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Cite as: [2010] ECHR 1321

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FOURTH SECTION

CASE OF PASTUSZENIA v. POLAND

(Application no. 46074/07)

JUDGMENT

STRASBOURG

21 September 2010

This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.

In the case of Pastuszenia v. Poland,

The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting as a Commitee composed of:

Giovanni Bonello, President,
Lech Garlicki,
Ján Šikuta, judges,
and Fatos Aracı, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having deliberated in private on 31 August 2010,

Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:

PROCEDURE

The case originated in an application (no. 46074/07) against the Republic of Poland lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by a Polish national, Ms Anna Pastuszenia (“the applicant”), on 4 October 2007.

2. The applicant was represented by Ms Z. Daniszewska-Dek, a lawyer practising in Białystok. The Polish Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr J. Wołąsiewicz of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

On 11 May 2009 the President of the Fourth Section of the Court decided to give notice of the application to the Government. It was also decided to examine the merits of the application at the same time as its admissibility (Article 29 § 3). Following the entry into force of Protocol No. 14, and having considered the Government's objections, the application was assigned to a Committee of three Judges.

THE FACTS

I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE

The applicant was born in 1939 and lives in Białystok.

A. Civil proceedings for payment

On 15 December 1994 the applicant brought before the Białystok District Court (Sąd Rejonowy) a civil action for payment against Ms K. S-O. The defendant owned a company producing kitchen furniture and allegedly failed to carry out a contract that she had concluded with the applicant; the latter sought reimbursement of sustained costs and damages.

The court held the first hearing on 30 March 1995.

On 30 November 1995 the Białystok District Court gave a judgment.

The defendant appealed.

On 10 May 1996 the Bialstok Regional Court quashed the judgment and remitted the case.

The first hearing was held in September 1996.

On 16 April 1997 the Białystok District Court gave a judgment in which it granted the applicant's action and ordered the defendant to pay her 1,400 Polish zlotys (PLN) together with interest from 1994.

The defendant appealed against the judgment.

On 17 October 1997 the Białystok Regional Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the judgment.

On 27 October 1997 the court declared that the decision was enforceable (klauzula wykonalności).

On 25 November 1998 the applicant obtained a decision that the judgment was also enforceable against the defendant's husband.

Subsequently different court bailiffs were responsible for enforcement of the final judgment of 16 April 1997. The applicant complained that their actions were inefficient and that the enforcement proceedings had been lengthy.

On 5 May 2004 the bailiff again attempted to enforce payment from the defendant in the sum of PLN 10,000.

It appears that on 21 April 2005 the court bailiff discontinued this set of enforcement proceedings after having established that the defendant had no assets. However, subsequently, the applicant instituted another set of proceedings aiming at enforcement of the judgment of 16 April 1997.

The Government submitted that on 18 December 2006 the bailiff had finally discontinued all pending sets of enforcement proceedings. The applicant did not contest this submission.

B. Proceedings for compensation for the unreasonable length of proceedings

On 25 May 2005 the applicant lodged with the Białystok District Court a civil claim for damages under section 16 of the Law of 17 June 2004 on complaints about a breach of the right to a trial within a reasonable time (Ustawa o skardze na naruszenie prawa strony do rozpoznania sprawy w postępowaniu sądowym bez nieuzasadnionej zwłoki) (“the 2004 Act”) read in conjunction with Article 417 of the Civil Code. She sought compensation for damages suffered due to the excessive length of proceedings. The action was directed against two court bailiffs and the State Treasury represented by the President of the Białystok District Court.

On 21 October 2005 the court partly exempted the applicant from court fees. Subsequently, the applicant extended her claim for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage to PLN 23,000.

On 29 September 2006 the Białystok District Court granted the applicant's action and awarded the applicant PLN 3,192 compensation. The court examined the judicial phase of the proceedings and considered there had been no delays attributable to the courts. However, it found delays and shortcomings on the part of the court bailiff at the enforcement stage of the proceedings.

The applicant and the defendants lodged appeals against the judgment. On 8 November 2006 the applicant was exempted from court fees for pursuing her appeal.

At the hearing held on 20 March 2007 the Białystok Regional Court gave a judgment in which it upheld the first-instance judgment but increased the sum of compensation awarded to the applicant to PLN 6,818 [approximately 1,700 euros (EUR)]. The court considered that the applicant had sustained damage in the higher amount and that the court's bailiff had been responsible for other delays and shortcomings. The applicant and her representative were present at the hearing at which the court had read out the operative part of the judgment and had given the main grounds. It also informed the parties that no further appeal lay against the judgment.

The applicant applied for written reasons of the judgment to be prepared and delivered to her and her representative.

The judgment with written reasons was notified to the applicant's representative on 5 April 1997.

II. RELEVANT DOMESTIC LAW AND PRACTICE

The relevant domestic law and practice concerning remedies for the excessive length of judicial proceedings, in particular the applicable provisions of the 2004 Act, are stated in the Court's decisions in cases of Charzyński v. Poland no. 15212/03 (dec.), §§ 12-23, ECHR 2005-V and Ratajczyk v. Poland no. 11215/02 (dec.), ECHR 2005-VIII and the judgment in the case of Krasuski v. Poland, no. 61444/00, §§ 34-46, ECHR 2005-V.

THE LAW

I. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 6 § 1 OF THE CONVENTION ON ACCOUNT OF THE UNREASONABLE LENGTH OF THE PROCEEDINGS

The applicant complained that the length of the proceedings had been incompatible with the “reasonable time” requirement, laid down in Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, which reads as follows:

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

The Government contested that argument.

The period to be taken into consideration began on 15 December 1994 and ended on 18 December 2006. It thus lasted twelve years for two levels of jurisdiction and the enforcement stage.

A. Admissibility

1. Six months

The Government raised a preliminary objection that the applicant failed to comply with the six-month rule. They submitted that the period should be calculated from 20 March 2007, the date of the hearing at which the court had given a final judgment at which the applicant and her representative had been present.

The applicant argued that she requested a copy of the written grounds for the second-instance judgment which had been formally delivered to her representative on 5 April 2007. Accordingly, the six-month time-limit should be counted from that date. Her application had been brought within that period. The written grounds had been necessary for discovering the full justification of the Regional Court's judgment and assessing the grounds for her application to the Court. In particular, without the reasons it would not be possible to know whether the court awarded the applicant compensation for pecuniary or non-pecuniary damage and whether it examined the total length of the proceedings in the light of the criteria applied by the Strasbourg Court.

The Court reiterates that where the reasons given for the decision are relevant to the application, the six-month period would ordinarily be taken to run from the date on which the full reasons for the decision had been given, and not the date on which the applicant or her legal adviser had been notified merely of the operative part of the decision (see Eur. Comm. HR, No. 9299/81, Dec. 13.3.84, DR 36, p. 20 and Tereba v Poland (dec), no. 30263/04, 21 November 2006).

The Court notes that the applicant requested the Białystok Regional Court to serve on her promptly the written grounds for the judgment of 20 March 2007. Having regard to the close link between the written grounds of that judgment in which the court set out the legal and factual grounds on which it had based its ruling regarding compensation for the unreasonable length of the proceedings and the essence of the applicant's complaint about their length submitted under Article 34 of the Convention, the Court accepts that the six-month period started to run on 5 April 2007, the date on which the applicant's representative was served with these grounds. The applicant lodged her application with the Court on 4 October 2007.

It follows that the application cannot be declared inadmissible for failure to comply with the six-month requirement within the meaning of Article 35 § 1 of the Convention.

2. Victim status

Secondly, the Government raised an argument that the applicant cannot be considered a “victim”, within the meaning of Article 34 of the Convention, of a violation of her right to a hearing within a reasonable time, this issue falls to be determined in the light of the principles recently established under the Court's case-law (Cocchiarella v. Italy [GC], no. 64886/01, §§ 69-107, ECHR 2006-... and Scordino v. Italy (no. 1) [GC], no. 36813/97, §§ 178-213, ECHR 2006 - ...).

The Białystok Regional Court analysed the course of the impugned proceedings in the light of the criteria which the Court itself applies. It concluded that there had been delays for which the court bailiffs should be held responsible and the applicant's right to a hearing without unjustified delay had been breached and awarded the applicant the equivalent of EUR 1,700 in respect of the length of the proceedings. The just satisfaction awarded by the Regional Court amounts to approximately 23 per cent of what the Court would be likely to have awarded the applicant at that time in accordance with its practice, taking into account the particular circumstances of the proceedings.

The Court finds that the redress provided to the applicant at domestic level, considered on the basis of the facts of which she complains before the Court, was insufficient (see Czajka v. Poland, no. 15067/02, § 56, 13 February 2007). In these circumstances, the argument that the applicant has lost her status as a “victim” cannot be upheld.

3. Conclusion

The Court notes that this complaint is not manifestly ill founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention. It also notes that it is not inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible.

B. Merits

The Court reiterates that the reasonableness of the length of proceedings must be assessed in the light of the circumstances of the case and with reference to the following criteria: the complexity of the case, the conduct of the applicant and the relevant authorities and what was at stake for the applicant in the dispute (see, among many other authorities, Frydlender v. France [GC], no. 30979/96, § 43, ECHR 2000-VII).

The Court has frequently found violations of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention in cases raising issues similar to the one in the present case (see Frydlender, cited above).

Having examined all the material submitted to it, the Court considers that the Government have not put forward any fact or argument capable of persuading it to reach a different conclusion in the present case. Having regard to its case-law on the subject, the Court considers that in the instant case the length of the proceedings was excessive and failed to meet the “reasonable time” requirement.

There has accordingly been a breach of Article 6 § 1.

II. OTHER ALLEGED VIOLATIONS OF THE CONVENTION

The applicant complained that both sets of civil proceedings were unfair. In particular, she alleged errors of fact and law committed by the courts and criticised the insufficient amount of just satisfaction awarded to her. She alleged mainly a breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.

However, 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 court unless and in so far as they may have infringed rights and freedoms protected by the Convention. Moreover, while Article 6 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 García Ruiz v. Spain [GC], no. 30544/96, § 28, ECHR 1999-I, with further references).

In the present case the applicant did not allege any particular failure to respect her right to a fair hearing on the part of the relevant courts. Indeed, her complaints are limited to a challenge to the result of the proceedings. Assessing the circumstances of the case as a whole, the Court finds no indication that the impugned proceedings were conducted unfairly.

It follows that this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

III. APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION

Article 41 of the Convention provides:

“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

The applicant claimed PLN 18,000 in respect of pecuniary and PLN 25,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.

The Government contested these claims.

The Court does not discern any causal link between the violation found and the pecuniary damage alleged; it therefore rejects this claim. On the other hand, it awards the applicant 1,500 euros (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage.

B. Costs and expenses

The applicant also claimed PLN 6,800, amounting to EUR 1,600 at the time the claim was submitted, for the costs and expenses incurred before the Court according to a contract between her and her lawyer.

The Government contested the claim.

According to the Court's case-law, an applicant is entitled to the reimbursement of costs and expenses only in so far as it has been shown that these have been actually and necessarily incurred and were reasonable as to quantum. In the present case, regard being had to the information in its possession and the above criteria, the Court considers it reasonable to award the sum claimed in full.

C. Default interest

The Court considers it appropriate that the default interest should be based on the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank, to which should be added three percentage points.

FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT UNANIMOUSLY

Declares the complaint concerning the excessive length of the proceedings admissible and the remainder of the application inadmissible;

Holds that there has been a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention;

Holds

(a) that the respondent State is to pay the applicant, within three months, the following amounts, to be converted into Polish zlotys at the rate applicable at the date of settlement:

(i) EUR 1,500 (one thousand five hundred euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable, in respect of non-pecuniary damage;

(ii) EUR 1,600 (one thousand six hundred euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable to the applicant, in respect of costs and expenses;

(b) that from the expiry of the above-mentioned three months until settlement simple interest shall be payable on the above amounts at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points;

Dismisses the remainder of the applicant's claim for just satisfaction.

Done in English, and notified in writing on 21 September 2010, pursuant to Rule 77 §§ 2 and 3 of the Rules of Court.

Fatos Aracı Giovanni Bonello
Deputy Section Registrar President