FOURTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 9257/11
Piotr PYTEL
against Poland
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 30 August 2016 as a Committee composed of:
Nona Tsotsoria, President,
Krzysztof Wojtyczek,
Marko Bošnjak, judges,
and Andrea Tamietti, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 19 January 2011,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr Piotr Pytel, is a Polish national, who was born in 1969 and is detained in the Radom Prison. He is represented before the Court by Ms N. Szwajczak, a lawyer practising in Rzeszów.
2. The Polish Government (“the Government”) are represented by their Agent, Ms J. Chrzanowska, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A. The circumstances of the case
3. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
1. Criminal proceedings against the applicant.
4. On 9 May 2002 the Rzeszów District Prosecutor (Prokurator Rejonowy) issued a decision to charge the applicant with acting in an organised criminal group and with forgery of documents. The decision on the charges was not presented to the applicant as he had meanwhile gone into hiding. On 11 October 2002 an arrest warrant was issued against the applicant.
5. On 11 March 2005 the Rzeszów District Prosecutor decided to severe the charges against the applicant and five other suspects on account of the long-term obstacle preventing the continuation of the proceedings against them, namely, the impossibility to establish their place of residence (case no. VI SDs 11/05). Subsequently, on 19 April 2005 the proceedings concerning the applicant were stayed.
6. On an unspecified date in 2005 the Rzeszów Regional Prosecutor (Prokurator Okręgowy) lodged a bill of indictment with the Rzeszów Regional Court (Sąd Okręgowy). This bill of indictment did not include the charges against the applicant. On 22 February 2006 the Regional Court rejected the indictment and ordered the prosecutor to complete the investigation. It listed 50 specific actions that needed to be carried out by the prosecutor; the court asked the prosecutor to obtain the expert‑accountant’s report.
7. On 5 November 2008 the Rzeszów Regional Prosecutor was informed that the applicant had been sentenced to life imprisonment on 18 April 2006 (case no. 1 Ks 122Js) and that he was serving his sentence in Germany. Following a decision of 3 March 2009, allowing execution of the life sentence imposed on the applicant in Poland, he was transferred to the Jelenia Góra Remand Centre (Areszt Śledczy) on 28 May 2009.
8. On 4 June 2009 the arrest warrant issued on 11 October 2002 (see paragraph 4 above) was quashed as the applicant had already been serving the prison sentence.
9. On an unspecified date the applicant was transferred to the Rzeszów Prison (Zakład Karny w Rzeszowie). On 29 July 2009 the Rzeszów Regional Court informed the Rzeszów Regional Prosecutor that the applicant had been detained in the Rzeszów Prison.
10. On 10 August 2009 the Rzeszów Regional Prosecutor resumed the case against the applicant and presented him with the charges. On the same date the applicant was questioned as a suspect for the first time. On 11 August 2009 the case against the applicant was joined with the main proceedings concerning other accused (case no. VI Ds 9/08). On 4 September 2009 the prosecutor asked an expert-accountant and an expert‑graphologist to prepare reports relating to the charges against the applicant. The expert-accountant’s report was submitted on 16 March 2010.
11. On an unspecified date the case was taken over by the Radom Regional Prosecutor.
12. On 23 May 2012 the Radom Regional Prosecutor lodged a bill of indictment against the applicant and 11 other accused. On 31 August 2012 the Rzeszów Regional Court discontinued the proceedings against the applicant and nine other accused because of the expiry of the statutory period of limitation for prosecuting the offences with which they had been charged. On 11 October 2012 the Rzeszów Court of Appeal upheld the first‑instance decision.
2. Proceedings under the 2004 Act (case no. II S 23/10)
13. On an unspecified date in 2010 the applicant lodged a complaint with the Rzeszów Court of Appeal (Sąd Apelacyjny) under the law on a complaint about a 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”). He sought a finding that the length of the proceedings had been excessive and Polish zloty 20,000 (PLN, approximately 5,000 euros) in compensation. The applicant maintained, in particular, that the proceedings had lasted an inordinately long time and stressed that the investigation had not been terminated even though five years had already elapsed from the date on which the Regional Court had referred the case back to the prosecutor (i.e. on 22 February 2006, see paragraph 6 above).
14. On 30 December 2010 the Rzeszów Court of Appeal dismissed the applicant’s complaint. The court accepted that the proceedings had been excessively long. It concluded that, despite the lengthy period of awaiting the accountant-expert’s report, the proceedings had accelerated since the case had been taken over by the Radom Regional Prosecutor and since then all actions taken by the prosecutor had been carried out in a timely manner. Consequently, the complaint was dismissed as lacking justification.
B. Relevant domestic law and practice
15. The relevant domestic law and practice concerning the reasonable time requirement of judicial proceedings are, among others, set in the Court’s decisions in the cases of Charzyński v. Poland (dec.), no. 15212/03, §§ 12-23, ECHR 2005-V and Ratajczyk v. Poland (dec.), no. 11215/02 ECHR 2005-VIII and in the Court’s judgment in the case of Krasuski v. Poland (no. 61444/00, §§ 34-46, ECHR 2005-V).
COMPLAINT
16. The applicant complained under Article 6 of the Convention that the length of the proceedings in his case had been excessive.
THE LAW
A. The Government’s preliminary objection
1. The Government
17. The Government raised a preliminary objection based on an abuse of the right of individual application within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 a) of the Convention. They submitted that the applicant based his complaint to the Court upon untrue facts, namely that the criminal proceedings against him started on 9 May 2002 (i.e. from the date of the prosecutor’s decision specifying the charges, see paragraph 4 above), whereas the period to be taken into accout should be counted from the date on which the charges had been presented to him (i.e. from 10 August 2009, see paragraph 10 above).
2. The applicant’s position
18. In his response to the Government’s preliminary objection the applicant submitted that the length of the criminal proceedings against him should be counted as from 9 May 2002 due to the fact that the decision on charges marked the beginning of in personam stage of criminal proceedings according to the Polish Code of Criminal Procedure. Consequently, the fact that the applicant relied on the above-mentioned date as beginning of the criminal proceedings against him could not constitute an abuse of the right of individual application.
3. The Court’s conclusion
19. The Court considers that, except in extraordinary cases, an application may only be rejected as abusive if it was knowingly based on untrue facts (see, among others, Varbanov v. Bulgaria, no. 31365/96, § 36, ECHR 2000‑X, Akdivar and Others v. Turkey, 16 September 1996, §§ 53‑54, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996‑IV, Al‑Nashif v. Bulgaria, no. 50963/99, § 89, 20 June 2002, and Kerechashvili v. Georgia (dec.), no. 5667/02, ECHR 2006‑V). In the present case the applicant and the Government gave different dates from which, in their view, the proceedings started. However, it is not established that the applicant knowingly intended to conceal the facts of the case in order to mislead the Court. In these circumstances, the Court does not find it appropriate to declare the application inadmissible as being an abuse of the right of individual application within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention.
B. Admissibility
1. The period to be taken into consideration
(a) The parties’ submissions
20. The applicant’s complaint relates to the length of the criminal proceedings against him, concerning, among other things, charges of acting in an organised criminal group. In the applicant’s view the proceedings against him started on 9 May 2002, when the public prosecutor issued its decision about the charges (see paragraphs 4 and 18 above).
21. The Government, for their part, stated that the proceedings against the applicant started on 10 August 2009 (see paragraphs 10 and 17 above). The proceedings ended on 11 October 2012 when the Rzeszów Court of Appeal upheld the first-instance decision to discontinue the proceedings against the applicant and other accused (see paragraph 12 above).
(b) The Court’s assessment
(i) General principles
22. The Court reiterates in the first place that in criminal matters, the “reasonable time” referred to in Article 6 § 1 begins to run as soon as a person is “charged”; this may occur on a date prior to the case coming before the trial court (see, for example, Deweer v. Belgium, 27 February 1980, § 42, Series A no. 35), such as the date of arrest, the date when the person concerned was officially notified that he would be prosecuted, or the date when preliminary investigations were opened (see Wemhoff v. Germany, judgment of 27 June 1968, § 19 Series A no. 7; Neumeister v. Austria, judgment of 27 June 1968, § 18, Series A no. 8; and Ringeisen v. Austria, judgment of 16 July 1971, § 110, Series A no. 13). “Charge”, for the purposes of Article 6 § 1, may be defined as “the official notification given to an individual by the competent authority of an allegation that he has committed a criminal offence”, a definition that also corresponds to the test whether “the situation of the [suspect] has been substantially affected” (see Deweer, cited above, § 46; and Bąk v. Poland, no. 7870/04, § 73, 16 January 2007).
(ii) Application of the general principles to the facts of the case
23. Applying the above-mentioned principles to the present case, it is to be noted that the applicant was officially notified about the charges on 10 August 2009 only and that the proceedings against him ended on 11 October 2012 (see paragraphs 10 and 12 above). The fact that the charges had been presented to the applicant almost seven years after the delivery of the decision of 9 May 2002 of the Rzeszów District Prosecutor (see paragraph 4 above) and that the proceedings had been stayed since 19 April 2005 (see paragraph 5 above) is solely attributable to the applicant. Indeed, those delays were caused by, first of all, his going into hiding which prevented the authorities from presenting the charges to him and which rendered the continuation of the proceedings against him impossible until his whereabouts were established (see paragraphs 7-9 above). Accordingly, the overall length of these criminal proceedings amounted to three years, two months and one day.
2. The reasonableness of the period under consideration
(a) The parties’ submissions
24. The applicant complained that the length of the proceedings was in breach of the “reasonable time” requirement laid down in Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.
25. The Government rejected the allegation. They argued that the delays were not attributable to the State, that the proceedings had been concluded swiftly and that the judicial authorities had shown due diligence in ensuring their proper conduct. The case was very complex due to the huge volume of evidential materials gathered. The Government also submitted that the Rzeszow Court of Appeal had thoroughly analysed the proceedings after the applicant had lodged a complaint under the 2004 Act. In that court’s opinion, the proceedings had not breached the reasonable‑time requirement.
(b) The Court’s assessment
26. The Court considers that the proceedings against the applicant were complex. They involved charges of organised crime, which inevitably made the task of trying the accused considerably more difficult than in an ordinary criminal case. It is also to be noted that the applicant’s case was joined with the proceedings against other accused and that expert-accountant and expert-graphologist reports were accomplished at the prosecutor’s request (see paragraph 10 above). The preparation of the expert accountant report inevitably took a certain time, given the complexity of the case.
27. Therefore, the Court considers, in the light of the criteria established in its case-law on the question of “reasonable time” (the complexity of the case, the gravity of charges laid against the applicant, the applicant’s conduct and that of the competent authorities), and having regard to all the information in its possession, that the length of the impugned proceedings in the present case does not qualify as “unreasonable time”.
Therefore, the Court finds that the complaint under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention is manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) and must be rejected, pursuant to Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 22 September 2016.
Andrea TamiettiNona Tsotsoria
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy