Information Note on the Court’s case-law 21
August 2000
Sattonet v. France - 30412/96
Judgment 2.8.2000 [Section III]
Article 6
Civil proceedings
Article 6-1
Civil rights and obligations
Proceedings concerning the dismissal of a person employed under contract by a public body: Article 6 applicable
Reasonable time
Length of administrative proceedings: violation
Facts: The applicant, a public servant employed under an individual contract to work for a publicly managed body, was dismissed in October 1982 by a decree issued by the mayor of the local authority which ran the service in question. In December 1982 the applicant challenged his dismissal by means of an application to the local employment tribunal. The employment tribunal ruled that it had jurisdiction and awarded the applicant various sums in compensation. That decision was set aside in January 1985 by the court of appeal, which held that the ordinary courts did not have jurisdiction. The applicant therefore applied to the administrative courts in March 1985. In December 1990 the administrative court set aside the applicant’s dismissal on the ground that the decree contained a formal defect. On 21 September 1992 the administrative court of appeal upheld that judgment, finding that the decree had been unlawful. Those proceedings, in which the applicant had challenged his dismissal, ended with a judgment of the Conseil d’Etat of 16 October 1995. On the basis of the administrative court of appeal’s judgment of 21 September 1992, the applicant asked the mayor to reinstate him with the rights and privileges he would have had if his career had not been interrupted. In July 1993 he asked the administrative court to set aside the mayor’s tacit refusal. In February 1995 the applicant also asked the administrative court to award him compensation for the mayor’s refusal. The administrative court joined the two applications and in February 1997 ruled on them both together. It set aside the implicit refusal, told the applicant to apply directly to the local authority for payment of the compensation it owed him and awarded him various further sums in compensation. That decision was upheld by the administrative court of appeal and the proceedings are at present pending in the Conseil d’Etat.
Law: Article 6 § 1 – Referring to the Pellegrin judgment, the Court held that Article 6 § 1 was applicable in the case. With regard to the period to be taken into consideration, the Court declined to accept the Government’s submission that there had been three successive sets of proceedings, noting in the first place that part of the dispute had concerned the jurisdiction of the administrative and ordinary courts, and that the applicant could not be criticised for applying first to the local employment tribunal, which, moreover, had ruled that it had jurisdiction. Secondly, with regard to the proceedings on the application to set aside the refusal to reinstate the applicant and on his compensation claim of July 1993, currently still pending, the Court held that in the present case those proceedings had been brought to obtain enforcement of the judgment previously given by the administrative court of appeal on 21 September 1992 and could not be regarded as separate from the initial proceedings. Consequently, the length of the proceedings complained of, which had begun in December 1982 and were still pending, was approximately seventeen and a half years. While the Court was aware that the case was somewhat complex on account of the applicant’s status as a person employed under an individual contract, which had made it necessary for the administrative and ordinary courts to rule as to which of them had jurisdiction, it nevertheless considered that neither this complexity nor the applicant’s conduct, taken alone, could explain the overall length of the proceedings.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41 – The Court awarded the applicant FRF 70,000 for non-pecuniary damage and a certain sum for costs and expenses.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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