Published on 27 February 2023
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 471/19
JURUKOSKI SEKO DOOEL
against North Macedonia
lodged on 20 December 2018
communicated on 10 February 2023
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the time-limit for lodging an appeal on points of law in civil proceedings.
A private person instituted civil proceedings against the applicant company and another company concerning the title to an apartment which he claimed to have acquired from them. The latter company went into bankruptcy while those civil proceedings were pending. After a remittal, on 26 May 2017 the first-instance court dismissed the claim. However, on 6 February 2018, the Court of Appeal overturned the first-instance decision and decided in favour of the claimant. The applicant company lodged an appeal on points of law within the thirty-day time-limit provided in the Civil Proceedings Act. On 17 May 2018 the Supreme Court rejected the applicant company’s appeal on points of law as belated, finding that it had been lodged after the expiry of the fifteen-day time-limit provided in the Bankruptcy Act. The Supreme Court noted that bankruptcy proceedings had been initiated against one of the defendants and the disputed claim had repercussions on its estate. Therefore, it was the Bankruptcy Act which had to be applied, as it was lex specialis, and not the Civil Proceedings Act.
The applicant company complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention about the lack of access to a court. In particular, it alleges that the Supreme Court committed an error of law and that it should have applied the thirty-day time-limit for lodging an appeal on points of law, provided by the Civil Proceedings Act, as it had done in other cases. In that respect, the applicant company referred to a judgment of the Supreme Court of 1 February 2018 adopted in a similar case, in which the said court had applied a thirty-day time-limit for lodging an appeal on points of law.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
Has there been a violation of the applicant company’s right of access to a court, guaranteed by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, on account of the Supreme Court’s decision to declare inadmissible its appeal on points of law as lodged out of time (see Kurşun v. Turkey, no. 22677/10, §§ 103-04, 30 October 2018)? In particular:
(a) Having regard to the relevant legislation and earlier case-law of the Supreme Court, was it foreseeable for the applicant company that it had to submit the appeal on points of law within fifteen days from the delivery of the second-instance judgment (see, mutatis mutandis, Zubac v. Croatia [GC], no. 40160/12, §§ 87-89, 5 April 2018)?
(b) Did the Supreme Court’s decision to declare the applicant company’s appeal on points of law inadmissible amount to excessive formalism (see, mutatis mutandis, Zubac, cited above, §§ 96-99, and Hasan Tunç and Others v. Turkey, no. 19074/05, §§ 32-33, 31 January 2017)?