European Court of Human Rights

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Cite as: [2010] ECHR 1768

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THIRD SECTION

DECISION

Applications nos. 28608/05, 25171/06 and 29173/06
by Milivoj ŠTURMAN and Others
against Slovenia

The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 5 October 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 applications,

Having regard to the Government's settlement proposals made to the applicants,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicants are Slovenian nationals who live in Slovenia.

The applicant Ms Katarina Mrkač Plana was represented before the Court by Mr Milan Vajda, a lawyer practising in Ljubljana.

The applicant Mr Aleš Bukovšek was represented before the Court by Mr B. Verstovšek, a lawyer practising in Celje.

The applicant Mr Milivoj Šturman was not represented before the Court.

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

The circumstances of the case

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

The applicants Mr Milivoj Šturman and Ms Katarina Mrkač Plana were parties to civil proceedings which were finally resolved (pravnomočno končan postopek) before 1 January 2007, that is, before the 2006 Act on the Protection of the Right to a Trial without Undue Delay (“the 2006 Act”) became operational.

As far as Mr Aleš Bukovšek is concerned, the proceedings to which he was a party were finally resolved on 26 March 2007.

The details concerning the cases are indicated in the attached table.

COMPLAINTS

All applicants complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention about the excessive length of proceedings before the domestic courts. In substance, they also complained under Article 13 of the Convention about the lack of an effective domestic remedy in respect of the excessive length of the proceedings.

The applicants Mr Šturman and Ms Mrkač Plana complained also under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention about the unfairness of the domestic proceedings. Ms Mrkač Plana further complained, under Article 14, that her case was treated discriminatorily.

THE LAW

The Court notes that, after the Government had been given notice of the applications, they informed the Court that they had made a settlement proposal to each of the applicants.

By the settlement agreements signed by the State's Attorney's Office and the applicants, the former acknowledged a violation of the right to a trial within a reasonable time and accepted to pay the applicants the non-pecuniary damage sustained and costs and expenses incurred. The applicants accepted the amount as full compensation for the damage sustained due to the length of the above proceedings and waived any further claims against the Republic of Slovenia in respect of this complaint.

The applicants subsequently informed the Court, in writing, that the cases had been settled at the domestic level and that they wished to withdraw their applications as a whole.

The Court recalls Article 37 of the Convention which, in the relevant part, reads as follows:

“1. The Court may at any stage of the proceedings decide to strike an application out of its list of cases where the circumstances lead to the conclusion that

(a) the applicant does not intend to pursue his application; or

(b) the matter has been resolved;

...

However, the Court shall continue the examination of the application if respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and the Protocols thereto so requires.”

The Court takes note that following the settlements reached between the parties the matters have been resolved at the domestic level and that the applicants do not wish to pursue their applications. It is satisfied that respect for human rights as defined in the Convention or its Protocols does not require the examination of the applications to be continued (Article 37 § 1 in fine of the Convention).

In view of the above, it is appropriate to strike the cases out of the list in accordance with Article 37 § 1 (a) and (b) of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Decides to join the applications;

Decides to strike the applications out of its list of cases.

Santiago Quesada Elisabet Fura
Registrar President

Appendix

No.	Application No.	Applicant's Name	Year of Birth	Address	Date of Introduction	Date of domestic settlement and compensation paid to the applicant	Date of the applicant's withdrawal of the application
1.	28608/05	Milivoj ŠTURMAN	1950	Dekani	10/07/2005	25/02/2009, 1.350,00 EUR for non-pecuniary damage	25/02/2009
2.	25171/06	Katarina MRKAČ PLANA	1948	Ljubljana	29/05/2006	03/08/2009, 2.880,00 EUR for non-pecuniary damage and 413,11 EUR for costs and expenses	17/08/2009
3.	29173/06	Aleš BUKOVŠEK	1984	Kalobje	22/06/2006	18/01/2010, 540,00 EUR for non-pecuniary damage and 283,25 EUR for costs and expenses	20/01/2010