THIRD SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 29389/12
PETIT PRESS, A.S.
against Slovakia
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 15 December 2015 as a Committee composed of:
Helen Keller, President,
Johannes Silvis,
Pere Pastor Vilanova, judges,
and Marialena Tsirli, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 11 May 2012,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant company,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
1. The applicant, Petit Press, a.s. (“the applicant company”), is a joint‑stock company established under the laws of Slovakia in 2000, with its head office in Bratislava.
The applicant company was represented before the Court by DEDÁK & Partners, s.r.o., a law firm with its registered office in Bratislava.
2. The Government of the Slovak Republic (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Ms M. Pirošíková.
The circumstances of the case
3. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
4. The applicant company, a publishing house, was ordered by courts at two levels of jurisdiction to publish an apology and to pay damages to an individual in connection with an article which it had published on 23 September 2002 in one of its newspapers.
5. The judgment became final and binding and the applicant company printed the apology on 8 July 2011.
6. Nevertheless, the applicant company challenged the judgment by way of a constitutional complaint, which was declared inadmissible by the Constitutional Court on 19 October 2011, and by way of an appeal on points of law, which was allowed by the Supreme Court on 26 June 2013. The applicant company has submitted that the latter decision was not served on its lawyers until 22 April 2015.
7. Pursuant to the decision of 26 June 2013, the case was remitted to a court of appeal which, on 28 May 2015, quashed the first-instance judgment and remitted the matter to the first-instance court for a fresh examination. It has been pending there since.
COMPLAINTS
8. The applicant company complained under Article 6 § 1 and Article 10 of the Convention that its constitutional complaint had not been assigned to a Chamber of the Constitutional Court in accordance with the applicable rules, that there had been flaws in the reasoning of the domestic courts and that their conclusions had been arbitrary.
THE LAW
9. The applicant company alleged a violation of Article 6 § 1 and Article 10 of the Convention in the proceedings in the libel action against it and in its constitutional complaint.
The relevant part of Article 6 § 1 provides:
“In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a ... hearing by [a] ... tribunal established by law.”
Article 10 reads:
“1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.
2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.”
10. The Government informed the Court of the Supreme Court’s decision of 26 June 2013. They pointed out that the proceedings were still pending as a result of that decision and concluded that the application was, accordingly, premature.
Moreover, as to the complaint under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention in relation to the assignment of the applicant company’s constitutional complaint to the appropriate Chamber of the Constitutional Court, the Government considered that the applicant company had not suffered any significant disadvantage and that, in any event, the complaint was manifestly ill-founded.
11. In a reply of 28 July 2015, the applicant company disagreed and reiterated its complaints. In particular, it submitted that the decision of 26 June 2013 had not been served on its lawyers until 22 April 2015 (see paragraph 6 above), a claim which it substantiated with a copy of that decision, date-stamped by the law firm as evidence of receipt on that date. At the same time, it informed the Court of the decision of the court of appeal of 28 May 2015 to remit the case to a first-instance court for fresh determination (see paragraph 7 above).
The applicant company also submitted that it had already published the apology it had been ordered to make (see paragraph 5 above) and added that, in reality, there was no effective remedy in relation to the assignment of a constitutional complaint to a Chamber of the Constitutional Court in a situation such as in the present case.
Moreover, the decisions of the domestic courts contested in the original application undermined public confidence in the judiciary. As the decisions had been quashed and the proceedings were pending, the applicant company was still exposed to legal uncertainty. In addition, the ordinary courts now dealing again with the libel case against the applicant company were faced with contradictory findings by the Constitutional Court, in its decision of 19 October 2011, and by the Supreme Court, in its decision of 26 June 2013. Such factors increased the legal uncertainty faced by the applicant company.
12. In a further reply, the Government submitted that the Supreme Court’s decision of 26 June 2013 meant that the Constitutional Court’s findings and decision of 19 October 2011 were no longer relevant for the fresh assessment of the case by the ordinary courts.
13. The Court observes first of all that there was no mention by the applicant company of its appeal on points of law, of the Supreme Court’s decision of 26 June 2013 on that appeal, and of the subsequent decision of the court of appeal of 28 May 2015, until the applicant company’s observations of 28 July 2015. This sequence of dates is of relevance because, as the applicant company itself has submitted, the decision of 29 June 2013 was served on its lawyers on 22 April 2015, which is clearly before its observations of 28 July 2015.
14. The Court notes that under Rule 47 § 7 of the Rules of Court, applicants are to keep it informed of all circumstances relevant to an application; that under Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention, it must declare inadmissible any individual application if it considers that the application is an abuse of the right of individual application; and that a failure on the part of an applicant to disclose relevant new information to the Court may, in certain circumstances, amount to such an abuse (see, for example, Buzinger v. Slovakia (dec.), no. 32133/10, §§ 15-25, 16 June 2015).
Nevertheless, in the specific circumstances of the present case, the Court finds it unnecessary to examine the application under Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention because it is in any event inadmissible on other grounds, which are laid out below.
15. The Court notes that the present application essentially concerns the proceedings in relation to the libel action and the judicial orders against the applicant company for the publication of an apology and the payment of damages. From that point of view, the proceedings in relation to the applicant company’s constitutional complaint are to be seen as an extension of the original proceedings and not as a separate determination of the applicant company’s “civil rights and obligations”.
16. The Court observes that, by virtue of the decision of the Supreme Court of 26 June 2013 and the later decision of the court of appeal of 28 May 2015, the impugned orders were quashed and the proceedings are pending at first instance. The application is therefore, above all, premature.
17. In so far as the applicant company may be understood in its observations in reply to those of the Government as wishing to include in its complaints the fact that it had already published an apology pursuant to one of the impugned judicial orders, the Court notes once more that that order has been quashed and considers that the present decision is without prejudice to any possible claim for damages which the applicant company may have against the State.
18. In addition, to the extent that the applicant company’s reference to its continuing state of legal uncertainty may be understood as implying a complaint about the length of the proceedings, the Court notes that such a complaint has not been made before the Constitutional Court.
19. It follows that the application must be rejected under Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 14 January 2016.
Marialena TsirliHelen Keller
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy