Communicated on 2 June 2017
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 2683/12
Eleni FREZADOU
against Greece
lodged on 22 December 2011
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The applicant, Ms Eleni Frezadou, is a Greek national who was born in 1962 and lives in Palaio Faliro. She is represented before the Court by Mr N. Kondylis, a lawyer practising in Athens.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
The applicant has worked as a kindergarten teacher for the Greek Ministry of Education since 1983. On 23 August 2005, following her participation in a selection procedure, she was appointed as educational coordinator of the Hellenic Republic at the General Consulate of Greece in Chicago for a period of two years. On 14 August 2007 the Ministers of Education and Foreign Affairs issued a decision informing all educational coordinators abroad of the end of their term of service. On the same date, the Minister of Education issued a decision informing the educational coordinators that they were to remain in their posts until the completion of the next selection procedure. The applicant’s name was omitted from the second ministerial decision and the post of educational coordinator in Chicago remained vacant. She applied to have the decision annulled, which the Athens Administrative Court of Appeal agreed to do as the applicant had been omitted from the decision without any specific reasoning (decision no. 1363/2008). The applicant was therefore allowed to occupy the position until the successful completion of the next selection procedure.
In the meantime, a call for applications for educational coordinators for the next two-year period was published on 27 November 2007. The applicant submitted an application. On 23 July 2008 the coordinators selection committee published a ranking of candidates in which the applicant, having received 48,00 points, was placed 13th amongst those who had chosen French as their foreign language. On 22 August 2008 the Official Gazette (Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως) published a decision by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Education to appoint the candidates who had been selected. The applicant was not included.
On 24 September 2008 the applicant lodged an application for annulment of the ministerial decision on appointing the selected educational coordinators with the Athens Administrative Court of Appeal in so far as she had been omitted. The applicant complained that the ranking had not been published in the Official Gazette, as required by law, and that she had been erroneously awarded fewer points than she should have had.
On 16 July 2009 the applicant’s legal representative requested that the court accelerate proceedings, arguing that an educational coordinator’s term of appointment lasted two years and that the contested administrative act would soon expire. The hearing was scheduled to take place on 13 November 2009, but was adjourned to 5 March 2010.
On 3 February 2010 the applicant submitted additional grounds for annulment. The 5 March 2010 hearing was adjourned as the Ministry had not provided the court with its submissions regarding the additional grounds for annulment. On 28 May 2010 the applicant sent a memorandum to the Court, requesting that the case be heard speedily. Nevertheless, the hearing was again adjourned owing to the Ministry’s failure to provide submissions. Adjournments took place on 4 June, 17 September and on 8 October 2010. On 26 October 2010, the Ministry sent its observations to the court and a hearing took place on 10 December 2010, that is to say twenty-seven months after the registration of the application for annulment and also after the expiry of the two-year term for educational coordinators and the contested ministerial decision.
Under domestic law, when an administrative act is revoked or expires while an application for annulment is pending before the courts, the proceedings are terminated unless applicants can prove they have special locus standi to continue to pursue the annulment process. Based on that provision, the applicant requested that the examination of her application for annulment be continued, arguing that she had a special interest. In particular, she argued that if the contested act was annulled she would be credited with two more years of experience, which would improve her chances of being selected as a deputy coordinator of education in a future selection procedure.
The Athens Administrative Court of Appeal rejected the applicant’s arguments, holding that she had already been awarded the maximum number of points allowed by law for experience abroad. As regards her chances of being selected as a deputy coordinator of education in a future selection procedure, the domestic court held that that was not a lawful reason to continue the procedure in court, because it concerned an uncertain, future administrative procedure. Based on the above and on domestic law, the Athens Administrative Court of Appeal held that there was no need to adjudicate on the grounds that the contested act was no longer in force.
B. Relevant domestic law
The relevant provision of Presidential Decree no. 18/1989 reads as follows:
Article 32
“... 1. There is no need to adjudicate if the contested act or judicial decision has been revoked, cancelled or repealed following application for a legal remedy.
2. Similarly, there is no need to adjudicate if the contested act has stopped being valid for any reason following the lodging of an application for annulment and by the first hearing of the case, unless the applicant invokes a special interest which justifies continuation of the trial ...”
COMPLAINT
The applicant complains that her right of access to a court under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention has been violated on account of the domestic courts’ failure to review her application for annulment on time, which led to the termination of proceedings on the grounds that the contested administrative act had expired.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right of access to a court under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention in light of the domestic court’s failure to review the applicant’s application for annulment on time in conjunction with its dismissal pursuant to Article 32 of Presidential Decree no. 18/1989 on the grounds that the contested act had expired?
In particular, was there a reasonable relationship of proportionality between the legitimate aim pursued by the domestic legislation and the applicant’s individual right of access to a court?
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