FOURTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 7456/06
Mara Dimitrova TERZIEVA and Tsvetana Todorova AVRAMOVA
against Bulgaria
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 23 June 2015 as a Committee composed of:
George Nicolaou, President,
Krzysztof Wojtyczek,
Yonko Grozev, judges,
and Fatoş Aracı, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 9 February 2006,
Having in particular regard to the declaration submitted by the respondent Government on 28 August 2012 requesting the Court to strike the application out of the list of cases and the applicants’ reply to that declaration,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
FACTS AND PROCEDURE
The applicants, Ms Mara Dimitrova Terzieva and Ms Tsvetana Todorova Avramova, are Bulgarian nationals who were born in 1933 and 1963 respectively and live in Plovdiv. They were represented before the Court by Mr M. Ekimdzhiev and Ms K. Boncheva, lawyers practising in Plovdiv.
The Bulgarian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Ms M. Dimova, of the Ministry of Justice.
The part of the application concerning the length of the judicial proceedings the applicants were party to and the lack of any effective remedies in that regard has been communicated to the Government.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
At the end of 1992 and the beginning of 1993 the applicants brought two sets of proceedings claiming the restitution of two flats, which had been expropriated by an ancestor of theirs in 1949 and had subsequently been sold by the State, allegedly in breach of law, to third parties.
In the first set of proceedings, in a final judgment of 23 April 2003 the Supreme Court of Cassation (“the SCC”) found for the applicants and held that the flat at issue had to be returned to them. However, upon a request by one of the defendants, on 14 May 2004 the SCC set aside its previous judgment and re-opened the proceedings. After the renewal, the case was examined once again and in a final judgment of 13 April 2007 the SCC disallowed the action brought by the applicants, finding that the third parties who had bought the property after the expropriation had done so in accordance with the rules applicable at the time.
The second set of proceedings ended with a final judgment of the SCC of 20 March 2009. The applicants’ action was allowed.
COMPLAINTS
1. The applicants complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the proceedings they had been party to had been lengthy, and that they did not have at their disposal an effective remedy in that regard. They also relied on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, claiming that the excessive length of the proceedings had interfered with their property rights.
2. In respect of the first set of proceedings, the applicants also complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 that the re-opening ordered by the SCC on 14 May 2004 had breached the principle of legal certainty. They also complained, relying on Articles 6 § 1 and 13 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, of the manner in which the SCC had examined the case in its final judgment of 13 April 2007, arguing that is reasoning, dismissing their action, had been imprecise and erroneous.
THE LAW
1. The applicants complained, first, of the excessive length of the two sets of proceedings they had been party to, and of the lack of any effective remedies in that regard, under Articles 6 § 1 and 13 of the Convention. They also relied on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.
After the failure of the attempts to reach a friendly settlement, on 28 August 2012 the Government informed the Court that they proposed to make a unilateral declaration with a view to resolving the issue raised by this part of the application. They acknowledged violations of the Articles relied on by the applicants and offered to pay jointly to the two applicants a compensation of 8,000 euros (EUR). They pointed out that this sum was to cover any pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage, as well as costs and expenses, would be free of any taxes that may be chargeable to the applicants, and would be converted into Bulgarian levs at the rate applicable at the date of settlement. The sum above would be payable within three months from the date of notification of the decision taken by the Court pursuant to Article 37 § 1 of the Convention. In the event of failure to pay the sum within the said three-month period, the Government undertook to pay simple interest on it from expiry of that period until settlement, at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points.
The Government invited the Court to strike the application out of the list of cases. They suggested that the declaration might be accepted by the Court as “any other reason” justifying the striking out of the case of the Court’s list, as referred to in Article 37 § 1 (c) of the Convention.
By a letter of 26 September 2012, the applicants stated that they were not satisfied with the terms of the unilateral declaration. They considered the amount proposed by the Government insufficient, and pointed out that the damage they had suffered was significantly greater, because in the first set of proceedings their action had been dismissed, and as concerns the second one, despite obtaining a final judgment allowing their restitution claim, they had been involved in further proceedings in order to complete the procedure and enter into possession of their flat.
On 1 August 2013, after having been invited by the Court to comment on the domestic remedies concerning length of proceedings introduced in Bulgarian law at the end of 2012 (for more detail, see Balakchiev and Others v. Bulgaria (dec.), no. 65187/10, §§ 18-37, 18 June 2013, and Valcheva and Abrashev v. Bulgaria (dec.), nos. 6194/11 and 34887/11, §§ 47-66, 18 June 2013), the Government stated that the remedies at issue were available to the applicants, and left it to the Court to assess the admissibility of the length-of-proceedings complaints. At the same time, the Government referred once again to their unilateral declaration. The applicants, on their part, considered that the new remedies were unavailable to them.
The Court reiterates that Article 37 of the Convention provides that it may at any stage of the proceedings decide to strike an application out of its list of cases where the circumstances lead to one of the conclusions specified, under (a), (b) or (c) of paragraph 1 of that Article. Article 37 § 1 (c) enables the Court in particular to strike a case out of its list if:
“for any other reason established by the Court, it is no longer justified to continue the examination of the application”.
The Court also reiterates that in certain circumstances it may strike out an application under Article 37 § 1 (c) on the basis of a unilateral declaration by a respondent Government even if the applicants wish the examination of the case to be continued.
To this end, the Court has examined the declaration in the case at hand carefully in the light of the principles emerging from its case-law, in particular the Tahsin Acar judgment (Tahsin Acar v. Turkey [GC], no. 26307/95, §§ 75-77, ECHR 2003-VI; WAZA Spółka z o.o. v. Poland (dec.), no. 11602/02, 26 June 2007; and Sulwińska v. Poland (dec.), no. 28953/03, 18 September 2007).
The Court considers that it is not prevented from examining the declaration on the ground that in 2013 the Government also submitted observations on the question of exhaustion of domestic remedies, because in those observations the Government did not withdraw the declaration but, on the contrary, relied once again on it.
The Court has established in a number of cases, including against Bulgaria, its practice concerning complaints about the violation of one’s right to a hearing within a reasonable time (see, for example, the pilot judgments of Finger v. Bulgaria, no. 37346/05, 10 May 2011, and Dimitrov and Hamanov v. Bulgaria, nos. 48059/06 and 2708/09, 10 May 2011, with references to numerous other cases).
Having regard to the nature of the admissions contained in the Government’s declaration, as well as the amount of compensation proposed – which is consistent with amounts awarded in similar cases – the Court considers that it is no longer justified to continue the examination of the application (Article 37 § 1 (c)).
Moreover, in light of the above considerations, and in particular given the clear and extensive case-law on the topic, the Court is satisfied that respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and the Protocols thereto does not require it to continue the examination of the application (Article 37 § 1 in fine).
As to the applicants’ objections to the unilateral declaration, the Court notes that they do not concern the complaints related to the excessive length of the proceedings, and are partly related to the remaining complaints, which the Court considers inadmissible (see below).
Finally, the Court emphasises that, should the Government fail to comply with the terms of their unilateral declaration, the application could be restored to the list in accordance with Article 37 § 2 of the Convention (see Josipović v. Serbia (dec.), no. 18369/07, 4 March 2008).
2. The applicants raised other complaints under Articles 6 § 1 and 13 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.
Having regard to all the evidence in its possession, and in so far as it has jurisdiction to examine the allegations, the Court has not found any appearance of a breach of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Convention or its Protocols.
It follows that this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Takes note of the terms of the respondent Government’s declaration concerning the complaints of excessive length of the two sets of proceedings and the lack of effective remedies in that regard, under Articles 6 § 1 and 13 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, and of the modalities for ensuring compliance with the undertakings referred to therein;
Decides to strike that part of the application out of its list of cases in accordance with Article 37 § 1 (c) of the Convention;
Declares the remainder of the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 16 July 2015.
Fatoş AracıGeorge Nicolaou
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy