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Cite as: [2008] ECHR 738
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THIRD SECTION
CASE OF GHEORGHE AND MARIA MIHAELA DUMITRESCU
v. ROMANIA
(Application no. 6373/03)
JUDGMENT
STRASBOURG
29 July 2008
This judgment will become final in the circumstances set out in Article 44 § 2 of the Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision.
In the case of Gheorghe and Maria Mihaela Dumitrescu v. Romania,
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of:
Josep
Casadevall,
President,
Elisabet
Fura-Sandström,
Corneliu
Bîrsan,
Alvina
Gyulumyan,
Egbert
Myjer,
Ineta
Ziemele,
Ann
Power, judges,
and
Santiago Quesada,
Section Registrar,
Having deliberated in private on 8 July 2008,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
PROCEDURE
THE FACTS
THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE
second applicant's mother claimed damages in criminal proceedings. On 7 December 2000 the Public Prosecutor attached to the Curtea de Argeş Court of First Instance (“the Court of First Instance”) committed T.M., the driver of the car, for trial before the Court of First Instance.
7 December 2001, ten were adjourned for the absence of witnesses or of expert reports, for hearing new witnesses and for ordering a new expert report, two at T.M.'s request for the absence of her lawyer and one for deliberations.
On 7 December 2001 the Court of First Instance convicted T.M. of having negligently caused bodily harm, sentenced her to a conditional prison sentence of three months, held her personally liable and awarded both pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages to the second applicant and to her mother. It also ordered T.M. to pay the mother a monthly sum pending her daughter's recovery.
THE LAW
I. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 6 § 1 OF THE CONVENTION
“In the determination of his civil rights and obligations ..., everyone is entitled to a ... hearing within a reasonable time by [a] ... tribunal...”
three years, four months and twenty days for three levels of jurisdiction. Eight courts examined the case during this period.
A. Admissibility
Accordingly, to this extent the preliminary objection must be upheld and this part of the application, which is incompatible ratione personae with the provisions of the Convention, must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4. The second applicant is therefore the sole applicant for the purposes of this application.
B. Merits
(see Frydlender, cited above).
There has accordingly been a breach of Article 6 § 1.
II. OTHER ALLEGED VIOLATIONS OF THE CONVENTION
It
follows that this complaint must be rejected in accordance with
Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
III. APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION
“If the Court finds that there has been a violation of the Convention or the Protocols thereto, and if the internal law of the High Contracting Party concerned allows only partial reparation to be made, the Court shall, if necessary, afford just satisfaction to the injured party.”
A. Damage
non-pecuniary damage.
B. Costs and expenses
FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT
Done in English, and notified in writing on 29 July 2008, pursuant to Rule 77 §§ 2 and 3 of the Rules of Court.
Santiago Quesada Josep
Casadevall
Registrar President
In accordance with Article 45 § 2 of the Convention and Rule 74 § 2 of the Rules of Court, the following separate opinions are annexed to this judgment:
dissenting opinions of Judges Myjer and Power.
J.C.M.
S.Q.
DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE MYJER
I do not agree with the majority that in this case the reasonable time provision has been violated.
Indeed, not only the total length of the proceedings at the national level should be taken into account but also what was at stake.
When
comparing the way this case was handled at the national level with
what happens in many other cases, I cannot but conclude that –
apparently precisely because of what was at stake – the
national authorities acted with particular diligence. After pre-trial
investigations the criminal case, in which the mother of the
applicant claimed damages, was set down for trial by the public
prosecutor six months after the accident (7 December 2000). Exactly
one year after that date – less than eleven months after the
first hearing – the court of first instance pronounced its
judgment (7 December 2001). In the meantime fourteen hearings had
been scheduled, of which ten were adjourned. That fact alone makes it
clear that the national courts apparently did not want to lose extra
time and showed particular diligence. Three and a half months later
(26 March 2002) the regional court dismissed the appeal lodged by the
applicant's mother. A further three months later
(25 June 2002)
the Court of Appeal upheld the appeal lodged by the applicant's
mother and T.M. The case was sent back to the court of first
instance. In the second half of 2002 six hearings were scheduled but
adjourned at the request of T.M. or the insurance company. Still,
seven months after the judgment of the court of appeal the court of
first instance delivered another judgment (23 January 2003). Three
and a half months later (8 May 2003) the regional court rejected the
appeal lodged by the applicant's mother. Six and a half months later
(20 November 2003) the court of appeal quashed the previous judgment
and sent the case back for retrial. After the retrial, judgment was
delivered on 3 March 2004.
Three and a half months later (27 May
2004) the final judgment was given.
This means that in total eight judgments were given by three instances within a period less than three and a half years.
Of course I am aware of the ”anti-ping pong reasoning” of this Court, where it has considered that, although the Court is not in a position to analyse the juridical quality of the case-law of the domestic courts, since the remittal of cases for re-examination is usually ordered as a result of errors committed by lower courts, the repetition of such orders within one set of proceedings may disclose a serious deficiency in the judicial system (see, among other authorities, Wierciszewska v. Poland, no. 41431/98, § 46, 25 November 2003). But, in my opinion, that has not been the case here. Whenever a remittal was ordered, at all levels the national judges apparently did their best to give a speedy judgment.
In these circumstances I consider it a wrong signal to the national judges to conclude that at the national level the reasonable time provision has been violated.
I remember well the commentaries at the national level when, in the Court's judgment of 13 July 1983 in the case of Zimmerman and Steiner v. Switzerland (Series A, no. 66), it took the Commission and the Court almost four years to conclude that a term of nearly three and a half years at one national level amounted to a violation of the reasonable time requirement.
DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE POWER
In June 2000, when she was five years old, the second applicant was seriously injured in a road traffic accident. She suffered total paralysis of her lower limbs and required lengthy hospitalisation. The enormity of the loss that she and her parents suffered is inestimable. Criminal proceedings ensued and in the context thereof a civil claim for damages was lodged. The applicants complain that the length of those proceedings was incompatible with the “reasonable time” requirement of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. The proceedings lasted three years, four months and twenty days and covered three levels of jurisdiction. The question before this Court is whether that period was so unreasonable as to constitute a violation of the applicants' fundamental human right to a trial within a reasonable time.
Article 6 § 1 of the Convention guarantees that right. In civil cases, it underlines “the importance of rendering justice without delays which might jeopardise its effectiveness and credibility”; (see H. v. France, judgment of 24 October 1989, Series A no. 162 A and Pélissier and Sassi v. France [GC], no. 25444/94, ECHR 1999 II). I am in agreement with the majority that the nature of the dispute herein called for particular diligence on the part of the domestic courts. However, I do not share their view that the length of proceedings was so excessive as to constitute a failure to meet the “reasonable time” requirement of Article 6 § 1.
Adversarial proceedings, by their very nature, take time. Litigation is a complex business even when the facts of a case may not be particularly complicated. Consultations must be convened, pleadings drafted and delivered, documents filed and stamped, interim applications made, expert reports obtained, witnesses interviewed, court lists organised, trials conducted, appeals taken and, ultimately, final judgments delivered. The procedural safeguards within that process – such as, for example, the right to apply for an adjournment where additional relevant evidence is required – are not mere peripheral matters of case management. They go to the very heart of a fair trial.
In
this case, significant injuries were sustained by the second
applicant and contentious litigation ensued because legal liability
for the cause of those injuries was, quite evidently, in issue. In
the course of those proceedings an important additional party was
joined. Expert medical evidence, presumably, from a number of
paediatric specialists, was required. Various appeals were lodged.
All of these measures, undoubtedly, took time but none of them was
unimportant in the overall objective of the pursuit of justice. In
complaining about the length of the proceedings, reference is made,
inter alia, to the fact that ten of the fourteen hearings held
in 2001 were adjourned and that on two occasions judgments were
quashed due to procedural errors. Undoubtedly, these events extended,
somewhat, the overall duration of the proceedings but it is an
unfortunate fact of life (and of legal systems) that adjournments are
necessary and that errors, though regrettable, occur and require
rectification. Eight of the
ten adjournments in 2001 were for
reasons relating to the absence of witnesses or expert reports, for
the purpose of hearing new witnesses and for ordering a new expert
report. These appear to be entirely legitimate grounds for
adjournment, not directly imputable to the Government. To have
proceeded in the absence of relevant evidence would have served
neither the interests of the applicants nor the administration of
justice, generally.
Medical witnesses are not always available to attend court on fixed dates as their primary professional commitments oblige them to be elsewhere. A considered prognosis is a prerequisite for any assessment of quantum thus necessitating the preparation of updated reports. These are not incidental factors giving rise to unnecessary delay. They are the practical realities involved in contentious litigation concerning causation and damage in serious personal injury actions. Of course, particular urgency will be required where it is established that delay is likely to have an adverse effect upon an applicant's health. There is no indication, however, in this case, that the delay alleged adversely affected the second applicant's health. There is no intimation that she was deprived of medical treatment whilst awaiting the monetary compensation to which she was entitled.
It is entirely understandable that to each individual claimant his or her case is unique and its resolution of immediate and vital significance. In assessing the reasonableness of length of proceedings, however, one cannot overlook the fact that the domestic courts are dealing with thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of cases at any given time. The requirement of “reasonableness” in Article 6 § 1 implies that domestic legal systems and the registries and registrars that support them are given adequate time to deal with cases in a meaningful manner, to respond to developments as they occur, to allow for adjournments where fairness so requires and, ultimately, to manage, hear and determine cases in a manner consistent with the requirements of justice.
I do not want to be taken as acquiescing in the proposition that regular delays are endemic in every system and must, of necessity, be tolerated. Excessive delays endanger respect for the rule of law and I reaffirm the importance of administering justice in a manner that does not jeopardise its effectiveness and credibility (see Bottazzi v. Italy [GC], no. 34884/97, ECHR 1999 V).
The proceedings in this case involved serious personal injuries, the liability for which was contested. They spanned three levels of jurisdiction and lasted three years, four months and twenty days. In finding that this duration constituted a violation of Article 6 § 1, there is a danger of imposing unattainably high standards upon domestic courts. If we make it
so impossible for States to organise their legal systems in a workable manner by imposing excessively restrictive time limits within which cases must be resolved, then we run the risk of compromising the proper administration of justice for the sake of speed and expediency. In such an event, the fabric of a democratic society is weakened. Justice delayed may be justice denied but that must be balanced by a recognition of the reality that its proper administration requires a reasonable time. In my view, the time involved in this case was not so unreasonable as to constitute a violation of Article 6 § 1.