Published on 25 April 2022
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 43211/21
Renata PÓŁTORAK-LIBURA and Tadeusz LIBURA
against Poland
lodged on 16 August 2021
communicated on 6 April 2022
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The applicants instituted civil proceedings for compensation in connection with construction flaws in their apartment. On 29 March 2012 the Warsaw Regional Court granted their claim in part and dismissed the remainder. On 26 April 2016 the Warsaw Court of Appeal partly allowed their appeal. On 21 August 2019 the Supreme Court quashed the appellate court’s judgment and remitted the case. On 20 December 2019 the Warsaw Court of Appeal dismissed the applicants’ appeal. They lodged a cassation appeal.
On 3 December 2020 the Supreme Court (case no. I CSK 253/20) refused to entertain their cassation appeal. It sat in camera in a single-judge formation, composed of judge M.K., appointed to that court by the President of Poland on 10 October 2018, on the National Council of the Judiciary’s (NCJ) recommendation (resolution no. 330/2018 of 28 August 2018). The decision was notified to the applicants on 17 February 2021.
The applicants complain that their case was examined by a judicial formation of the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court, which included the judge appointed on the NCJ’s recommendation in breach of their right to an “independent and impartial tribunal established by law”, as guaranteed by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.
2. The above civil proceedings started on 25 January 2007 and ended on 3 December 2020. On 7 March 2016 the Warsaw Court of Appeal dismissed the applicants’ complaint under the Act of 17 June 2004 on complaint about breach of the right to have a case examined in an investigation conducted or supervised by a prosecutor and in judicial proceedings without undue delay (ustawa o skardze na naruszenie prawa strony do rozpoznania sprawy w postępowaniu przygotowawczym prowadzonym lub nadzorowanym przez prokuratora i postępowaniu sądowym bez nieuzasadnionej zwłoki – “the 2004 Act” ; case no. I S 1/16). The applicants complain that their case was not examined within a reasonable time and that they had no effective remedy in this respect.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Was the formation of the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court which dealt with the applicants’ case on 3 December 2020 an “independent and impartial tribunal established by law” as required by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? Reference is made to the Court’s judgments in Advance Pharma sp. z o.o v. Poland, no. 1469/20, 3 February 2022, §§ 294-351 (not final) and Guðmundur Andri Ástráðsson v. Iceland [GC], no. 26374/18, 1 December 2020, §§ 205-290?
2. Was the length of the civil proceedings in the present case in breach of the “reasonable time” requirement of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see Rutkowski and Others v. Poland, nos. 72287/10 and 2 others, 7 July 2015)?
3. Did the applicants have at their disposal an effective domestic remedy for their complaint under Article 6 § 1 concerning the unreasonable length of the proceedings, as required by Article 13 of the Convention?