FIFTH SECTION
DECISION
AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF
Application no. 21422/03
by Miroslav KUČERA
against the Czech Republic
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 27 March 2007 as a Chamber composed of:
MrP. Lorenzen, President,
MrK. Jungwiert,
MrV. Butkevych,
MrsM. Tsatsa-Nikolovska,
MrJ. Borrego Borrego,
MrsR. Jaeger,
MrM. Villiger, judges,
and Mrs C. Westerdiek, Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 2 July 2003,
Having regard to the decision to apply Article 29 § 3 of the Convention and examine the admissibility and merits of the case together.
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant, Mr Miroslav Kučera, is a Czech national who was born in 1956 and lives in Prague. The Czech Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr V.A. Schorm, Ministry of Justice.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
The applicant occupied a flat in a building owned by the Ministry of the Interior. On 18 July 1996 the Ministry filed an action against the applicant seeking to order him to vacate the flat.
On 16 February, 27 April and 7 September 1998 the Prague 6 District Court (obvodní soud) held three hearings. After having held a hearing on 26 May 1999, the court adopted a judgment by which it allowed the Ministry’s claim and ordered the applicant to vacate the flat.
On 17 September 1999 the Prague Municipal Court (městský soud), upon the applicant’s appeal of 12 July 1999, upheld the first instance judgment. The proceedings were finally closed on 16 November 1999. On that date, the execution title became final.
On 3 December 1999 the applicant filed an appeal on points of law (dovolání) in the Supreme Court (Nejvyšší soud) which dismissed it in judgment of 19 December 2000 which was notified to the applicant’s lawyer on 19 March 2001.
In the mean-time, on 22 November 2000, the District Court had issued an eviction order against the applicant. The applicant’s subsequent requests to adjourn his eviction were rejected.
COMPLAINT
Invoking Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the applicant complained about the length of the civil proceedings.
THE LAW
The applicant complained of the unreasonable protraction of the civil proceedings. He relied on Article 6 § 1 which provides as relevant.
“In the determination of his civil rights and obligations ..., everyone is entitled to a ... hearing within a reasonable time by [a] ... tribunal...”
The Government observed that the Supreme Court’s judgment had been served on the applicant’s lawyer on 19 March 2001. Consequently, the application had been introduced out of time. Concerning the merits, they submitted that the applicant’s complaints were manifestly ill-founded.
In their complementary observations the Government submitted that on 27 April 2006 Act no. 160/2006 had entered into force introducing a new domestic remedy in respect of the length of proceedings and that it was open to the applicant to use the remedy and claim compensation for non-pecuniary damage.
The applicant contested these views, arguing in particular that the fact that the Supreme Court had decided on his appeal on points of law had become known to him only in March 2004, when he had consulted the Prague 6 District Court’s case file. He found a copy of the judgment together with the advice of delivery (doručenka) on 7 July 2005, at his next inspection of the case file. Moreover, having regularly discussed his case with his legal representative, the applicant did not accept that his law office had received the judgment on 19 March 2001.
The applicant further submitted that he had sent his first letter to the Court Registry on 28 July 1999 and that in another letter, dated 29 March 2000, he had described the substance of his complaints. He argued that his subsequent correspondence with the Court Registry had made it clear that he had been waiting for the judgment of the Supreme Court which he intended to challenge before the Constitutional Court, if the finding of the high jurisdiction had been negative. The fact that the Supreme Court’s judgment had not been served on him within a “reasonable time” had prevented him from lodging a constitutional appeal.
The applicant finally submitted that his claim for damages under Act no. 160/2006 had not been granted.
The Court does not find it necessary to decide whether the new domestic remedy referring to by the Government can be considered an effective remedy to be exhausted because the application is, in any event, inadmissible as having been introduced outside the time-limit set down by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention for the reasons set out below.
Article 35 § 1 of the Convention reads as follows:
“The Court may only deal with the matter after all domestic remedies have been exhausted, according to the generally recognised rules of international law, and within a period of six months from the date on which the final decision was taken.”
The Court has first considered the question of the date of introduction of the present application.
It reiterates that the six-month period begins to run on the day after the date on which the final domestic decision was pronounced orally in public or, if not so pronounced, was communicated to the applicant or the applicant’s lawyer. This means that the time starts to run when the applicant’s representative receives notification of a decision, even if the applicant is not informed until later (see, e.g. Çelik v. Turkey (dec.), no. 52991/99, ECHR 2004-X).
It further recalls that the running of the six month time-limit imposed by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention is, as a general rule, interrupted by the first letter from the applicant indicating an intention to lodge an application and giving some indication of the nature of the complaints made. As regards complaints not included in the initial application, the running of the six months time-limit is not interrupted until the date when the complaint is first submitted to the Court.
In the present case, the Court observes that the Supreme Court’s judgment was notified to the applicant’s lawyer on 19 March 2001. It notes that the applicant’s submissions of 28 July 1999 and his following correspondence in 1999 and 2000 regarded the merits of his dispute with the Ministry of the Interior and outcome of the proceedings before the domestic courts. The applicant did not eventually pursue these issues and, in accordance with the practice of the Court, the file opened in respect of these communications was destroyed. His complaint about the protracted length of the proceedings was not raised until 2 July 2003.
In these circumstances, the Court finds it established that the applicant did not raise the above complaint until 2 July 2003 and that that date must be taken as the date of introduction of the present application.
The Court is thus satisfied that the six-month period started to run on 19 March 2001 and expired on 19 September 2001. Consequently, the applicant’s complaint about the length of the proceedings, lodged on 2 July 2003, was introduced out of time, notwithstanding the applicant’s submission that he gained knowledge of the Supreme Court’s judgment only in March 2004.
It follows that the application of Article 29 § 3 should be discontinued and the application must be rejected, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Declares the application inadmissible.
Claudia WesterdiekPeer Lorenzen
RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy