FOURTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 65849/13
Gáspár VAJÓ
against Hungary
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 6 March 2018 as a Committee composed of:
Vincent A. De Gaetano, President,
Georges Ravarani,
Marko Bošnjak, judges,
and Andrea Tamietti, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 10 October 2013,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr Gáspár Vajó, is a Hungarian national who was born in 1957 and lives in Budapest. He was represented before the Court by Mr J. Kapolyi, a lawyer practising in Budapest.
The circumstances of the case
2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
3. In June 2003 the applicant, the majority shareholder in – and the manager of – a limited liability company, loaned a large amount of money to that company.
4. In February 2004 his partners removed him from his position and elected a new manager.
5. In March 2004 the Pest County Company Court noted the removal and registered the change of manager.
6. The applicant sought judicial review of the decision, which was ultimately found unlawful for procedural reasons by the Budapest Court of Appeal on 21 December 2004.
7. However, during the period of the proceedings the applicant lost control over the financial activity of the company, which became insolvent and went into liquidation. As a result, the applicant could not recover the loan that he had provided to the company.
8. He subsequently brought an official liability action in the Pest County Company Court for damages, claiming that he had suffered financial losses as a result of legal malpractice by the Company Court.
9. His action was dismissed by the Fejér County Regional Court on 11 July 2011 and (following appeals by the applicant) the Budapest Court of Appeal on 16 February 2012 and the Kúria on 24 April 2013.
10. According to the courts’ reasoning, the applicant did not manage to prove the existence of a causal link between the damage and the Company Court’s manner of procedure. Therefore, even assuming that the Company Court committed malpractice (which was not evident given that the underlying procedural question left room for several reasonable interpretations), its responsibility could not be established for want of a proven causal link between the damage sustained by the applicant and the Company Court’s decision to register the new manager.
COMPLAINTS
11. Relying on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and on Article 13 of the Convention, the applicant complains about the outcome of the domestic proceedings.
THE LAW
12. The applicant complained about the dismissal of his official liability action (see paragraph 8 above), which he submitted had rendered it impossible for him to recover the damages he had sustained. He relied on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, read both alone and in conjunction with Article 13 of the Convention.
13. Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 provides 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.”
14. Article 13 of the Convention provides:
“Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in [the] Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.”
15. The applicant first argued that the manner of the procedure followed by the Company Court had amounted to an infringement of his property rights within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 in that the Pest County Company Court had registered his removal from his post as manager unlawfully.
16. The Court notes that this procedure ended on 21 December 2004 (see paragraph 6 above), whereas the application was introduced only on 10 October 2013 – that is to say more than six months later.
17. It follows that this complaint must be rejected, in accordance with Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.
18. The applicant further complained that the subsequent official liability action had not provided him with an effective remedy, in breach of Article 13 of the Convention, read in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.
19. The Court considers that even assuming that the applicant has an arguable claim under Article 13 of the Convention in respect of a violation of his rights under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, there is no appearance of a violation of his right to an effective national remedy. Notably, courts at three instances with the power to award him compensation heard his case on the merits and dismissed the claim for want of convincing evidence. The effectiveness of a remedy for the purposes of Article 13 does not depend on the certainty of a favourable outcome for the applicant (see Vilvarajah and Others v. the United Kingdom, 30 October 1991, § 122, Series A no. 215).
20. It follows that this complaint is manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) and must be rejected, pursuant to Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 29 March 2018.
Andrea TamiettiVincent A. De Gaetano
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy