THIRD SECTION
DECISION
Applications nos. 3927/06, 7717/06, 19123/06 and 6048/07
by Milan KOSTREVC and Others
against Slovenia
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 12 October 2010 as a Committee composed of:
Elisabet Fura, President,
Boštjan M. Zupančič,
Ineta Ziemele, judges,
and Santiago Quesada, Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above applications,
Having regard to the Government's settlement proposals made to the applicants,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
PROCEDURE
1. Three applicants are nationals of Slovenia (see attached appendix). Mr Serajlić is a Croatian national.
2. Mr Kostrevc was represented before the Court by Ms I. Ferme, a lawyer practising in Ljubljana.
3. Mr Marolt had no representative before the Court.
4. Ms Bizjak was represented before the Court by Mr J. Trunkl, a lawyer practising in Nova Gorica.
5. Mr Serajlić was represented before the Court by Mr B. Verstovšek, a lawyer practising in Celje.
6. The Slovenian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr Lucijan Bembič, State Attorney-General.
A. The circumstances of the case
7. The applicants were parties to civil proceedings which terminated before 1 January 2007.
B. Relevant domestic law
8. The Act on the Protection of the Right to a Trial without Undue Delay (Zakon o varstvu pravice do sojenja brez nepotrebnega odlašanja, Official Gazette, No. 49/2006 – “the 2006 Act”) became operational on 1 January 2007.
9. Section 25 lays down the following transitional rules in relation to the applications already pending before the Court:
Section 25 - Just satisfaction for damage sustained prior to implementation of this Act
“(1) In cases where a violation of the right to a trial without undue delay has already ceased and the party had filed a claim for just satisfaction with the international court before the date of implementation of this Act, the State Attorney's Office shall offer the party a settlement on the amount of just satisfaction within four months after the date of receipt of the case referred by the international court for the settlement procedure. The party shall submit a settlement proposal to the State Attorney's Office within two months of the date of receipt of the proposal of the State Attorney's Office. The State Attorney's Office shall decide on the proposal as soon as possible and within a period of four months at the latest.....
(2) If the proposal for settlement referred to in paragraph 1 of this section is not acceded to or the State Attorney's Office and the party fail to negotiate an agreement within four months after the date on which the party filed its proposal, the party may bring an action before the competent court under this Act. The party may bring an action within six months after receiving the State Attorney's Office reply that the party's proposal referred to in the previous paragraph was not acceded to, or after the expiry of the period fixed in the previous paragraph for the State Attorney's Office to decide to proceed with settlement. Irrespective of the type or amount of the claim, the provisions of the Civil Procedure Act concerning small claims shall apply in proceedings before a court.”
COMPLAINTS
10. The applicants complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the proceedings had been excessively long. They also complained that they did not have an effective domestic remedy in this regard (Article 13 of the Convention).
11. The applicant in app. no. 3927/06 complained in substance under Articles 6 and 14 of the Convention about the alleged unfairness of the proceedings. He complained that the domestic courts applied the domestic law contrary to the practice in other similar cases and that all his appeals were rejected despite being well reasoned.
THE LAW
1. Complaint about the length of the civil proceedings and the lack of an effective remedy in that respect under Articles 6 and 13 of the Convention
12. In the present cases, the Court notes that, after the Government had been given notice of the applications in 2010 all the applicants received the State Attorney's Office's settlement proposals under section 25 of the 2006 Act acknowledging a violation of the right to a trial within a reasonable time and offering redress for non-pecuniary damage (see the appendix). It further notes that the applicants have since been in a position either to negotiate a settlement with the State Attorney's Office or, if that should be unsuccessful, to lodge a “claim for just satisfaction” in accordance with the relevant provisions of the 2006 Act (see “Relevant domestic law” above). The latter has been considered by the Court to constitute an appropriate means of redressing a breach of the reasonable time requirement of Article 6 that has already occurred (see Pohlen v Slovenia (dec.), no. 28457/03, §§ 40-43, 3 June 2008).
13. The Court reiterates Article 37 of the Convention, which in the relevant part reads as follows:
“1. The Court may at any stage of the proceedings decide to strike an application out of its list of cases where the circumstances lead to the conclusion that:
...
(c) for any other reason established by the Court, it is no longer justified to continue the examination of the application.
However, the Court shall continue the examination of the application if respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and the Protocols thereto so requires.
14. Having regard to the foregoing, the Court considers that it is no longer justified to continue with the examination of the applications and that they should be struck out of the list of cases in accordance with Article 37 § 1 (c). In reaching this conclusion, the Court has taken into account its competence under Article 37 § 2 of the Convention to restore a case to its list of cases if it considers that the circumstances justify such a course.
2. Remaining complaints
15. As to the remaining complaints in app. no. 3927/06, in the light of all the material in its possession, and in so far as the matters complained of are within its competence, the Court considers that this part of the application does not disclose any appearance of a violation of the Convention. It follows that it is inadmissible under Article 35 § 3 as manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Decides to join the applications;
Decides to strike the applications out of its list of cases with regard to the complaints about the length of the civil proceedings and the lack of an effective remedy in that respect under Articles 6 and 13 of the Convention;
Declares the remaining complaints inadmissible.
Santiago QuesadaElisabet Fura
RegistrarPresident
Appendix
Application No.
Applicant's Name
Year of Birth
Address
Date of Introduction
Date of settlement proposal or agreement signed by the State Attorney
1.
3927/06
Milan Kostrevc
1957
Ljubljana
28/12/2005
12/03/2010
2.
7717/06
Milan Marolt
1945
Ljubljana
09/02/2006
24/05/2010
3.
19123/06
Nataša Bizjak
1981
Vipava
14/04/2006
22/03/2010
4.
6048/07
Jure Seraljić
1933
Zagreb
28/12/2006
26/07/2010
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