no. 31365/96, § 36, ECHR 2000-X; Popov v. Moldova (no. 1) no. 74153/01, § 48, 18 January 2005; Řehák v. Czech Republic (dec.), no. 67208/01, 18 May 2004; Kérétchachvili v. Georgia (dec.), no. 5667/02, 2 May 2006). Incomplete and therefore misleading information may also amount to abuse of the right of application, especially if the information concerns the very core of the case and no sufficient explanation is given for the failure to disclose that information (Poznanski and Others v. Germany (dec.), no. 25101/05, 3 July 2007).
Turning to the facts of the present case, the Court notes that, when presenting the factual background of the case in the application form, the applicant company did not provide any information about the repeated unsuccessful attempts of Company M.R. between 1998 and 2008 to have the judgment of 11 November 1998 enforced. After the above information was revealed by the Government in their observations on the admissibility and merits of the case, the applicant company did not provide any plausible explanation for its omission.
The Court considers that the information concerning the repeated attempts by Company M.R. to have the judgment of 11 November 1998 enforced between 1998 and 2008 was of great importance in the determination of the question whether the application was meritorious. Having regard to the importance of the information at issue for the proper determination of the present case, the Court finds that the applicant’s conduct was contrary to the purpose of the right of individual petition, as provided for in Article 34 of the Convention.
In view of the above, the application must be rejected as abusive, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 7 March 2019.
Hasan BakırcıIvana Jelić
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy