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Cite as: [2008] ECHR 935

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THIRD SECTION

DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 29216/05
by Tommy LANDÉN
against Sweden

The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 2 September 2008 as a Chamber composed of:

Josep Casadevall, President,
Elisabet Fura-Sandström,
Corneliu Bîrsan,
Boštjan M. Zupančič,
Alvina Gyulumyan,
Egbert Myjer,
Luis López Guerra, judges,
and Santiago Quesada, Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 5 August 2005,

Having regard to the decision to examine the admissibility and merits of the case together (Article 29 § 3 of the Convention),

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 Tommy Landén, is a Swedish national who was born in 1945 and lives in Järfälla. He was represented before the Court by Mr S. Svahnström, a lawyer practising in Täby. The Swedish Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Ms C. Hellner, Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

A. The circumstances of the case

2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.

3. The applicant ran a contracting business dealing with excavation and drilling of wells for fresh water and geothermal heating. In 1987 and 1989 he purchased two excavators, for which he obtained financing from two credit institutions. According to the two contracts for purchase by instalments, the excavators were to remain the property of the credit institutions until the full purchase price had been paid. The interest fixed in the contracts was 12.5 and 14.7%, respectively.

4. In June 1991, the applicant’s contracting business went bankrupt. As a consequence, by a decision of the District Court (tingsrätten) of Lindesberg of 15 July 1991, a third credit institution, which apparently had acquired title to the two contracts mentioned above, claimed possession of the two excavators. According to the applicant, the credit institution did not render any account to him concerning the further administration of the excavators but he learned much later that they had been sold to a buyer in the Netherlands, allegedly for a price much below their market value.

5. Apparently, title to the two contracts were later acquired by a fourth credit institution, Handelsbanken Finans AB (hereinafter “Handelsbanken”). In the autumn of 1992, Handelsbanken applied to the Enforcement Service (kronofogdemyndigheten) for a payment order (betalningsföreläggande) against the applicant. It claimed 577,813 Swedish kronor (SEK; corresponding to approximately 61,000 euros (EUR)) in recovery of the debt and annual interest on overdue payments of 24%. According to the applicant, neither that application nor the Enforcement Service’s injunction to reply was served on him.

6. By a decision of 2 December 1992, the Enforcement Service issued a payment order, in accordance with Handelsbanken’s application. The decision stated that the applicant had been served with the Service’s reply injunction but had failed to contest the bank’s claim. According to the applicant, as with the application by Handelsbanken and the Service’s reply injunction, he did not receive the payment order. It appears, however, that the order was sent to his registered address at Kopparberg. This address was not changed by the applicant although, after the bankruptcy, he bought a caravan, moved away from the house he had been renting and came to live, for several years, at various temporary places. Allegedly, in the late 1990s, he reported to the authorities that he lived in Järfälla.

7. On 3 October 2002 the applicant received from a debt-recovery company owned by Handelsbanken a claim for repayment of the debt, now amounting to SEK 577,813 plus SEK 1,665,726 (approximately EUR 175,000) in accrued interest. Apparently without having received a reply from the applicant, Handelsbanken subsequently applied to the Enforcement Service for enforcement of the 1992 payment order.

8. In a reply to the Service dated 5 November 2002, the applicant contested the claim which, he asserted, was completely unknown to him and, in any event, statute-barred. He further stated that, if the case was not dismissed, he wished to see the original documents relating to the debt with his signature.

9. By a decision of 5 December 2002, the Enforcement Service dismissed Handelsbanken’s claim. Basing itself on the incorrect assumption that the debt in question concerned a consumer credit – for which a three-year period of limitation applied, as opposed to ten years for a commercial credit –, the Service found that the 1992 payment order was no longer enforceable.

10. Handelsbanken appealed to the District Court of Stockholm. By a letter of 27 January 2003, the applicant’s legal counsel requested that the Enforcement Service be ordered to give information on how and when Handelsbanken’s application for a payment order and the Service’s subsequent decision of 2 December 1992 had been served on the applicant.

11. Three days later, the Enforcement Service informed counsel for the applicant by telephone that the entire file had been destroyed, as ten years had passed since the 1992 decision.

12. On 18 March 2003 the District Court rejected Handelsbanken’s appeal against the Enforcement Service’s decision of 5 December 2002. The reasons were, however, different from those given by the Service. The District Court noted that, under sections 5 and 7 of the Statute of Limitations Act (Preskriptionslagen, 1981:130), the running of the period of limitations was interrupted by an application to a court or to the Enforcement Service, such interruption, however, requiring additionally that the debtor had been served with the creditor’s application. The court further stated that the burden to prove that such service had taken place rested with the creditor, in this case Handelsbanken, which had had the opportunity to secure evidence in this respect. Noting that the only proof of service that had been presented was the statement in the decision of 2 December 1992 that the applicant had been served with the Service’s reply injunction, the court concluded that Handelsbanken had failed to show that the running of the period of limitation had been interrupted.

13. Handelsbanken appealed to the Svea Court of Appeal (Svea hovrätt). Confident that the appellate court would find in his favour, the applicant stated, in a submission of 14 April 2003, that there seemed to be no reason to have an oral hearing since the case concerned “a simple matter of law”.

14. Further on 14 April 2003 the applicant instituted proceedings before the Göta Court of Appeal (Göta hovrätt), requesting that the Enforcement Service’s decision of 2 December 1992 be set aside due to a miscarriage of justice (domvilla). He claimed that the decision had been taken without his having been duly served with the injunction to reply, in accordance with the provisions of the Code of Judicial Procedure (Rättegångsbalken). He did not invoke any evidence.

15. Handelsbanken argued in these proceedings that the payment order had been sent in the applicant’s name to his registered address. In relation to the applicant’s claim that he had not had any contact with Handelsbanken after the excavators had been reclaimed in 1991, Handelsbanken stated that it had sent letters by ordinary mail to the applicant on 13 occasions between 1993 and 2002 requesting him to pay the debt. Due to a special agreement with the postal service any letter not successfully delivered to the addressee would usually be returned, but none of the letters sent to the applicant had allegedly been returned. Furthermore, Handelsbanken had already applied for enforcement of the payment order in 1994 but had been informed by the Enforcement Service, in a report of 12 January 1995, that the applicant lacked attachable property. In the same report, the Service stated that it had been in contact with the applicant during the course of the matter. Furthermore, Handelsbanken asserted that, according to a note made by the above-mentioned debt-recovery company, the applicant had called the company on 31 October 1994 and asked for copies of “everything”. Consequently, Handelsbanken strongly doubted that the applicant, before receiving the application for enforcement on 3 October 2002, had been unaware of its claim and the payment order.

16. The submissions of Handelsbanken were sent to the applicant but he did not submit any comments in reply.

17. In the present proceedings before the Court, the applicant claimed that after his bankruptcy he had not had any contact whatsoever with the Enforcement Service until November 2002 when he received the application for enforcement of the payment order. He had felt that the Service had caused him harm in the bankruptcy proceedings and had not wished to have any further contact with the Service. He further rejected Handelsbanken’s assertion that he had called the debt-recovery company in October 1994. In any event, he asserted that such a contact could not have cured the failure in the autumn of 1992 to properly serve him with the injunction to reply in the payment order proceedings. These statements were, however, not submitted to the Göta Court of Appeal.

18. By a decision of 24 October 2003, the Göta Court of Appeal rejected the applicant’s request in regard to miscarriage of justice. The court first rejected Handelsbanken’s objection that the case should be dismissed on the ground that the matter was already pending before the Svea Court of Appeal (lis pendens). In so doing, it stressed that the Svea Court of Appeal case concerned the question whether the claim was statute-barred whereas the case before the Göta Court of Appeal determined whether any procedural error had been committed in the handling of the claim. With regard to the substance of the latter issue, the court noted that the decision of the Enforcement Service stated that the applicant had been duly served and considered that there was no reason to question the accuracy of this statement. Consequently, there had not been any miscarriage of justice.

19. On 21 September 2004 the Supreme Court (Högsta domstolen) refused leave to appeal against the above decision of the Göta Court of Appeal.

20. In the enforcement proceedings, pending before the Svea Court of Appeal, the applicant changed his view on the necessity of an oral hearing following the decision by the Göta Court of Appeal in the proceedings concerning miscarriage of justice. Thus, he asked the Svea Court of Appeal to hold a hearing, at which he wished to be heard about the service of documents in the case. The court, however, informed the parties that it found a hearing unnecessary. The applicant was given an opportunity to submit final observations in writing. He did so and, at the same time, reiterated his request for a hearing.

21. By a decision of 15 December 2004, the Svea Court of Appeal reversed the District Court’s decision of 18 March 2003. The appellate court interpreted the preparatory works (prop. 1979/80:119, p. 69 et seq.) of section 7, subsection 2 of the Limitations Act (Preskriptionslagen, 1981:130) and found that the requirement to serve the application for a payment order on the debtor in order to interrupt the running of the period of limitations did not apply to situations where the matter had been finalised with a decision by the Enforcement Service. Instead, the requirement of service, contained in this rule of exception, was aimed at cases where a creditor applied for a payment order and then withdrew the claim before service had taken place, with the purpose of starting a new period of limitations. Consequently, in assessing the period of limitations in the present case, it was irrelevant whether the payment order had been properly served or not. That period should therefore be counted from 2 December 1992, the date of the Service’s decision. The court noted that it was undisputed that Handelsbanken’s claim for enforcement had been introduced within ten years from that date.

22. The Court of Appeal went on to examine the applicant’s objection that the payment order had been issued under such circumstances that there were reasons to quash it. The court noted that a writ of execution could be quashed in enforcement proceedings only in highly exceptional situations. Noting that the applicant’s objection had been examined in the case concerning miscarriage of justice and that that examination had not led to the order being quashed, the court found no reason to question the validity of the payment order as a writ of execution.

23. The Court of Appeal therefore concluded that there were no impediments to the enforcement of the payment order and returned the matter to the Enforcement Service for further processing.

24. As questions concerning service of documents were of no relevance to the determination of the case, the Court of Appeal further found that there was no reason to hold an oral hearing and, accordingly, refused the applicant’s request in this respect.

25. On 14 February 2005 the Supreme Court refused the applicant leave to appeal against the Svea Court of Appeal’s decision of 15 December 2004.

B. Relevant domestic law and practice

26. Chapter 3 of the Enforcement Code (Utsökningsbalken) contains provisions on execution titles. Section 21 provides the following on objections to enforcement:

“If the defendant shows that he has satisfied an obligation to pay or other obligation to which the application for enforcement relates, enforcement may not take place. This also applies if the defendant as a set-off invokes a claim that has been confirmed by an execution title which may be enforced or which is based on a promissory note or other written evidence of debt, and the general preconditions for set-offs are met.

Nor may enforcement take place if the defendant claims that another circumstance relating to the dealings between the parties constitutes an impediment to enforcement and the objection cannot be ignored.

If a situation referred to in the first or second paragraph is at hand and a measure of enforcement has already been taken in the case, the measure shall be annulled, if this is possible.

The decision of the Enforcement Service by reason of an objection referred to in the first or second paragraph does not prevent the matter from being considered by a court.”

27. An objection based on a circumstance relating to the parties’ dealings may only concern the substantive judicial relationship between the parties, for instance that the person seeking enforcement has granted the defendant a respite for the payment, that they have agreed on a service in return for the payment or that the execution title has become statute-barred (see Walin, Gregow, Löfmarck, Utsökningsbalken – en kommentar (commentary to the Enforcement Code), 3rd edition (1999), pp. 105-107).

28. In a case where the defendant had claimed that a decision constituting an execution title was unlawful or at least incorrect, the Supreme Court, which dismissed the objection by a decision of 3 September 1984, stressed that the scope for rejecting an execution title in an enforcement case is extremely limited (NJA 1984, p. 602). In a more recent decision, taken on 18 December 2006 (NJA 2006, p. 657), the Supreme Court expressed the following:

“A basic principle in cases of enforcement is that the enforcing authority has no right to examine anew issues that have been determined in the execution title. Upon appeal in enforcement cases, the courts’ powers are no wider than those of the Enforcement Service.

Accordingly, in so far as the courts’ determination is concerned, objections against an execution title, which refer to circumstances dating back to time before it was issued, cannot be examined in the enforcement case. In respect of decisions taken by an administrative authority, it is likely that there is a somewhat wider scope for such objections, but then they would, as a rule, concern issues that have not been examined in the execution title.”

29. Section 7 of the Limitations Act reads as follows:

“Where a limitation period is interrupted through the commencement of legal proceedings or otherwise through the pleading of a claim as stated in section 5, subsection 3, a new limitation period shall run in accordance with the provisions of section 2 from the day of the publication of a judgment or a final decision or from the day on which the legal proceedings are concluded in any other way. Where, prior to the expiry of the new limitation period, the case is appealed or the proceedings are resumed for any other reason, the period of limitation is interrupted, and a new period of limitation shall run from the day of the conclusion of the resumed proceedings.

However, where the legal proceedings are concluded without the debtor having been served with, or otherwise informed of, the creditor’s statement of claim, the period of limitation shall be calculated as if no interruption had occurred. The claim shall nevertheless not be barred by the expiry of the limitation period earlier than one year after the conclusion of the proceedings.

The period of limitation may no be extended more than once pursuant to the provisions of the second paragraph, second sentence.”

COMPLAINTS

30. The applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that he had not had a fair hearing in the enforcement proceedings. He argued that the Enforcement Service had issued a payment order without having duly served him with Handelsbanken’s application, thereby depriving him of the possibility to properly plead his case. Moreover, the Service had destroyed the file and thus the possibility for him to prove that he had not been served with the relevant documents. He also pointed out that the Svea Court of Appeal had not held an oral hearing, refusing him the opportunity to give essential evidence, and that the decision of that court had involved an incorrect, unfair and unprecedented application of the law. Finally, he complained that the Supreme Court had refused leave to appeal, thereby allowing the enforcement of an incorrect payment order.

THE LAW

31. The applicant complained that he had not had a fair hearing in the enforcement proceedings. He relied on Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the relevant parts of which read as follows:

“In the determination of his civil rights and obligations ..., everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing ... by [a] ... tribunal ...”

A. The parties’ submissions

1. The Government

32. The respondent Government submitted that the cases before the domestic courts had involved two separate issues, in the case concerning miscarriage of justice whether the applicant had been served with the injunction to reply and the payment order and in the enforcement proceedings whether the claim by Handelsbanken was statute-barred.

33. The Government asserted that the applicant’s first two claims – that he had not been properly served in the proceedings ending with the Enforcement Service’s decision of 2 December 1992 and that, later on, the Service had destroyed the file – related to the proceedings concerning miscarriage of justice and was of relevance only in those proceedings. As those proceedings had been concluded by the Supreme Court’s decision of 21 September 2004, i.e. more than six months prior to the present application having been lodged with the Court, these parts of the applicant’s complaint should be declared inadmissible for being out of time. In this respect, the Government pointed out that the issues relating to service of documents had been of no relevance to the Svea Court of Appeal’s assessment in the enforcement proceedings, and the fact that the applicant had pursued these allegations in the enforcement proceedings could thus not bring his claims within the six-month time-limit.

34. In regard to the applicant’s further claims – concerning the Svea Court of Appeal’s refusal to hold an oral hearing, its allegedly incorrect application of the law and the Supreme Court’s refusal of leave to appeal – the Government acknowledged that Article 6 § 1 was applicable. However, they submitted, in regard to the second and third of these claims, that the applicant was in essence complaining about the outcome of the enforcement proceedings and pointed out that the interpretation and application of national law were the tasks of the domestic courts and that the Court should not act as a fourth instance. Moreover, they asserted that the decisions reached by the Svea Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court were in accordance with Swedish law and neither arbitrary nor manifestly unreasonable. In so far as the applicant complained that these courts’ decisions in fact deprived him of the possibility of having an allegedly invalid execution title revoked, the Government referred to the principles of legal certainty and res judicata. Under Swedish law there was, in principle, no possibility during the enforcement proceedings of contesting per se an execution title that had gained legal force, such challenges instead having to be made through extraordinary remedies such as a request for a reopening of proceedings or a complaint about miscarriage of justice. In the proceedings concerning miscarriage of justice, the applicant had had an effective remedy for challenging the validity of the execution title.

35. With respect to the remaining claim that the lack of an oral hearing before the Svea Court of Appeal had involved a breach of the right to a fair hearing, the Government pointed out that the applicant had wished to be heard about the service of documents. However, the primary question before that court was whether the claim by Handelsbanken was statute-barred and the issue of service was irrelevant to the determination of that question. Thus, as the oral evidence that the applicant wished to bring before the court was of no relevance to the outcome of the enforcement proceedings, the Government submitted that dispensing with a hearing had been clearly justified. In this connection, they further stated that the facts that had been relevant for the court’s examination – the date of the Enforcement Service’s payment order and the date when the applicant was served in the enforcement proceedings – had not been in dispute between the parties.

36. Accordingly, in so far as the applicant’s complaint related to the enforcement proceedings, the Government submitted that it was manifestly ill-founded.

2. The applicant

37. The applicant submitted that the various proceedings in the case – the payment order proceedings in 1992, the proceedings concerning miscarriage of justice ending on 21 September 1994 and the enforcement proceedings ending on 14 February 2005 – had to be examined in their entirety and that the six-month period for applying to the Court had to be counted from the latter date. While, in the application form of 8 August 2005, he had stated that the proceedings concerning miscarriage of justice were not part of his application, he claimed in his reply to the Government’s observations, dated 30 November 2007, that this statement had been caused by an incorrect presumption that the six-month time-limit prevented the Court from examining those proceedings.

38. On the substance, the applicant maintained that he had repeatedly been denied a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal as the Enforcement Service had ruled in the 1992 payment order proceedings without hearing or notifying him and had later destroyed the file, as the Göta Court of Appeal had first led him to believe that it would rule in his favour in the miscarriage-of-justice proceedings but had later rejected his claim based on an unsupported and controversial proposition that he had been duly served in the 1992 proceedings, as the Svea Court of Appeal had denied him the right to an oral hearing and the opportunity to give oral evidence and had applied a provision of law against the clear language and intentions of that provision and as the Supreme Court had refused leave to appeal against both appellate courts’ decisions although it must have realised that their administration of justice had been patently incorrect.

39. With respect to the possibility of challenging the validity of an execution title in enforcement proceedings, the applicant asserted that, while the scope for disregarding such a title was extremely limited, it was nevertheless possible to make such a challenge. He referred to Chapter 3, section 21 of the Enforcement Code and claimed that an execution title could be disregarded if the respondent made it highly probable that he had not been heard before the title was issued. Accordingly, in order to assess the validity of the title in question as well as examine whether it was statute-barred, the Svea Court of Appeal should have taken into account whether the applicant had been properly served in the 1992 proceedings. He therefore maintained that the question of service of documents in those proceedings had been of relevance for the Svea Court of Appeal and that that court should have granted him an oral hearing.

B. The Court’s assessment

40. The Court notes that the original complaint, lodged on 5 August 2005 and developed in the application form three days later, only concerned the enforcement proceedings. It was not until 30 November 2007, in his reply to the Government’s observations, that the applicant claimed that his complaint was to cover also the proceedings concerning miscarriage of justice. In fact, at that point, he maintained that the proceedings had to be examined in their entirety, including as well the 1992 proceedings ending with the Enforcement Service’s decision to issue a payment order.

41. In these circumstances, it may be questioned whether the applicant should be considered to have lodged his claims against the miscarriage-of-justice proceedings on 5 August 2005 or only on 30 November 2007. However, the Court finds that it is not necessary to rule on this issue for the following reasons.

42. The Court disagrees with the applicant that all the proceedings should be viewed in their entirety, with effect also for the examination whether he has complied with the six-month time-limit under Article 35 § 1 of the Convention. Instead, it considers that the enforcement proceedings and those concerning miscarriage of justice were sufficiently separate in that they examined distinctly different issues relating to the original payment order decision. As follows from Chapter 3, section 21 of the Enforcement Code and the related Swedish law commentary and case-law, there are only some very limited exceptions to the rule that an execution title that has acquired legal force cannot be invalidated in enforcement proceedings. There is no indication, from the text of the provision itself or otherwise, that such an exception could be made when the defendant argues that he was not properly served in the payment order proceedings. Moreover, in its decision of 24 October 2003, the Göta Court of Appeal clearly pointed out that the miscarriage-of-justice proceedings before that court determined whether there had been any procedural error, in particular the lack of service alleged by the applicant, whereas the enforcement proceedings before the Svea Court of Appeal concerned the question whether Handelsbanken’s claim was statute-barred. The Court will therefore examine whether the applicant has complied with the six-month time-limit in regard to these separate proceedings respectively.

43. The proceedings concerning miscarriage of justice ended with the Supreme Court’s decision of 21 September 2004 to refuse the applicant leave to appeal against the decision of the Göta Court of Appeal. Even if the applicant would be considered to have lodged his complaints in regard to these proceedings already on 5 August 2005, they were introduced more than six months after the final decision.

44. 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.

45. The enforcement proceedings, on the other hand, ended on 14 February 2005, also with a decision by the Supreme Court to refuse leave to appeal. In this respect, the applicant has accordingly complied with the six-month rule.

46. However, the Court first reiterates what it has noted above, namely that the issue of service of documents were examined exclusively in the proceedings concerning miscarriage of justice. Thus, the applicant’s first two claims – that he had not been properly served in the 1992 proceedings and that the Service had later destroyed the file, thereby making it impossible for him to prove that he had not been served with the documents in question –, which both concern the issue of service, were not examined in the enforcement proceedings and, by virtue of the six-month rule, cannot form part of the Court’s examination of the present application.

47. Turning to the applicant’s claim that the Svea Court of Appeal, by rejecting his request for an oral hearing, prevented him from giving essential evidence, the Court first finds that the entitlement to a “public hearing” in Article 6 § 1 necessarily implies a right to an “oral hearing”. However, the obligation under Article 6 § 1 to hold a public hearing is not an absolute one. Thus, a hearing may not be necessary due to the exceptional circumstances of the case, for example when it raises no questions of fact or law which cannot be adequately resolved on the basis of the case-file and the parties’ written observations (see, inter alia, Döry v. Sweden, no. 28394/95, § 37, 12 November 2002; and Miller v. Sweden, no. 55853/00, § 29, 8 February 2005).

48. In the present case, the applicant requested the Svea Court of Appeal to hold an oral hearing for the purpose that he be heard about the service of documents. He did not wish that any witnesses be heard or that the appellate court hear evidence on other issues. As has been mentioned above, the issue of the service of documents was not to be examined by that court, but had been examined in separate proceedings by the Göta Court of Appeal. In these circumstances, the Court finds that the Svea Court of Appeal could adequately determine the case on the basis of case-file and the written submissions and that it was not necessary to hold a hearing since, as stated by the Svea Court of Appeal, the oral evidence that the applicant wished to introduce was of no relevance to that determination. Consequently, there were, in this case, exceptional circumstances which justified dispensing with a hearing.

49. The two remaining claims made by the applicant – that the Svea Court of Appeal made an incorrect, unfair and unprecedented application of the law and that the Supreme Court refused leave to appeal, thereby allowing the enforcement of an incorrect payment order – essentially concern the domestic courts’ assessment of facts and law.

50. In this respect, the Court reiterates that, according to Article 19 of the Convention, its duty is to ensure the observance of the engagements undertaken by the Contracting Parties to the Convention. In particular, it is not its function to deal with errors of fact or law allegedly committed by a national authority or court unless and in so far as they may have infringed rights and freedoms protected by the Convention. Moreover, while Article 6 § 1 of the Convention guarantees the right to a fair hearing, it does not lay down any rules on the admissibility of evidence or the way it should be assessed, which are therefore primarily matters for regulation by national law and the national courts. (see, among other authorities, García Ruiz v. Spain [GC], no. 30544/96, § 28, ECHR 1999-I).

51. In the light of the foregoing considerations, the Court notes that, notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s refusal of leave to appeal, the enforcement matter was examined on the merits by courts of two instances, albeit with different outcomes. The courts gave extensive reasons for their decisions. There is no indication that their assessment of the relevant issues was arbitrary or wholly unreasonable or that they failed to respect the requirement of impartiality.

52. In conclusion, the Court finds that an examination of the applicant’s submissions in relation to the enforcement proceedings does not disclose any appearance of unfairness within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.

53. It follows that this part of the application must be rejected as being manifestly ill-founded, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Declares the application inadmissible.

Santiago Quesada Josep Casadevall
Registrar President