FOURTH SECTION
DECISION
AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF
Application no. 45809/06
by Esko Ilmari SYDÄNMÄKI
against Finland
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 21 September 2010 as a Chamber composed of:
Nicolas Bratza, President,
Lech Garlicki,
David Thór Björgvinsson,
Ján Šikuta,
Päivi Hirvelä,
Ledi Bianku,
Nebojša Vučinić, judges,
and Lawrence Early, Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 9 November 2006,
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
The applicant, Mr Esko Ilmari Sydänmäki, is a Finnish national who was born in 1948 and lives in Helsinki. He was represented before the Court by Mr Kari Uoti, a lawyer practising in Helsinki. The Finnish Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr Arto Kosonen of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
In October 1974 the applicant became a civil servant employed by the Bank of Finland (Suomen Pankki, Finlands Bank; henceforth “the Bank”) where he worked until his retirement.
On 17 June 1998 the Trustees of the Bank (pankkivaltuusto, bankfullmäktige) amended the pension rules of the Bank so that men who had entered into the service of the Bank prior to 3 May 1977 and who continued their employment until retirement were also granted an opportunity to lower their retirement age from 60 to 55-59. For each month the retirement age was lowered, the pension accrued prior to 1 January 1994 was reduced by 0.33%. At its highest the early retirement reduction was 19.80% for five years. Under the pension rules of 13 December 1966 the retirement age for women who had entered the service of the Bank prior to 3 May 1977 was 55 and no reductions applied to pension accrual.
Prior to his retirement the applicant applied for a preliminary ruling on how his pension would be calculated. His application was rejected by the Bank's Directorate (johtokunta, direktionen) on 22 September 2004 as giving such a decision was not considered particularly important to the applicant. On 28 December 2004 the applicant was granted a pension, which was reduced by 15.84% for the 231 months prior to 1 January 1994 on the ground that he had retired at the age of 56. The pension so calculated amounted to 2,529 euros (EUR) per month.
On 26 January 2005 the applicant petitioned the Bank's Directorate, requesting rectification so that no reduction should apply when his pension was calculated. He also requested that the decision of 17 June 1998 be overturned as it had been taken by a body which was not competent and was contrary to Article 119 (now 141) of the EC Treaty. He underlined that his petition was not to be interpreted as an appeal to the Insurance Court (Vakuutusoikeus, Försäkringsdomstolen) against the decision to grant him a pension. On 3 June 2005 the Bank's Directorate dismissed the applicant's petition without examining the merits since it had no competence to review the lawfulness of the impugned decision and the issue could not be rectified.
It appears that the applicant did not appeal to the Insurance Court against any of the decisions of 28 December 2004 and 3 June 2005. However, he lodged an appeal with the Supreme Administrative Court (korkein hallinto-oikeus, högsta förvaltningsdomstolen) against the decision of 3 June 2005. On 23 August 2006 the Supreme Administrative Court rejected the appeal. It found that the decision by the Trustees of the Bank in 1998 was not a decision that could be rectified. Therefore, and as there was no indication of partiality and as the European aspects relied on by the applicant were irrelevant for the outcome of the case, it found that there were no reasons to alter the finding of the Bank's Directorate.
Having received the decision, the applicant requested a copy, inter alia, of the referendary's written proposal to the judges. On 28 August 2006 the referendary sent copies of the requested documents, save for the confidential parts of her proposal which under Chapter 1, section 7, of the Code of Judicial Procedure (oikeudenkäymiskaari, rättegångsbalken) formed part of the deliberations of the court. On 30 August 2006 the applicant maintained that he had a right to receive a complete copy of the latter document and demanded that his request be transferred to the chancellery's session for decision. On 8 November 2006 the applicant's request was rejected in the chancellery's session as he had not shown that he needed the said part of the document which formed part of the court's deliberations and which could therefore be produced only exceptionally.
On 15 March 2007 the Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the applicant's request of January 2007 for the said document to be sent directly to the European Court of Human Rights as such an application for documents fell outside the scope of the Act on the Openness of Government Activities (laki viranomaisten toiminnan julkisuudesta, lagen om offentlighet i myndigheternas verksamhet). The applicant's subsequent request for copies of the proposals underlying these decisions was rejected as no written proposals had been drawn up. On 4 April 2007 the applicant requested a fresh decision, arguing that the previous one was poorly reasoned. He also alleged partiality. The Supreme Administrative Court interpreted his petition as an extraordinary appeal, which it rejected on 1 July 2008 as ill-founded.
The applicant's request for a copy of the proposal underlying the decision was granted on 8 July 2008 save for those parts of the court's deliberations which were to be kept secret under the Publicity of Administrative Court Proceedings Act (laki oikeudenkäynnin julkisuudesta hallintotuomioistuimissa, lagen om offentlighet vid rättegång i förvaltningsdomstolar; Act no. 381/2007). On 11 July 2008 the applicant renewed his request, arguing that the contents might affect the proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights. On 26 August 2008 the Supreme Administrative Court rejected his request under the said Act.
The applicant was granted a separate old age pension as of 1 January 2005 at the age of 56, amounting to EUR 181 per month, from the State Treasury (Valtiokonttori, Statskontoret) due to his service in the Central Statistical Office during the period 1970 to 1974. No reduction for the accrual prior to 1 January 1994 was applied.
The applicant petitioned the Chancellor of Justice (oikeuskansleri, justitiekanslern) and the Parliamentary Ombudsman (eduskunnan oikeusasiamies, riksdagens justitieombudsman). On 31 January 2007 and 21 November 2007 the Deputy Chancellor of Justice and the Deputy Parliamentary Ombudsman respectively found no reason to take measures. On 17 December 2007 the Deputy Parliamentary Ombudsman found no reason to re-examine the case. On 4 September 2008 the applicant was informed by the Office of the Parliamentary Ombudsman that his case would not be re-examined in the absence of new facts relevant to the case.
In spring 2008 the applicant petitioned the Bank of Finland in order to obtain information for the proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights. The Bank produced certain information such as the names of employees affected by the 1998 amendment. However, it refused to produce information about their retirement age, their addresses, telephone numbers, bank account details and so on. It is not known whether the applicant appealed to the Supreme Administrative Court.
Meanwhile, on 25 June 2003 the Bank of Finland granted Mr K.H. a pension and applied, in accordance with its practice, the early retirement reduction as described above. On 26 October 2004 the Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the applicant's appeal against the Bank's decision in the case of Mr K.H. without considering its merits as the decision did not directly affect him. In any event, an appeal against a pension decision lay with the Insurance Court, not the Supreme Administrative Court. On 25 October 2005 the Insurance Court (decision no. 7215/2003/3801) rejected Mr K.H.'s arguments that the early retirement reduction was discriminatory and in breach of Article 141 of the EC Treaty and the Finnish Constitution. However, it amended the pension decision by granting Mr K.H. a pension right amounting to 60% on the ground that he fulfilled the so-called pension guarantee requirement as he had completed 30 years of service. The Insurance Court has ruled in a similar case also on 2 March 2010 in the case of Mr P.K.
Meanwhile, following the judgment of 12 September 2002 by the European Court of Justice in the case of Pirkko Niemi C-351/00 in which it was found that the fact that the applicant's pensionable age was set higher than that of men doing the same work was in breach of the principle of equal pay laid down by Article 141 of the EC Treaty, the Insurance Court reached the same conclusion in its decision concerning P.N. on 25 February 2003. The person concerned was a former employee of the Finnish military service.
B. Relevant domestic law
Article 6 of the Constitution of Finland (Suomen perustuslaki, Finlands grundlag; Act no. 731/1999) provides that:
“No one shall, without an acceptable reason, be treated differently from other persons on the ground of sex, age, origin, language, religion, conviction, opinion, health, disability or other reason that concerns his or her person.”
Article 15 of the Constitution provides that the property of everyone is protected.
Section 7 of the Act on Equality between Women and Men (laki naisten ja miesten välisestä tasa-arvosta, lagen om jämställdhet mellan kvinnor och män; Act no. 609/1986) prohibits both direct and indirect discrimination based on gender. According to its section 7, subsection 2, direct discrimination means, inter alia, putting women or men in an unequal position on the basis of gender. Section 8, subsection 1, point 3 of the same Act provides that:
“An employer's conduct constitutes discrimination prohibited under the Act if the employer applies the pay or other terms of employment in such a way that one or more employees, because of their gender, find themselves in a less favourable position than one or more other employees performing the same work or work of equal value in the employer's service.”
Section 11 of the Act on the Bank of Finland (laki Suomen Pankista, lagen om Finlands Bank; Act no. 214/1998) provides, inter alia, that:
“The Trustees of the Bank shall confirm the Bank of Finland's Pension and Survivors' Pension Regulations and issue regulations concerning the management of the Bank's pension liability, upon proposal of the Directorate.”
The Act does not provide any means to appeal against the decisions of the Trustees of the Bank.
Section 9 of the Act on Officials of the Bank of Finland (laki Suomen Pankin virkamiehistä, lagen om Finlands Banks tjänstemän; Act no. 1166/1998) provides the following:
“The Bank of Finland shall treat all officials in its service equally to ensure that no-one is unjustifiably treated differently because of his origin, citizenship, gender, religion, age, political or union activities, or on other comparable bases.
The Bank of Finland shall not forbid an official to join or belong to an association or pressure him to join a particular association, nor forbid him to resign from such.”
Section 33, subsections 1-3, of the same Act provide the following:
“An official who considers that the Bank of Finland has not rendered him the financial benefit due to him from his employment relationship may submit a written request for rectification to the Board. No request for rectification can be made in a matter that falls within the jurisdiction of the Labour Court, unless the Labour Court has decided not to settle the matter under section 1, subsection 2, of the Act on the Labour Court (646/1974).
Rectification of a decision by which the Bank of Finland has issued an official with a warning, laid him off or given him notice, cancelled the service relationship, suspended him from office or decided on a matter concerning his pension contribution or secondary occupation, as well as a decision referred to in paragraph 6 on a request for rectification referred to in paragraph 1 can be requested by appealing to the Supreme Administrative Court in accordance with the provisions of the Administrative Judicial Procedure Act (586/1996). A matter referred to in this paragraph shall be treated as urgent by the Supreme Administrative Court.
Decisions of the Board concerning pension can be appealed against to the Insurance Court. Otherwise, as regards a request for rectification on pension, the applicable provisions of the Act on State Pensions (280/1966) shall apply.
Section 58, subsection 1, of the same Act provides that
“[t]he right of an employee of the Bank of Finland to a pension paid from the Bank's funds is determined, to the extent applicable, on the same grounds as state pension cover. State pension cover refers to the right to pensions, survivors' pensions and other benefits which are payable from the state's funds and the content of and eligibility for which are regulated by the State Pensions Act and the related legislation. Pensions and survivors' pensions are granted by the Directorate of the Bank.”
More detailed provisions on the payment of pensions and survivors' pensions and pension cover in other respects are contained in the Bank's Pension and Survivors' Pension Regulations (Suomen pankin eläke- ja perhe-eläkesäännöt; pensionsstadgan och familjepensionsstadgan för Finlands Bank). The Trustees of the Bank of Finland, elected by the Parliament, adopt the Regulations on the basis of the Directorate of the Bank's proposals.
Section 3, subsection 1, of the Pension Regulations with its earlier wording, as amended on 14 March 1972, read as follows:
"Eligibility for old age pension requires that the beneficiary has completed his or her service and reached the age of 65 years, or 60 years if the beneficiary, immediately before retirement, has been serving the Bank of Finland or its Security Printing House for at least one month, and 55 years in the case of a female employee. A beneficiary who retires as a member of the Directorate is entitled to old age pension irrespective of age.”
The lower retirement age of 55 years for women was applied until 3 May 1977, when the amendment of Section 3, subsection 1, of the Pension Regulations entered into force. With this amendment the retirement age of women was raised from 55 to 60 years but the retirement age of men remained unchanged, that is, 60 years. The amendment took effect as from its date of adoption so that it was applicable to beneficiaries whose service relationship with the Bank began on 3 May 1977 or thereafter.
For the equalisation of the retirement ages, men were granted the right to opt for a lower retirement age. On 17 June 1998 the Trustees of the Bank amended the entry into force provision of the Pension Regulations in the following manner:
"However, as of 1 January 1994, the earlier provision is applicable both to women who have entered service in the Bank prior to 3 May 1977 and to men who have entered service in the Bank before that date.
The beneficiary has the right to choose between the lower retirement age, based on the earlier provision, or the higher retirement age. If a man chooses the lower retirement age, the amount of his pension accrued on the basis of the duration of his service is, in respect of the service prior to 1 January 1994, reduced by 0.33 percentage units per month of earlier retirement."
COMPLAINTS
1. The applicant complained under Articles 6, 14 and 17 of the Convention and Protocol No. 12 to the Convention that the difference in treatment in financial terms of men and women who had entered into the service of the Bank of Finland before 3 May 1977 when they applied for early retirement amounted to discrimination on grounds of sex. He had received no explanation of why European Community Law on equal pay had not been applied to his case.
2. He also complained that the Supreme Administrative Court had not properly examined his case or reasoned its decision of 23 August 2006. He alleged that this amounted to unfairness, discrimination and partiality on the part of the court and in particular on the part of the referendary, who in her written proposal to the judges had only briefly summarised the applicant's grounds (for instance, over 100 pages of argument had been compressed into 16 short sentences) but had presented all the arguments made by the Bank. The referendary had also failed to make reference to Community Law.
3. Moreover, the applicant complained about the decisions by the Supreme Administrative Court to reject his requests for copies of the various referendaries' written proposals, copies which had been necessary to assess whether he had received a fair trial. Nor had his requests been handled with due diligence.
4. Furthermore, he alleged partiality among the Supreme Administrative Court judges examining his cases on the ground that some of them had taken part in the decision-making more than once. Also the Bank's Directorate had been partial when it had taken the decision of 3 June 2005 as one of its members had drawn up the 1998 amendment.
5. The applicant further complained that the Bank of Finland had refused to provide information about the pensions of other employees in a similar position. As a result the applicant had been unable to approach them in order to obtain from them letters of authority to lodge an application to represent them before the Court.
6. Lastly, he complained that the Deputy Parliamentary Ombudsman and the Deputy Chancellor of Justice and their Offices had not examined his petitions in full and failed to give proper reasons.
THE LAW
A. Complaint under Article 14 of the Convention read in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1
The applicant complained that the difference in treatment in financial terms of men and women who had entered into the service of the Bank of Finland before 3 May 1977, when they applied for early retirement, amounted to discrimination on grounds of sex. He referred, inter alia, to Article 14 of the Convention, which reads as follows:
“The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in [the] Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.”
Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention reads as follows:
“Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law.
The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of a State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties.”
1. The submissions of the parties as to the admissibility of the complaint
The Government argued that this complaint should be declared inadmissible as the applicant had failed to exhaust effective domestic remedies, as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention. They maintained that the applicant had not appealed against the decision of 28 December 2004 by the Bank of Finland to the Insurance Court which, as of 1 January 1995, had replaced the Supreme Administrative Court as an appellate body for pension decisions. Instead, on 26 January 2005, the applicant had sought rectification with the Bank of Finland, underlining in particular that his request was not to be interpreted as an appeal to the Insurance Court. Therefore, in the Government's view the applicant had expressly waived his right to appeal.
As to the effectiveness of the domestic remedy, the Government pointed out that the Insurance Court was an independent and impartial tribunal established by law. It was the first and last appeal instance in matters concerning pension decisions made by the Bank of Finland and there was no doubt about it being an effective remedy. The Insurance Court had ruled on an appeal in a similar case as the applicant's, inter alia, on 2 March 2010 in the case of Mr P.K. Moreover, the examination of the case did not disclose the existence of any special circumstances absolving the applicant from the requirement of exhausting the domestic remedies at his disposal. As to access to the Supreme Administrative Court, the Government pointed out that the court itself had found that rectification was not applicable in pension matters and that no appeal lay against the decisions of the Trustees of the Bank. The Supreme Administrative Court was thus not the correct appellate body in the present case. The applicant's complaint should therefore be rejected under Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies. Alternatively, the applicant had not complied either with the six month time-limit.
The applicant argued that an appeal to the Insurance Court was not an effective remedy in his case as the court had not found the pension practice of the Bank to be discriminatory in its established case-law. He stressed that he had not been complaining about the pension decision itself but about the decision of the Trustees of the Bank of 17 June 1998 which was the normative basis for the incorrect pension decision. His request for rectification had been dismissed without examining the merits by the Bank's Directorate on 3 June 2005 after which he had appealed to the Supreme Administrative Court. On 23 August 2006 the Supreme Administrative Court had examined the case on the merits and had rejected it. According to the applicant, this showed that it had been a correct route to appeal against the decision of the Directorate of the Bank.
The applicant claimed that the decision of 17 June 1998 of the Trustees of the Bank had been discriminatory but, according to the Supreme Administrative Court, this decision could not be rectified. There was thus no effective remedy available for the applicant to have this discriminatory decision modified. As the final domestic decision in the present case had been made by the Supreme Administrative Court on 23 August 2006 and the applicant's application had been lodged on 9 November 2006, his application had been lodged within the six month time-limit.
2. The Court's assessment
The Court reiterates that the purpose of the requirement of exhaustion of domestic remedies under Article 35 § 1 of the Convention is to afford the Contracting States the opportunity to prevent or put right the violations alleged against them before those allegations are submitted to the Court. Consequently, States are dispensed from answering for their acts before an international body before they have had an opportunity to put matters right through their own legal system. That rule is based on the assumption, reflected in Article 13 of the Convention – with which it has close affinity – that there is an effective remedy available in respect of the alleged breach in the domestic system. In this way, it is an important aspect of the principle that the machinery of protection established by the Convention is subsidiary to the national systems safeguarding human rights. Thus the complaint intended to be made subsequently to the Court must first have been made – at least in substance – to the appropriate domestic body, and in compliance with the formal requirements and time-limits laid down in domestic law (see Selmouni v. France [GC], no. 25803/94, § 74, ECHR 1999-V, and Demopoulos and Others v. Turkey (dec.), nos. 46113/99, 3843/02, 13751/02, 13466/03, 10200/04, 14163/04, 19993/04 and 21819/04, §§ 69-70, ECHR 2010‑ with further references).
However, the only remedies which must be tried under Article 35 § 1 of the Convention are those that relate to the breaches alleged and which at the same time are available and sufficient. The existence of such remedies must be sufficiently certain not only in theory but also in practice, failing which they will lack the requisite accessibility and effectiveness; it falls to the respondent State to establish that these various conditions are satisfied. In addition, according to the “generally recognised principles of international law”, there may be special circumstances which absolve the applicant from the obligation to exhaust the domestic remedies at his disposal (see Selmouni, cited above, § 75, with further references). Nevertheless, if doubts exist as to the effectiveness of a domestic remedy, that remedy must be tried (see, inter alia, Back v. Finland (dec.), no. 23773/94, 9 April 1996, and Tamm v. Estonia (dec.), no. 15301/04, 2 September 2008). Where there are several effective remedies available, it is for the applicant to select which remedy to pursue in order to comply with the requirements of Article 35 § 1 of the Convention (see Airey v. Ireland, 9 October 1979, § 23, Series A no. 32) and he or she need not exhaust more than one (see Yağcı and Sargın v. Turkey, 8 June 1995, §§ 42-44, Series A no. 319-A).
According to the Court's case-law in the area of the exhaustion of domestic remedies there is a distribution of the burden of proof. It is incumbent on the Government claiming non-exhaustion to satisfy the Court that the remedy was an effective one available in theory and in practice at the relevant time, that is to say, that it was accessible, was one which was capable of providing redress in respect of the applicant's complaints and offered reasonable prospects of success. However, once this burden of proof has been satisfied it falls to the applicant to establish that the remedy advanced by the Government was in fact exhausted or was for some reason inadequate and ineffective in the particular circumstances of the case or that there existed special circumstances absolving him or her from the requirement (see, for example, Akdivar and Others v. Turkey, 16 September 1996, § 68, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996-IV, and Selmouni, cited above, § 76).
In its case-law, the Court has recognised that Article 35 § 1 of the Convention must be applied with some degree of flexibility and without excessive formalism. It has further recognised that the rule of exhaustion of domestic remedies is neither absolute nor capable of being applied automatically; in reviewing whether the rule has been observed, it is essential to have regard to the particular circumstances of the individual case (see Selmouni, cited above, § 77, with further references).
Turning to the present case, the Court notes that under section 33 of the Act on Officials of the Bank of Finland, a request for rectification to the Directorate of the Bank can be filed if an official considers that the Bank of Finland has not rendered the financial benefit due to him from his employment relationship. The decision given in reply to a rectification request can be further appealed against to the Supreme Administrative Court. On the other hand, according to the same provision, for a decision of the Board concerning pension, appeal lies to the Insurance Court. The Court notes that in his rectification request of 26 January 2005 to the Directorate of the Bank the applicant requested that the decision of 17 June 1998 by the Trustees of the Bank be overturned. He expressly stated that his request was not to be considered as an appeal to the Insurance Court against his pension decision of 28 December 2004.
The Court considers that the applicant could not challenge the Pension Regulations as such, a fact that was also confirmed by the Supreme Administrative Court. The Court points out that, in any event, the applicant has failed to lodge his complaint with the Court within the six-month time-limit from the date of the act alleged to constitute a violation of the Convention. The Court does not find it necessary to examine whether the applicant's complaint should have been lodged within six months from the decision of 17 June 1998 or from the date when it had been concretely applied to him, that is from 28 December 2004, as the complaint was in any case lodged too late, in November 2006 (for the application of the six months' rule to pension grievances based on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 read in conjunction with Article 14, see e.g., Barrow and others v. the United Kingdom (dec.), nos. 68175/01, 68928/01, 69327/01, 13944/02, 13 December 2005).
The Government have highlighted, in particular, their opinion that an appeal to the Insurance Court constituted an effective remedy in the present case. The Court notes that, according to an express provision in section 33 of the Act on Officials of the Bank of Finland, appeal against pension decisions of the Bank of Finland lies with the Insurance Court. It appears that this provision is a sort of lex specialis vis-à-vis the more general remedy of rectification and would therefore take precedence over rectification. Moreover, the Supreme Administrative Court itself found in the present case that rectification was not applicable in pension matters. In addition, the Court observes that, in similar cases, such as in the case of Mr K.H. of 25 October 2005 and of Mr P.K. of 2 March 2010, as well as in the case P.N. of 25 February 2003 which concerned a comparable situation, the Insurance Court has examined the cases and even amended them to the applicants' benefit. In conclusion, the Court finds that an appeal to the Insurance Court was an effective remedy in the present case as the Insurance Court was capable of providing redress in respect of the applicant's complaints and offered reasonable prospects of success. Moreover, it was open to the applicant to initiate such proceedings.
The Court finds that the applicant has not put forward any convincing arguments as to the inadequacy or ineffectiveness of the Insurance Court remedy in the particular circumstances of the case or pointed to any special circumstances absolving him from the requirement to avail himself of that remedy. The Court reiterates that in case of doubt, a remedy has to be tried.
Accordingly, the Government's objection is upheld and the application must be rejected under Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies.
B. Remainder of the application
The applicant also complained that the Supreme Administrative Court had not properly examined his case or reasoned its decision of 23 August 2006. He alleged that this amounted to unfairness, discrimination and partiality on the part of the court and in particular on the part of the referendary, who in her written proposal to the judges had only briefly summarised the applicant's grounds but had presented all the arguments made by the Bank. The referendary had also failed to make reference to Community Law.
The Court considers that the Supreme Administrative Court's decision of 23 August 2006 is well drafted and provides sufficient reasons. Accordingly, this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
Moreover, the applicant complained about the decisions by the Supreme Administrative Court to reject his requests for copies of the various referendaries' written proposals, copies which had been necessary to assess whether he had received a fair trial. Nor had his requests been handled with due diligence.
The Court notes that the Supreme Administrative Court's decisions to reject the applicant's requests for copies of the confidential parts of the proposals were based on the Code of Judicial Procedure and as from 1 October 2007 on the Publicity of Administrative Court Proceedings Act. According to the Court's case-law, a written proposal to the judges is considered to form part of the court's deliberations which must, as a rule, remain secret (see S.E. v. Finland (dec.), no. 31668/96, 14 October 1999, in which the Court considered that a referendary's memorandum formed a part of the court's deliberations in camera). There is no indication whatsoever that this had any impact on the exercise by the applicant of his Article 6 right. Accordingly, this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
Furthermore, he alleged partiality among the Supreme Administrative Court judges examining his cases on the ground that some of them took part in the decision-making more than once. Also the Bank's Directorate had been partial when it had taken the decision of 3 June 2005 as one of its members had drawn up the 1998 amendment.
As to the alleged partiality of the Supreme Administrative Court, the Court notes that it is true that some of the court's judges took part in the decision-making more than once. However, the Court considers that the facts of the case do not display any partiality as the issues raised were different. This complaint is thus manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention. As to the alleged partiality of the Bank's Directorate, the Court notes that the Bank's Directorate is not “a tribunal”. Accordingly, this complaint is incompatible ratione materiae with the Convention and must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
The applicant further complained that the Bank of Finland had refused to provide information about the pensions of other employees in a similar position. As a result the applicant had been unable to approach them in order to obtain from them letters of authority to lodge an application to and represent them before the Strasbourg Court.
The Court notes that, as far as he has not received the requested information, the applicant has not shown that he has appealed to the Supreme Administrative Court. The Court would further underline that there is nothing to indicate that the impugned situation has had any negative effect on the exercise by the applicant of his right of individual petition. Accordingly, this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
Lastly, the applicant complained that the Deputy Parliamentary Ombudsman and the Deputy Chancellor of Justice and their Offices had not examined his petitions in full and had failed to give proper reasons.
The Court notes that these proceedings did not involve the determination of a civil right. Accordingly, this part of the application is incompatible ratione materiae with the Convention and must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Declares the application inadmissible.
Lawrence EarlyNicolas BratzaRegistrar President
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy