Holzinger v. Austria (no. 1)

Information Note on the Court’s case-law 26

January 2001

Holzinger v. Austria (no. 1) - 23459/94

Judgment 30.1.2001 [Section III]

Article 35

Article 35-1

Exhaustion of domestic remedies

Effective domestic remedy

Length of proceedings: application under Section 91 of the Courts Act

Facts: The applicant instituted civil proceedings in May 1988. They ended at first instance in March 1993. The decision on the applicant’s appeal was notified in November 1993. He complains about the length of the proceedings.

Law: Government's preliminary objection (non-exhaustion) – In its decision on admissibility, the European Commission of Human Rights found that an application under Section 91 of the Courts Act did not constitute an effective remedy but was relevant to the question whether the proceedings had taken an unreasonably long time: it was an interlocutory application to a court whereby a higher court was requested to fix an adequate time-limit for taking a procedural measure which the court below had failed to take, and as such it could not give rise to any finding as to the length of the proceedings as a whole, nor to redress for any unreasonable delay to date. However, the Court disagreed with this approach: the focus of Article 35 of the Convention in relation to complaints about the length of proceedings is on the prevention of a breach of the Convention and not on recognition by the domestic authorities of a violation which has occurred or the grant of reparation for such a violation, and what is important is whether a given remedy is capable of speeding up proceedings or preventing them becoming unreasonably long. Furthermore, the effectiveness of a remedy may depend on whether it has a significant effect on the length of the proceedings as a whole. Section 91 of the Courts Act entered into force in January 1990, during the proceedings at issue, and it was from then that the applicant could have made an application under that provision. The 17 month period prior to that date did not in itself give rise to a breach of Article 6, and in failing to lodge an application under Section 91 the applicant did not exhaust domestic remedies: preliminary objection allowed.

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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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