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URL: http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/2010/1397.html
Cite as: [2010] ECHR 1397

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THIRD SECTION

DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Applications nos. 8032/06, 8040/06 and 19253/06
by Uroš JANKOVEC and Others
against Slovenia

The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 7 September 2010 as a Committee composed of:

Elisabet Fura, President,
Boštjan M. Zupančič,
Ineta Ziemele, judges,
and Santiago Quesada, Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 30 January 2006, 3 February 2006 and 18 April 2006,

Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicants,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

All the applicants are Slovenian nationals.

Mr Uroš Jankovec was born in 1970 and lives in Ljubljana. He was represented before the Court by Mr B. Verstovšek, a lawyer practising in Celje.

Ms Nastja Glisovič, Ms Tatjana Pavletič and Ms Evelina Kramar were born in 1961, 1961 and 1955, respectively, and live in Koper. They were represented before the Court by Ms M. Verstovšek, a lawyer practising in Ljubljana.

Mr Franc Pristovnik was born in 1945 and lives in Dravograd. He was represented before the Court by Ms L. Jančič.

The Slovenian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr Lucijan Bembič, State Attorney-General.

For detailed information regarding the domestic proceedings at issue, see the appendix.

COMPLAINTS

All the applicants complained under Articles 6 and 13 of the Convention about the undue length of domestic proceedings, to which they were parties, and about the lack of domestic remedies in this respect.

The applicant in application no. 8040/06 complained under Article 6 of the Convention that the domestic courts were biased and did nothing to resolve labour disputes in Slovenia.

The applicant in application no. 19253/06 also complained about the alleged unfairness of the proceedings which allegedly led to the infringement of his property rights.

THE LAW

On 10 July 2008 and 11, 19 February 2009 the respondent Government were informed of the present applications under Article 54 § 2(a) of the Rules of Court.

In reply, the Government submitted that the applications had been lodged outside the six-month time-limit and should be declared inadmissible.

The applicants contested the Government's submissions.

Firstly, the Court reiterates that according to Article 35 § 1 of the Convention, it may only deal with an individual application lodged with it after all domestic remedies have been exhausted, according to generally recognised rules of international law, and within six months of the date on which the final decision has been taken.

Secondly, the Court notes that the applicant in application no. 8040/06, as regards the first set of proceedings, and the applicant in application no. 19253/06 lodged requests for the re-opening of proceedings. In this connection the Court refers to its extensive case-law to the effect that an application for retrial or similar extraordinary remedies cannot, as a general rule, be taken into account for the purpose of applying Article 35 of the Convention (see, for example, R. v. Denmark, no. 10326/83, Commission decision of 6 October 1983, DR 35, p. 218; Tumilovich v. Russia (dec.), no. 47033/99, 22 June 1999).

The Court further recalls that a request for re-opening of a case is an extraordinary remedy which is not directly available to the applicants and according to the established case-law it does not affect the running of the six-month period. The dates to be taken into consideration for the purpose of applying the six-month time-limit in the application no. 8040/06, lodged on 3 February 2006, and in the application no. 19253/06, lodged on 18 April 2006, are therefore 12 November 2002 and 30 December 1999.

Thirdly, as to the application no. 8032/06, the Court observes that the applicant lodged a request for protection of legality, which is not a remedy that has to be exhausted in order to comply with the requirements of lodging an appeal before the Constitutional Court. The Court finds that this is therefore also an extraordinary remedy and considers that the same reasoning as in the previous paragraph applies. It follows that the date to be taken into consideration in this case, lodged on 30 January 2006, is 20 June 2005.

Finally, as regards the second set of proceedings in application no. 8040/06, lodged on 3 February 2006, the Court notes that the date to be taken in consideration is 6 May 2004, having regard to the fact that the applicant's constitutional complaint was rejected for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies.

Accordingly, the Court finds that all three applications were 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 applications inadmissible.

Santiago Quesada Elisabet Fura
Registrar President

No.	App. no.	Applicant's name	Date of lodging of the application	Date of introduction of domestic proceedings	Subject matter	First- instance authority and the date of decision	Second- instance authority and the date of decision	Date of service of the Supreme Court's decision	Date of the Constitutional Court's decision	Extraordinary remedies
1.	8032/06	Uroš JANKOVEC	30 January 2006	23 April 1996	Civil proceedings	Ljubljana District Court, 4 February 2004	Ljubljana Higher Court's judgment of 19 April 2005, served on the applicant on 20 June 2005	/	/	Request for protection of legality rejected by the Office of the State Prosecutor General on 4 August 2005
2.	8040/06	Nastja GLIŠOVIČ, Tatjana PAVLETIČ, Evelina KRAMAR	3 February 2006	28 June 1994, the date of coming into force of the Convention in respect of Slovenia	Labour dispute, 2 sets of proceedings	1. set of proceedings: Koper Labour Court's decision of 20 December 1999 (withdrawal of the claim), Pd 166/94	/	/	/	Request for the re-opening of the proceedings was after several unsuccessful appeals rejected by the Supreme Court on 22 November 2005
2.	8040/06	Nastja GLIŠOVIČ, Tatjana PAVLETIČ, Evelina KRAMAR	3 February 2006		Labour dispute, 2 sets of proceedings	2. set of proceedings: Koper Labour Court's decision of 27 August 2003, claim rejected for being lodged out of time, Pd 148/2003	Ljubljana Higher Labour Court's decision of 6 May 2004 (appeal rejected)	/	Constitutional complaint rejected for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies on 18 October 2004	/
No.	App. no.	Applicant's name	Date of lodging of the application	Date of introduction of domestic proceedings	Subject matter	First- instance authority and the date of decision	Second- instance authority and the date of decision	Date of service of the Supreme Court's decision	Date of the Constitutional Court's decision
3.	19253/06	Franc PRISTOVNIK	18 April 2006	28 June 1994, the date of coming into force of the Convention in respect of Slovenia	Civil proceedings	Slovenj Gradec District Court, 21 January 2000	Ljubljana Higher Court, 12 November 2002	/	/	Request for the re-opening of the proceedings rejected by the Koper Labour Court on 19 December 2005