FIRST SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 44343/14
Grażyna ŁĘCKA
against Poland
The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting on 29 March 2022 as a Committee composed of:
Erik Wennerström, President,
Krzysztof Wojtyczek,
Ioannis Ktistakis, judges,
and Liv Tigerstedt, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 44343/14) against the Republic of Poland lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 6 June 2014 by a Polish national, Ms Grażyna Łęcka, who was born in 1967 and lives in Warsaw (“the applicant”), and was represented before the Court by Ms K. Wysiadecka, a lawyer practising in Piaseczno;
the decision to give notice of the complaint concerning Article 6 of the Convention to the Polish Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Mr J. Sobczak, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and to declare the remainder of the application inadmissible;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. By a judgment of 11 July 2013, the Warsaw-Mokotów District Court terminated the maintenance obligations of the applicant’s former husband in respect of her and dismissed a claim he had brought for a reduction in the amount of his child support payments. In addition, it dismissed a counterclaim lodged by the applicant and her children. On 14 February 2014 the Warsaw Regional Court varied the first-instance judgment in that it reduced the amount of maintenance payments to be made by the applicant’s former husband in respect of their children by approximately 30% and dismissed the appeals lodged by both parties as to the remaining issues. No further appeal lay against that judgment.
2. On 10 April 2014 the Regional Court notified the applicant’s lawyer of the judgment in question. On a later date, the court also notified the applicant of the judgment.
3. The registry of the Regional Court thus provided the applicant and her lawyer with a paper copy of the judgment and its reasoning. The same document was also uploaded to the court’s online database.
4. The copy of the judgment comprised an operative part, which pertained to the applicant’s case, and a reasoning part. The reasoning part, in turn, was divided into sections that summarised the procedure, the first-instance court’s ruling, the grounds of appeal and the appellate court’s own findings. The last‑mentioned part contained a summary of the legal principles, a short update on the financial income and needs of the applicant’s family, and the court’s legal analysis. The text of the legal analysis in question, that is to say, the last three paragraphs of the judgment, was copied and pasted from the reasoning of a judgment delivered in another case unrelated to the applicant’s case.
5. The copy of the judgment was made on an official template of the court. It bore an official stamp, a signature, and a standard clause certifying that the copy corresponded to the original judgment.
6. After they had been notified of the present application by the Court, the Government submitted that the above-mentioned copy of the judgment did not correspond to the actual judgment delivered in the applicant’s case. They maintained that the copy that had been sent to the applicant and her lawyer and had been uploaded to the court’s online database had been made in error by the court registry’s administrative assistant. The Government provided a detailed explanation of the judgment notification system and concluded that, in the applicant’s case, the assistant had simply copied the wrong reasoning and pasted it into the judgment template.
7. The Government further submitted that once the error had been brought to the authorities’ attention, a copy of the correct judgment had been sent to the applicant and uploaded to the court’s online database.
8. Moreover, they stated that on 7 April 2016 the court’s registry had issued a letter of apology to the applicant. An internal inquiry had been carried out to identify how the notification error had come about and who was responsible for it. Lastly, a new system of double-checking judgment notifications had been put in place in the Regional Court.
9. The copy of the judgment that was submitted to the Court by the Government is identical to the copy that was initially sent to the applicant, except for the last paragraphs of the appellate court’s legal analysis.
10. These paragraphs have been replaced by about ten new paragraphs in which the appellate court set out the reasons for its finding, which may be summarised as follows, in so far as relevant.
11. The financial situation of the applicant’s former husband had deteriorated after he had been in an accident. He had stopped running his business, had acquired significant debts and he now had not three, but six children in respect of whom he was obliged to pay maintenance. The current amount of the maintenance payable to the applicant in respect of their common children was beyond his capacity to pay, especially given the difficult circumstances in which he now found himself. The appellate court also observed that the first-instance court had obtained sufficient reliable evidence to establish the real financial situation of the applicant’s former husband. There was no reason to discredit the submissions of his current wife or to visit the family household. It was likewise unnecessary to seek information from more than fifty brokerage firms to verify whether he had any accounts there. Lastly, the appellate court considered that the reasoning of the first-instance judgment had been clear and thorough.
12. Relying on Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the applicant complained of a violation of her right to a fair trial, given that a relevant part of the reasoning of the judgment delivered against her on 14 February 2014 by the Regional Court had simply been copied and pasted from the reasoning of a judgment given in another case. The applicant complained that the judgment delivered against her, which was devoid of the required reasoning, had been arbitrary.
THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT
13. The Court reiterates that, pursuant to its well-established case-law, the guarantees enshrined in Article 6 § 1 of the Convention include the obligation for courts to give sufficient reasons for their decisions (see Ruiz Torija v. Spain, 9 December 1994, Series A no. 303-A; Hadjianastassiou v. Greece, 16 December 1992, Series A no. 252; and Hirvisaari v. Finland, no. 49684/99, 27 September 2001).
14. The duty to give reasons cannot be understood as requiring a detailed answer to every argument. The extent to which this duty applies may vary according to the nature of the decision (see Ruiz Torija, cited above, § 29) and can only be determined in the light of the circumstances of the case. Where a judge decides the merits of the case, he or she must rule on all the arguments put forward by the parties (ibid., § 19). Where a party’s submission is decisive for the outcome of the proceedings, it requires a specific and express reply (ibid., § 30, and see also Hiro Balani v. Spain, 9 December 1994, § 28, Series A no. 303-B). The reasons given must also be such as to enable the parties to make effective use of any existing right of appeal (see Hirvisaari, cited above, § 30 in fine).
15. Turning to the circumstances of the present case, the Court observes that at the time of lodging her application with the Court, the applicant could have indeed been under the impression that her case had not been heard fairly by the Regional Court. She had been sent a copy of the judgment in which part of the reasoning did not correspond to her case, but instead had simply been copied and pasted from a judgment delivered in another case. As such, the impression given was indeed that the court had not addressed the pleas that she and her adversary had submitted on appeal.
16. Following the notification of the present application, however, it was revealed that the impugned copy of the judgment had in fact been made in error and did not correspond to the official and final version of the judgment as given by the appellate court in the applicant’s case.
17. Having analysed the text of the correct version of the judgment, the Court considers that its reasoning complies with the requirements of Article 6 of the Convention. In particular, the appellate court thoroughly analysed the findings of fact and law made by the first-instance court. It also responded to all the applicant’s grounds of appeal. It cannot be said, in the light of the material in the case file, that the evidence on which the court based its conclusions was irrelevant, unreliable or insufficient.
18. The Court also finds that there is nothing in the case file to cast doubt on the Government’s assurances that the reasoning in question was indeed a part of the original judgment and thus the appellate court’s true legal analysis.
19. The Court observes that the mistake made by the court’s registry was clearly unfortunate, in that it left the applicant with a feeling of injustice. Beyond this, however, the notification of the wrong decision did not have any legal repercussions for the applicant. Firstly, the operative part of the judgment in question was not affected by the error. Secondly, the ruling was given by the last-instance court. The mistake did not therefore have any impact on the applicant’s right to appeal.
20. The Court notes that the applicant has meanwhile received the correct judgment, together with an apology from the Regional Court. Moreover, as submitted by the Government, steps have been taken by the authorities to improve the court’s judgment notification system.
21. In view of the above, 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 finds that they do not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms set out in the Convention or its Protocols.
22. Accordingly, the application is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 28 April 2022.
Liv Tigerstedt Erik Wennerström
Deputy Registrar President