Information Note on the Court’s case-law 14
January 2000
Miragall Escolano and Others v. Spain - 38366/97, 38688/97, 40777/98 et al.
Judgment 25.1.2000 [Section IV]
Article 6
Civil proceedings
Article 6-1
Access to court
Calculation of time-limits to challenge a decision in the absence of notification: violation
Facts – The National Order of Pharmacists challenged the validity of a decree changing the profit margins of pharmacists. The Supreme Court annulled that decree. Its decision was served three days later on the National Order of Pharmacists but not on the applicants who were not parties to the proceedings. The decision was published some months later in the Official Gazette. The applicants filed applications with the public authority for compensation for the damage caused to them by the annulled decree. Since the public authority did not respond, the applicants commenced proceedings in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court rejected the applicants’ claims on the ground that their applications for compensation had been filed with the public authority one year and two days after the delivery of the decision quashing the decree and were, as a result, out of time. The applicants argued in the recurso de amparo which they lodged with the Constitutional Court that the day on which time should have started running was the date of publication of the decision in the Official Gazette or at least the date of notification of the decision to the National Order of Pharmacists. Despite State Counsel’s support for the applicants’ arguments and the dissenting opinion of some of its judges, the Constitutional Court rejected the applications. It held that it could in fact be assumed, in the light of the interest they had in the question, that the applicants had had knowledge “in good time” of the Supreme Court’s decision and that the Council of the Order had, moreover, informed its members of the adoption of that decision.
Law – Article 6 § 1: While recalling the limited scope of the Court’s review of the domestic courts’ application of procedural rules, the Court noted that interpretation of the provisions governing the time for entering an appeal should not have the effect of depriving the public of the remedies available. In this case, it was highly unlikely that the applicants “had knowledge of a decision which was not addressed to them and delivered in a case in which they were not parties”. In this context, the Supreme Court’s decision to reject their appeal on points of law for being out of time on the ground that the appeal should have been lodged within the time-limit of one year running from the date of delivery of the court’s decision bore witness to an unreasonable interpretation of a procedural requirement and infringed the right to effective judicial protection. The date on which time started to run for the purpose of calculating final dates for appeals must be the date on which the public could actually have learned of the court decisions which concerned them. The purpose of notification was to allow the parties to be informed of the court’s decision so that, should the need arise, they could exercise their right of appeal.
Conclusion: violation (six votes to one).
Article 41: Question of just satisfaction not ready for decision. Parties allowed three months for observations.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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