Communicated on 15 December 2014
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 20284/13
Frana TERZIĆ
against Croatia
lodged on 7 March 2013
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Frana Terzić, is a Croatian national, who was born in 1933 and lives in Osijek.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
In 2006 V.K. brought a civil action against the applicant in the Šibenik Municipal Court (Općinski sud u Šibeniku) seeking that his ownership of a plot of land by adverse possession be established. In his action the plaintiff indicated that the value of his claim was 10,000 Croatian kunas (HRK).
In her reply to the action the applicant objected to the value of the dispute as being too low.
The first-instance court then requested the Tax Administration to submit information on the market value of the real estates in order to assess the value of the plot of land at issue. According to the information provided, the value of the claim was set by the first-instance court at HRK 101,000.
On 23 February 2009 the Šibenik Municipal Court awarded the plaintiff’s claim. This judgment was upheld by the Šibenik County Court (Županijski sud u Šibeniku) on10 January 2011.
The applicant’s subsequent appeal on points of law (revizija) was declared inadmissible by the Supreme Court (Vrhovni sud Republike Hrvatske) on 7 March 2012. It held that the first-instance court had failed to establish the value of the dispute in time and that therefore the value of the dispute was HRK 10,000, as indicated in the plaintiff’s action, which was below the statutory threshold of HRK 100,000.
The applicant then lodged a constitutional complaint with the Constitutional Court (Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske) and on11 July 2012 the Constitutional Court declared it inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded.
COMPLAINT
The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 and Article 13 of the Convention about the refusal of the Supreme Court to examine the merits of her appeal on points of law.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Did the manner in which the national courts established the value of the dispute in the present case and declared the applicant’s appeal on points of law inadmissible deprive the applicant of access to the Supreme Court?
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