SECOND SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 27115/12
Sretko VESELINOVIĆ
against Croatia
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 15 September 2015 as a Committee composed of:
Robert Spano, President,
Ksenija Turković,
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro, judges,
and Abel Campos, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 16 April 2012,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr Sretko Veselinović, is a Croatian national, who was born in 1928 and lived in Štikada. He was represented before the Court by Mr L. Šušak, a lawyer practising in Zagreb. The applicant died on 19 December 2012 and his son, Mr Nikola Veselinović, pursued the proceedings.
2. The Croatian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Ms Š. Stažnik.
The circumstances of the case
3. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
1. Background to the case
4. During 1991 and 1992 Serbian paramilitary forces gained control over about a third of the territory of Croatia and proclaimed the “Serbian Autonomous Region of Krajina” (Srpska autonomna oblast Krajina, hereinafter “Krajina”). The applicant’s mother, N.G., remained living in Golubić, a village in “Krajina”. At the beginning of August 1995 the Croatian authorities announced their intention to take military action with the aim of regaining control over “Krajina”. The operation was codenamed “Storm” and took place from 4 to 7 August 1995. Before the military action, the vast majority of the population of “Krajina” had fled Croatia. They went firstly to Bosnia and Herzegovina and later on many of them went to live in Serbia. Some returned to Croatia after the war. The number of people who fled is estimated at between 100,000 and 150,000.
5. The applicant’s daughter, M.V., remained in the village of Štikada, on the occupied territory. She was seen alive for the last time at about 11 a.m. on 5 August 1995 in the house of N.I. where she worked.
2. Exhumation and identification of the body of the applicant’s daughter
6. On 23 May 2002 Nikola Veselinović, the applicant’s son, lodged a criminal complaint in the applicant’s name with the Ministry of the Interior against unknown perpetrators in connection with the disappearance of the applicant’s daughter, M.V.
7. In October 2002 a female body was exhumed and an autopsy was carried out. It was established that the cause of her death was a wound from shelling. A DNA analysis carried out in February 2003 showed that the body was that of the applicant’s daughter.
8. On 21 January 2005 the Gospić County State Attorney’s Office dismissed the applicant’s criminal complaint on the ground that his daughter had died from a wound caused by an explosion and was “a civilian victim of war”. The decision was served on the applicant’s representative on 27 January 2005.
COMPLAINTS
9. The applicant complained, under the procedural aspect of Articles 2 and 14 of the Convention, that the available criminal-law mechanisms in connection with the death of his daughter were inefficient, and that the national authorities had not investigated possible ethnic motives for her killing, as required under Article 14 of the Convention.
THE LAW
The procedural aspect of Articles 2 and 14 of the Convention
10. The applicant complained that the authorities had not taken appropriate and adequate steps to investigate the circumstances of his daughter’s death and to bring the perpetrators to justice. He also claimed that his daughter had been killed because of her Serbian ethnic origin and that the national authorities had failed to investigate that factor. He relied on Articles 2 and 14 of the Convention, which read as follows:
Article 2
“1. Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.
2. Deprivation of life shall not be regarded as inflicted in contravention of this article when it results from the use of force which is no more than absolutely necessary:
(a) in defence of any person from unlawful violence;
(b) in order to effect a lawful arrest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained;
(c) in action lawfully taken for the purpose of quelling a riot or insurrection.”
Article 14
“The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in [the] Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.”
1. The parties’ submissions
11. The Government challenged the applicant’s signature on the power of attorney, claiming that he had been illiterate. They further objected that the applicant’s son and heir, Mr Nikola Veselinović, had not submitted a power of attorney within the time-limit set by the Court.
12. The Government further maintained that the application had been lodged outside the six-month time-limit. The applicant’s representative had been informed about the decision of the Gospić County State Attorney’s Office on 27 January 2005 and the present application had been lodged on 16 April 2012.
13. The applicant argued that he had complied with all of the admissibility criteria.
2. The Court’s assessment
14. The Court does not have to address all the issues raised by the parties, as this application is in any event inadmissible for non-compliance with the six-month time-limit set out in Article 35 of the Convention for the following reasons.
15. The Court reiterates that the purpose of the six-month rule is to promote legal certainty and to ensure that cases raising issues under the Convention are dealt with within a reasonable time. Furthermore, it ought also to protect the authorities and other persons concerned from being under any uncertainty for a prolonged period of time (see Bayram and Yıldırım v. Turkey (dec.), no. 38587/97, ECHR 2002‑III, and Bulut and Yavuz v. Turkey (dec.), no. 73065/01, 28 May 2002).
16. In the instant case, the Court notes that the Gospić County State Attorney’s Office concluded that the applicant’s daughter had died of a wound caused by an explosion on 5 August 1995. A decision to that effect, dismissing the applicant’s criminal complaint, was adopted on 21 January 2005 and served on the applicant’s lawyer on 27 January 2005.
17. However, the applicant lodged the application with the Court more than seven years later.
18. It follows that this part of the application has been introduced out of time and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 8 October 2015.
Abel CamposRobert Spano
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy