Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 167
October 2013
Techniki Olympiaki A.E. v. Greece (dec.) - 40547/10
Decision 1.10.2013 [Section I]
Article 35
Article 35-1
Exhaustion of domestic remedies
New remedy to be exhausted in cases concerning length of proceedings before the administrative courts: inadmissible
Facts – Before the European Court, the applicant company complained of the length of the proceedings before the administrative courts in its case and of the lack of an effective remedy in that regard.
Law – Article 35 § 1: In its pilot judgment in Vassilios Athanasiou and Others v. Greece (50973/08, 21 December 2010, Information Note 136), the Court had held that the excessive length of administrative proceedings constituted a structural problem, and had requested the State to institute an effective domestic remedy within one year. The Greek authorities complied with that request by enacting Law no. 4055/2012, which entered into force on 2 April 2012. The Court considered that the remedies enabling proceedings to be speeded up and litigants to obtain compensation under the new Law should be regarded as effective for the purposes of Article 13 of the Convention. It noted that the compensatory remedy had already proved its effectiveness in practice, as demonstrated by recent domestic court rulings.
In the present case, the judicial proceedings had begun on 20 May 1986 with an application to the administrative court of appeal and had concluded on 20 November 2012 when the judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court was finalised and certified. The Court decided to examine the proceedings before these two courts separately since, under Law no. 4055/2012, any claim for compensation was lodged separately with each level of jurisdiction.
(a) Proceedings before the administrative court of appeal – These had concluded on 29 July 1988 with publication of the judgment. Since Law no. 4055/2012 had entered into force on 2 April 2012, the applicant company could not have lodged an application for the proceedings to be speeded up or a claim for compensation, as these remedies had not been available at the time. The Government’s objection of failure to exhaust domestic remedies therefore had to be rejected. As to the merits of the complaint, the proceedings at issue had lasted for approximately two years and two months. Given that the applicant company had been responsible for a delay of over a year, the length of the proceedings before the administrative court of appeal had not been unreasonable.
Conclusion: inadmissible (manifestly ill-founded).
(b) Proceedings before the Supreme Administrative Court – A request for proceedings to be accelerated could be submitted only in relation to applications made after 16 September 2012. Accordingly, the preventive remedy by which to have the proceedings speeded up had not been available to the applicant company in these proceedings.
As to the compensatory remedy, the present application had been lodged on 23 June 2010, that is to say, before the entry into force of Law no. 4055/2012 on 2 April 2012. In view of the nature of that Law and the context in which it had been enacted, there were justifiable grounds for making an exception to the general principle whereby the effectiveness of a given remedy had to be assessed with reference to the date on which the application had been lodged. Furthermore, the Supreme Administrative Court judgment had been published on 6 February 2012, that is to say, before the entry into force of the Law in question. Law no. 4055/2012 did not preclude an application to the competent courts in relation to proceedings terminated before its entry into force, within the time-limits which it laid down. Accordingly, it had been open to the applicant company in the instant case to apply to the Supreme Administrative Court between 2 April 2012 – the date on which the Law in question had entered into force – and 6 August 2012, the date on which the time-limit laid down by the Law had expired.
With regard to finalisation of the Supreme Administrative Court judgment, the applicant company had also had the opportunity, when bringing its action and throughout the compensation proceedings, to complain of any delay in finalising and certifying the judgment. By 6 February 2012, the date of publication of the judgment in question, the proceedings before the Supreme Administrative Court had already been pending for over twenty-three years, a period which was in principle excessive for a single level of jurisdiction. Accordingly, on the date of entry into force of Law no. 4055/2012, the applicant company could legitimately have complained to the Supreme Administrative Court under that Law about the delays in the proceedings, without waiting for the above-mentioned judgment to be finalised.
In the light of the foregoing considerations, the applicant company had been required under Article 35 § 1 of the Convention to make use of that remedy. Since it had not done so, its complaint under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention had to be rejected for failure to exhaust domestic remedies.
Conclusion: inadmissible (failure to exhaust domestic remedies).
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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