Information Note on the Court’s case-law 7
June 1999
Kiiskinen v. Finland (dec.) - 26323/95
Decision 1.6.1999 [Section IV]
Article 35
Article 35-1
Exhaustion of domestic remedies
Effective domestic remedy
Extraordinary remedy enabling final decision to be challenged: inadmissible
Article 6
Civil proceedings
Article 6-1
Impartial tribunal
Judge's membership of freemasons: inadmissible
The applicant brought civil proceedings relating to a commercial transaction against two companies. In October 1991, judge T. presided over the last session of the city court, which found against the applicant. The competent Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal. In May 1994, the Supreme Court refused him leave to appeal and the city court’s decision thus became final. The applicant discovered in September 1995 that T. was a Freemason, and suspected that members of the companies involved were also Freemasons.
Inadmissible under Article 6 § 1 (impartial tribunal): The applicant became aware of T.’s membership of the Freemasons only approximately 15 months after the city court’s judgment had become final. However, he could still have requested the Supreme Court to annul the city court’s judgment as, according to the Supreme Court’s practice, the lack of impartiality of a judge constitutes a justifiable ground for annulment of a judgment which has become final. The time-limit for the application for annulment was one year from the day the applicant discovered the fresh circumstances that could have justified the disqualification of the judge. Thus, this remedy could be regarded as effective. Although Article 35 § 1 does not as a rule require resort to extraordinary remedies, the applicant was, in principle, obliged to exhaust this extraordinary remedy; only special circumstances would have absolved him from this obligation. However, in the present case, there was no need to examine this point since the application was inadmissible in any event - it was indisputable that T. was a Freemason, but on the other hand the applicant did not produce any evidence in support of his allegations according to which some directors of the companies involved were also Freemasons. There was therefore no evidence of a link between the judge and one of the parties in this case: manifestly ill-founded.
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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