Communicated on 1 December 2016
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 68437/13
Meho HAMZAGIĆ
against Croatia
lodged on 23 October 2013
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Meho Hamzagić, is a national of Bosnia and Herzegovina who was born in 1951 and lives in Marburg. He is represented before the Court by Mr D. Rupčić, a lawyer practising in Sisak.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina the applicant spent three months in a prison camp where he was exposed to different kinds of traumatic events. In connection to this he was established with a posttraumatic stress disorder (hereinafter: “PTSD”) in Germany and was awarded a disability pension on that ground. The applicant then applied for a proportional part of the disability pension in Croatia. He relied on a social security agreement between Croatia and the Federal Republic of Germany.
On 19 April 2012 the Zagreb Office of the Croatian Pension Fund (Hrvatski zavod za mirovinsko osiguranje, Područna služba u Zagrebu – hereinafter “the Fund”) dismissed the applicant’s application relying on an opinion of its expert which reported that the applicant did not suffer from a disability.
In his appeal the applicant contested the expert’s findings, arguing in particular that he was established with a disability in Germany.
On 04 June 2012 the Central Office of the Fund obtained an opinion of its second-instance expert (ovlašteni vještak u drugom stupnju), who examined the applicant’s file and confirmed that he did not suffer from a disability. On 2 July 2012 the Central Office of the Fund, relying on the expert reports, dismissed the applicant’s appeal.
In an administrative claim the applicant contested the findings of the administrative authority’s experts and endorsed an opinion of a neuropsychiatrist which reported of his illness.
On 17 December 2012 the applicant submitted documents to the Administrative Court demonstrating that he was established with a disability in Germany on the basis of his PTSD. He also requested that a psychiatric expert report be obtained.
At a hearing held on 26 February 2013 the Administrative Court heard the administrative authority’s second-instance expert, who stated that PTSD cannot cause a disability and that a neurological disorder should not be a subject of an expertize. He also stated that the applicant’s other illnesses did not cause a disability. This expert was not a psychiatric specialist. The applicant sought the commissioning of a psychiatric expert report.
The Administrative Court dismissed the applicant’s proposal to obtain a psychiatric expert report, deeming that the relevant facts of the case were correctly and sufficiently established by the administrative authority’s expert reports. It also considered the medical specialization of the administrative authority’s second-instance expert to be irrelevant for the applicant’s case. On 5 March 2013 it dismissed the applicant’s administrative claim as unfounded.
In a constitutional complaint the applicant complained that his case was decided on the basis of an opinion of the administrative authority’s expert who, not being a psychiatric specialist, lacked relevant competence to assess his condition. In particular, he complained that according to this expert PTSD cannot cause disability, while at the same only in 2007 13,278 disabilities in Croatia were established on the basis of PTSD. The applicant also complained about the dismissal of his proposal to obtain a psychiatric expert report.
On 18 September 2013 the Constitutional Court declared his constitutional complaint inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded. This decision was served on the applicant’s representative on 3 October 2013.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, about the lack of fairness of the administrative proceedings in that he was not able to obtain a psychiatric expert report related to his disability and was therefore denied the relevant pension entitlements.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of his civil rights, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, was the applicant’s inability to obtain a psychiatric expert report related to his disability in accordance with the requirements of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?
The Government are requested to submit two copies of the relevant documents concerning the applicant’s case.
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