Communicated on 18 March 2015
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 58411/12
Nikola KOVAČEVIĆ
against Croatia
lodged on 14 August 2012
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Nikola Kovačević, is a Croatian national, who was born in 1966 and lives in Zaprešić. He is represented before the Court by Mr M. Čičković, a lawyer practising in Zagreb.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
On 21 July 2003 the applicant lodged a civil action against a certain M.M. claiming damages in connection with a physical attack against him by M.M., for which M.M. had been found guilty in the minor offences proceedings.
At a hearing on 14 June 2006 held before the Dubrovnik Municipal Court (Općinski sud u Dubrovniku) the applicant and M.M.’s representative agreed that the trial court should question the parties and three witnesses and that it should commission an expert report on the question of the mechanism, duration and intensity of the applicant’s physical pain and mental suffering related to M.M.’s physical attack against him.
On 3 November 2006 the Dubrovnik Municipal Court dismissed the applicant’s civil action on the grounds that the scope and intensity of consequences of the attack against him by M.M. had not been proven as he had not proposed the taking of necessary evidence, such as an expert report on the matter.
The applicant appealed against this judgment and on 16 July 2009 the Dubrovnik County Court (Županijski sud u Dubrovniku) dismissed his appeal as ill-founded holding that the first-instance court had duly examined all the relevant parties’ arguments and submissions.
The applicant then challenged the second-instance judgment by an appeal on points of law before the Supreme Court (Vrhovni sud Republike Hrvatske) and on 30 March 2011 the Supreme Court dismissed it as ill‑founded upholding the judgments of the lower courts.
The applicant also lodged a constitutional complaint before the Constitutional Court (Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske) challenging the decisions of the lower courts and on 25 January 2012 the Constitutional Court declared it inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded.
The decision of the Constitutional Court was served on the applicant’s representative on 15 February 2012.
COMPLAINT
The applicant complains, under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, about the lack of fairness of his civil proceedings in that the domestic courts did not conduct a proper examination of his submissions, arguments and evidence adduced and thus reached arbitrary decisions.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of his civil rights, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, did the domestic courts conduct a proper examination of the applicant’s submissions, arguments and evidence adduced when reaching their decisions?
The Government are requested to submit two copies of all relevant documents in the applicant’s case.
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