Information Note on the Court’s case-law 58
November 2003
Roshka v. Russia (dec.) - 63343/00
Decision 6.11.2003 [Section III]
Article 6
Civil proceedings
Article 6-1
Fair hearing
Absence of personal notification of hearing in Constitutional Court proceedings: inadmissible
The applicant is a notary who, together with 2,057 other notaries, brought a claim in the Constitutional Court challenging the constitutionality of the State Funds Laws, which obliged notaries to pay contributions to the State Pension Fund at a rate considerably higher than that for other taxpayers. Following a public oral hearing, of which the applicant was not informed, the Constitutional Court declared the relevant provisions of the laws unconstitutional but maintained them in force until a new law was adopted. Payments made under the provisions which had been declared unconstitutional were to be offset against future contributions. The applicant complains that he was not heard in the proceedings in the Constitutional Court, and that paying contributions on the basis of provisions that had been declared unconstitutional was in breach of his right to property.
Inadmissible under Article 6 § 1 (fair hearing): Without taking a decision on the question of whether Article 6 was applicable to the proceedings at the Constitutional Court, the Court recalled that the right to be present in person in civil proceedings, unlike criminal ones, was not as such guaranteed by this provision, provided that the parties were represented by counsel. It did not transpire from the applicant's submissions that his personal presence at the hearing would have had an impact on the outcome of the proceedings. The applicant (and the other notaries) had been represented at the hearing, and, moreover, he could have heard about the hearing from the public notifications that had been published. It followed that the failure of the authorities to notify him in person did not violate his guarantees under Article 6 § 1: manifestly ill-founded.
Inadmissible under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1: The keeping in force for a transitional period of time of the provisions which had been declared unconstitutional seemed to be driven by the fear of creating a substantial legal lacuna in the tax sphere. This interest appeared legitimate from the standpoint of legal certainty and could not therefore be regarded as “arbitrary confiscation”, nor as a breach of the applicant's right of property: manifestly ill-founded.
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