FIRST SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 56978/21
Július VERČIMÁK
against Slovakia
(see appended table)
The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting on 28 September 2023 as a Committee composed of:
Krzysztof Wojtyczek, President,
Lətif Hüseynov,
Ivana Jelić, judges,
and Viktoriya Maradudina, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 19 November 2021,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicants,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
FACTS AND PROCEDURE
1. The applicant’s details are set out in the appended table.
2. The applicant was represented by Mr P. Ličák, a lawyer practising in Kapušany.
3. The applicant’s complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention concerning the excessive length of civil proceedings were communicated to the Slovak Government (“the Government”).
4. On 29 December 2010 the applicant lodged an action for unjust enrichment with the Prešov District Court (proceedings no. 8C/255/2010). According to the Government, a hearing was held on 13 September 2011 during which the defendant asked that the proceedings be stayed awaiting the outcome of related proceedings, to which the applicant consented. By a decision of 30 September 2011, the proceedings were stayed, and the progress of the related proceedings was regularly monitored. After the applicant informed the District Court in February 2016 that the related proceedings had ended in October 2015, the impugned proceedings were resumed. At the following hearing on 14 March 2017 the District Court granted the parties’ request to stay the proceedings for three months, in order to enable them to reach a friendly settlement. On 30 June 2017 the applicant informed the District Court that no settlement had been reached. At the hearing on 14 November 2017, he proposed to obtain an expert report, which was commissioned in February 2018 and elaborated in May 2018; the expert was heard at the hearing on 15 November 2018. On 13 December 2018 the District Court issued its judgment, against which both parties appealed in January 2019. After having been sent the file in June 2019, on 17 February 2021 the Prešov Regional Court upheld the judgment as to the merits but quashed the decision on the costs. A new partial decision on the costs was adopted by the District Court on 17 May 2021 but the amount remained to be determined. In August 2022 the proceedings were pending before the Supreme Court, which had been sent the file with the defendant’s appeal on points of law on 27 September 2021.
5. In the meantime, on 11 May 2021 the Constitutional Court declared admissible the applicant’s constitutional complaint in the part concerning the length of the proceedings before the Regional Court; the complaint about the delays before the District Court was rejected because the proceedings were no longer pending before that court. By a judgment of 13 July 2021 (no. IV. ÚS 248/2021) the Constitutional Court dismissed the applicant’s complaint, noting that having lodged it only one day before the pronouncement of the Regional Court’s judgment, the applicant had sought solely the highest compensation possible but had not effectively protected his right to have his case heard in a reasonable time.
THE LAW
6. The Government submitted, inter alia, that the applicant had omitted to inform the Court about important facts, which amounted to an abuse of the right of application. He had failed, namely, to indicate that the proceedings had been stayed on two occasions, which had objectively prevented the District Court from dealing with the case for at least four years and two months. Moreover, the applicant did not try to accelerate the related proceedings by means of another constitutional complaint (they referred in this respect to the judgment of Maxian and Maxianová v. Slovakia [Committee], 65579/14, §§ 29-31, 20 December 2016). Lastly, the applicant did not inform the Court that a third level of jurisdiction, that is the Supreme Court, had been involved in the proceedings since 27 September 2021.
7. The applicant submitted that in his application he had provided information which he had deemed relevant for the legal analysis of the core issue of the case which, in his view, consisted in the grounds for rejection by the Constitutional Court of his complaint concerning the length of the proceedings before the District Court. He was also of the view that the respondent Government were not entitled to put forward arguments which had not been used by the Constitutional Court. In his view the length of the impugned proceedings, amounting to more than eleven years, was clearly excessive and unjustifiable.
8. The Court notes that relevant principles applicable to the abuse of right of individual application have been summarised in the Court’s judgment Gross v. Switzerland ([GC], no. 67810/10, § 28, ECHR 2014).
9. The Court observes that, in the chronology of the procedural acts described in his application form, the applicant did not mention at all that the impugned proceedings had been stayed twice for a considerable period of time, on his request or consent. This fact came to light only through the Government’s observations, although it is directly relevant to the present application. Indeed, the fact that the District Court was objectively prevented from moving on with the case for more than four years cannot be ignored by the Court when assessing the length of the impugned proceedings (see, mutatis mutandis, Junas v. Slovakia (dec.) [Committee], no. 8790/19, § 18, 10 March 2022). The Court reiterates in this respect that any suspension of the proceedings has to be taken into account and, in principle, the period during which the proceedings were stayed should be subtracted from the overall period under examination (see, for example, Urík v. Slovakia, no. 7408/05, § 25, 21 December 2010; Puškášová v. Slovakia [Committee], no. 5011/20, § 16, 20 May 2021; Bartók v. Slovakia [Committee], no. 2776/201, § 11, 30 September 2021; and Kľačanová v. Slovakia [Committee], no. 8116/19, § 32, 31 March 2022).
10. The Court further notes that the applicant did not inform it that since 27 September 2021, that is two months before the introduction of his application to the Court, the case had been pending before the Supreme Court.
11. In this context, the Court is not convinced by the explanation for this failure provided by the applicant (see paragraph 7 above). Although it is true that he had criticised in his application the Constitutional Court’s decision of 11 May 2021, he had only complained under Article 6 of the Convention of the unjustifiable length of the proceedings amounting, in his view, to eleven years and of the fact that the Constitutional Court had failed to examine the merits of his complaint.
12. Thus, the applicant’s silence on those facts cannot be interpreted, in the Court’s view, as anything but a failure to disclose information concerning the very core of the application.
13. In view of these considerations, the Court finds it sufficiently established that by omitting to disclose the information in question to the Court, the applicant intended to mislead it within the meaning of the established case‑law (see Buzinger v. Slovakia (dec.), no. 32133/10, § 25, 16 June 2015; and Magát v. Slovakia (dec.), no. 28368/19, 10 November 2021).
14. Accordingly, it is appropriate to reject the application as an abuse of the right of individual application, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 19 October 2023.
Viktoriya Maradudina Krzysztof Wojtyczek
Acting Deputy Registrar President
APPENDIX
Application raising complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention
(excessive length of civil proceedings)
Application no.
Date of introduction
Applicant’s name
Year of birth
Representative’s name and location
Start of proceedings
End of proceedings
Total length
Levels of jurisdiction
Domestic court
File number
Domestic award
(in euros)
56978/21
19/11/2021
Július VERČIMÁK
1949
Peter Ličák
Kapušany
29/12/2010
22/10/2015
30/06/2017
30/09/2011
14/03/2017
pending
More than 8 years, 3 months and 25 days
3 levels of jurisdiction
IV. US 248/2021-16
IV. US 248/2021-35