Information Note on the Court’s case-law 13
December 1999
Tomé Mota v. Portugal (dec.) - 32082/96
Decision 2.12.1999 [Section IV]
Article 35
Article 35-1
Exhaustion of domestic remedies
Effective domestic remedy
Alleged ineffectiveness of an appeal intended to speed up proceedings: inadmissible
The applicant complained of the excessive length of ten sets of criminal proceedings which had been instituted against him for various offences. The new Code of Criminal Procedure, which came into force in 1988, created a mechanism (Articles 108 and 109) whereby defendants in criminal proceedings could request the Public Prosecutor or the Supreme Council of the Judiciary to expedite the proceedings if they had exceeded the statutory time-limits for each stage. The applicant did not exercise that remedy, however. He alleged before the Court that it did not, in reality, provide a remedy for the excessive length of criminal proceedings.
Inadmissible under Article 6 § 1: The mechanism for expediting proceedings set in place by the new Code of Criminal Procedure was a remedy which was both accessible and effective since it was a method of requesting the Public Prosecutor or the Supreme Council of the Judiciary to give the judges dealing with the case notice to take action. Furthermore, that mechanism was not likely to delay the proceedings because the Public Prosecutor or Supreme Council of the Judiciary had to give its decisions within very short time-limits: non-exhaustion.
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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