Information Note on the Court’s case-law 196
May 2016
Károly Nagy v. Hungary (referral) - 56665/09
Judgment 1.12.2015 [Section II]
Article 6
Civil proceedings
Article 6-1
Access to court
Supreme Court ruling that civil courts had no jurisdiction to hear pastor’s claim for wrongful dismissal by church: case referred to the Grand Chamber
The applicant was a pastor in a Calvinist parish. In 2005 he was dismissed for a comment he had made in a local newspaper. He brought a compensation claim against his employer, the Hungarian Calvinist Church, in a labour court but the proceedings were discontinued for want of jurisdiction, since the applicant’s relationship with his employer was regulated by ecclesiastical law. The applicant subsequently lodged a claim in the civil courts, but this too was ultimately discontinued after the Supreme Court ruled, following an analysis of the contractual relationship, that the civil courts had no jurisdiction either.
Before the European Court the applicant contended that the Supreme Court’s ruling that the State courts had no jurisdiction had deprived him of access to a court, in breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.
In a judgment of 1 December 2015 a Chamber of the Court held, by four votes to three, that there had not been a violation of Article 6 § 1. The Chamber found that, although the Supreme Court had held that the State courts had no jurisdiction to examine the applicant’s claim, it had in fact examined the claim in the light of the relevant domestic legal principles of contract law. The applicant could not, therefore, argue that he had been deprived of the right to a determination of the merits of his claim (see Information Note 191).
On 2 May 2016 the case was referred to the Grand Chamber at the applicant’s request.
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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