Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 152
May 2012
Kaur v. the Netherlands (dec.) - 35864/11
Decision 15.5.2012 [Section III]
Article 35
Article 35-1
Six month period
Failure by applicant to comply with time-limits set by Court for lodging a form of authority enabling representative to act: inadmissible
Facts – Under Rule 47 § 5 of the Rules of Court an application will normally be considered to have been introduced on the date of the first communication from the applicant setting out the subject matter of the application, provided a duly completed application form is submitted within the time-limits laid down by the Court. In the present case, the applicant’s representative sent a signed paper copy of the application and supporting documents to the Court on 27 May 2011 but without including an authority form. The Court subsequently sent him two reminders advising that a failure to send the authority to the Court by the dates indicated could lead to the application being declared inadmissible. The representative failed to comply with either deadline and only submitted the form on 22 December 2011, some three months after the expiry of the six-month period laid down by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention. No explanation was given for the delay.
Law – Article 35 § 1: Even an application containing all the data and documents required by Rule 47 § 1 of the Rules of Court could not continue to be considered to have been introduced at a particular date if the authority form was not submitted until considerably later and after the expiry of the time-limits fixed for its submission.
In so finding, the Court explained that it had held in a number of cases that, where the applicant had not been in contact with the Court directly, it was essential for representatives to demonstrate that they had received specific and explicit instructions from the person on whose behalf they purported to act. In the absence of a document in which the applicant had indicated that he or she wished the representative to lodge an application with the Court on their behalf, the cases would be rejected for want of an “applicant”. Further, it would clearly run contrary to the purpose of the six-month rule if Convention proceedings could be instituted on behalf of purported applicants who did not confirm to the Court for an unexplained and unlimited length of time their wish for those proceedings to be set in motion on their behalf. Accordingly, the Court could not be expected to deal with the merits of cases in which time-limits set for the purpose of submitting an authority form were exceeded without an application for an extension or an explanation for the delay.
In the instant case, the application to the Court should have been introduced at the latest by 25 September 2011. Although a signed paper copy of the application form and supporting documents were lodged on 27 May 2011, the duly signed and completed authority form was not received until 22 December 2011, despite the fact that two reminders had been sent to the representative explicitly warning him that failure to submit the authority form within the set time-limits could result in the application being declared inadmissible. Accordingly, it was this latter date that was to be considered the date of introduction of the application for the purposes of Rule 47 § 5 and the application was out of time.
Conclusion: inadmissible (out of time).
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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