FIFTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 6472/25
Mercedes SARMIENTO ALVAREZ
against Spain
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 5 February 2026 as a Committee composed of:
Diana Sârcu, President,
María Elósegui,
Sébastien Biancheri, judges,
and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 6472/25) against the Kingdom of Spain lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 21 February 2025 by a Spanish national, Ms Mercedes Sarmiento Álvarez, who was born in 1954 and lives in León (“the applicant”) and was represented by Ms C.Y. Sánchez Reyes, residing in León;
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE²
1. The case concerns labour litigation and a subsequent set of review proceedings in which the applicant challenged a declaration of her incapacity. The applicant relies on Article 6 of the Convention read alone and linked with its Articles 13 and 14, as well as on Article 1 of Protocol No. 12.
2. In 2019 the Social Security declared the applicant as permanently incapacitated for her previous work (incapacidad total). The applicant challenged this decision and sought the recognition of incapacity for any kind of work (incapacidad absoluta). Alternatively, she requested an increase in her pension. The court granted the alternative but dismissed the main request.
3. On 8 March 2021 the High Court of Justice rejected the applicant’s special labour appeal (suplicación) for procedural reasons and confirmed the judgment. The court found that the appeal presented manifest technical deficiencies that prevented it from being examined on the merits. It noted that the judgment could be challenged through an appeal on points of law for the consistency of case-law (recurso de casación para la unificación de doctrina) before the Supreme Court. The applicant did not avail herself of this possibility.
4. On 24 February 2023 the applicant lodged with the Supreme Court an application for review of the judgment issued in the main proceedings. She claimed that a new document regarding her clinical condition had appeared in her medical case file and requested review based on it.
5. On 6 February 2024 the Supreme Court rejected the motion for procedural reasons. It observed that the special labour appeal had been rejected for procedural deficiencies (see paragraph 3 above) and that no appeal on points of law for the consistency of case-law had been lodged in the main proceedings. Based on the principle of legal certainty and the subsidiary and extraordinary character of the application for review, it stressed that the proper exhaustion of ordinary remedies was a procedural requirement for its admissibility. The Supreme Court found that the applicant had failed to make adequate use of these remedies. It further observed that the application for review had been submitted out of time and that it had been drafted in a deficient manner because the applicant had failed to explain how the new document (see paragraph 4 above) would be decisive for the outcome of the proceedings.
6. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court analysed the merits of the application for review. It concluded that the document did not comply with the legal requirements to trigger the reopening. It held that the applicant’s new document was in fact a more recent version of a document that had already appeared in the main proceedings and that in no manner did its content alter the medical information that had already been assessed in those proceedings.
7. On 15 February 2024 the applicant submitted a motion for clarification of the judgment of 6 February 2024. In a decision of 2 April 2024, the Supreme Court observed that, in the motion, the applicant only expressed her disagreement with several conclusions of the review proceedings but did not actually present any distinct points susceptible to clarification. In view of this consideration, it declared the motion inadmissible.
8. On 3 May 2024 the applicant filed a new submission that she named an “appeal for procedural violation” (recurso de infracción procesal). In this document, the applicant recognised that section 44 (1) of the Organic Law of the Constitutional Court implies that an action for annulment (incidente de nulidad) should be lodged prior to the amparo appeal in order to meet the requirement of exhausting the ordinary remedies. She however made various allegations, all to the effect that, in her particular case, an action for annulment should be obviated by her previous procedural efforts and, in particular, by her motion for clarification (see paragraph 7 above). In the “prayer” (súplico) of these submissions, the applicant requested that the “motion be deemed submitted” (que se tenga por presentado) for the purpose of enabling an eventual amparo appeal before the Constitutional Court.
The Supreme Court did not reply to these submissions.
9. The applicant lodged an amparo appeal before the Constitutional Court. On 23 September 2024 the Constitutional Court declared the amparo appeal inadmissible because the applicant had failed to bring an action for annulment against the judgment delivered by the Supreme Court before submitting her constitutional complaint.
THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT
10. The applicant complained under Article 6 of the Convention, read alone and linked with Articles 13 and 14 of the Convention, as well as Article 1 of Protocol No. 12 that the domestic courts did not properly assess the medical evidence that was essential for the recognition of an incapacity for any kind of work (incapacidad absoluta). She complained about a breach of the principle of legal certainty and that the proceedings had been unfair.
11. The Court observes at the outset that the complaints in the application refer to both proceedings without clearly distinguishing the allegations referring to the main proceedings from those referring to the application for review. It notes that the judgment issued in the main proceedings had already been final when the application for review was submitted. The Court thus finds it convenient to examine the two proceedings separately (see, for a distinction between principal and review proceedings, Bochan v. Ukraine (no. 2) [GC], no. 22251/08, § 44 in fine, ECHR 2015).
12. Regarding the principal (labour) litigation, the Court notes that the applicant failed to lodge an appeal on points of law against the second instance judgment, which became final. This omission was also criticised by the Supreme Court as a procedural mistake when it assessed whether to grant or dismiss the application for review (see paragraph 5 above).
13. The Court recalls its constant case-law that Article 35 § 1 requires that the complaints intended to be made subsequently in Strasbourg should have been made to the appropriate domestic body, at least in substance and in compliance with the formal requirements and time-limits laid down in domestic law, and, further, that any procedural means that might prevent a breach of the Convention should have been used (see Vučković and Others v. Serbia (preliminary objection) [GC], nos. 17153/11 and 29 others, § 72, 25 March 2014 and references cited therein).
14. The Court finds that by not submitting an appeal on points of law in the labour proceedings the applicant failed to exhaust all domestic remedies available to her in the main proceedings.
15. As regards the application for review, the Court observes that several procedural errors had been attributed to the applicant by the Supreme Court, namely a failure to exhaust remedies in the main proceedings, a failure to submit the application for review in time as well as non-compliance with other procedural requirements (see paragraph 5 above). For its part, the Constitutional Court declared the applicant’s amparo appeal inadmissible because she had failed to use an available remedy against the judgment of the Supreme Court, namely an action for annulment (see paragraph 97 above).
16. The Court concludes that these procedural errors appear to be the reason that ultimately led to the rejection of her application for review and to the inadmissibility of the amparo appeal, notwithstanding the fact that the Supreme Court had also embarked on an analysis of the merits of the case (see paragraph 6 above).
17. The Court recalls its case-law that where procedural errors occur only on one side, that of the applicant or the relevant authorities, the Court would normally place the burden of the adverse consequences of such errors on the one who has produced it (see Zubac v. Croatia [GC], no. 40160/12, § 90, 5 April 2018).
18. The Court has analysed the requirement of a prior action for annulment for the submission of an amparo appeal before the Constitutional Court in administrative and labour proceedings (see, Arribas Antón v. Spain, no. 16563/11, 20 January 2015, and Olivares Zúñiga v. Spain, no. 11/18, 15 December 2022). According to the Constitutional Court (judgment no. 112/2019 of 3 October 2019), after ordinary or extraordinary remedies have been used, it is necessary to bring an action for annulment before the court that adopted the decision considered to be in violation of fundamental rights – so as to comply with the requirement of exhausting judicial remedies (see Olivares Zúñiga, cited above, § 18), except in certain cases where applicants had invoked their constitutional rights at every level of jurisdiction (see Olivares Zúñiga, cited above, §§ 33 and 34). In the present case, the applicant had availed herself of two legal avenues, namely a motion for clarification and an appeal for procedural violation (see paragraphs 7 and 8 above). However, she did not file an action for annulment. She did not demonstrate before the Court how the procedures she pursued substituted for such; nor did she explain in what way they were adequate to remedy an alleged violation of fundamental rights.
19. In these circumstances, the Court sees no element that would have rendered inapplicable the Constitutional Court’s case-law pointing to the necessity to have brought an action for annulment before the court that adopted the decision considered to be in violation of fundamental rights (in the instant case, the Supreme Court). Indeed, the applicant herself was aware of this requirement, a possibility that she had acknowledged in her “appeal for procedural violation” (recurso de infracción procesal) (see paragraph 8 above).
20. In the light of the foregoing, the Court concludes that the applicant did not make adequate use of the available domestic remedies. The adverse consequences of procedural shortcomings rest on the applicant, who was legally represented in the domestic proceedings but failed to use the necessary diligence in submitting her complaints in a manner consistent with the requirements of domestic law (see Zubac, cited above, § 121).
21. It follows that the application is inadmissible for failure to exhaust domestic remedies within the meaning of Article 35 § 1 of the Convention and must therefore be dismissed in accordance with Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 5 March 2026.
Martina Keller Diana Sârcu
Deputy Registrar President