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Cite as: [2010] ECHR 1925

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THIRD SECTION

DECISION

Applications nos. 17292/06, 18825/06, 19181/06, 30528/06, 266/07, 31426/08 and 51399/09
by NedZad SOFTIČ and Others
against Slovenia

The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 2 November 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

1. Six applicants are nationals of Slovenia (see the attached appendix).

The applicant Mr I. Kudozović is a national of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

2. Mr N. Softič, Ms J. Šlebinger, Mr A. Drač and Mr Kudozović were represented before the Court by Ms M. Končan Verstovšek, a lawyer practising in Celje.

3. Mr M. Zorc was represented before the Court by Mr B. Verstovšek, a lawyer practising in Celje.

4. Mr M. Uršič was represented before the Court by Mr. S. Jeglič, a lawyer practising in Ljubljana.

5. Mira, Dušan and Nives Matjašič were represented before the Court by Mr D. TerZan, a lawyer practising in Celje.

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

The circumstances of the case

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

8. The applicants 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.

9. Subsequently, some of them lodged an appeal on points of law with the Supreme Court (Vrhovno sodišče), and in certain cases also a constitutional complaint to the Constitutional Court (Ustavno sodišče).

10. In some cases the applicants lodged acceleratory remedies under the 2006 Act.

11. The details concerning each particular case are indicated in the attached table.

COMPLAINTS

12. The applicants complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the civil proceedings had been excessively long. They also complained that they did not have an effective domestic remedy in this regard (Article 13 of the Convention).

THE LAW

13. In the present cases, the Court notes that, after the Government had been given notice of the applications in 2009, they submitted their observations and informed the Court that they had made a settlement proposal to each of the applicants.

14. 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 a 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.

15. The applicants subsequently informed the Court that they had reached settlements with the State’s Attorney’s Office and that they wished to withdraw their applications introduced before the Court.

16. 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;

...

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.”

17. The Court takes note that following the settlements reached between the parties the matter has 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 application to be continued (Article 37 § 1 in fine of the Convention).

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

19. As to the second set of the proceedings in application no. 17292/06 the Court notes that they were final and terminated on 5 November 2009. It was therefore open to the applicant to effectively avail himself of the remedies provided under the 2006 Act, but he failed to do so. Thus, the complaint made under Article 6 for must be rejected non-exhaustion of domestic remedies and the complaint made under Article 13 as manifestly ill-founded (Grzinčič v. Slovenia, no. 26867/02, 3 May 2007) pursuant to Article 35 § 4 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 with regard to the complaints about the length of the civil proceedings and the lack of an effective remedy in that respect under Articles 6 and 13 of the Convention;

Declares inadmissible the complaints regarding the second set of proceedings in the application no. 17292/06.

Santiago Quesada Elisabet Fura
Registrar President

Appendix

No.	Application No.	Applicant’s Name	Year of Birth	Address	Date of Introduction	Date of the applicant’s withdrawal of the application
1.	17292/06	NedZad SOFTIČ	1963	Velenje	10/04/2006	02/06/2009
2.	18825/06	MatjaZ ZORC	1968	Štore	19/04/2006	05/05/2010
3.	19181/06	Jerica ŠLEBINGER	1952	Ljubljana	24/04/2006	24/05/2010
4.	30528/06	Albin DRAČ	1974	Velenje	18/07/2006	08/06/2010
5.	266/07	MatjaZ URŠIČ	1964	Ljubljana	11/12/2006	21/05/2010
6.	31426/08	Mira, Dušan, Nives MATJAŠIČ	1958, 1982, 1980	Gomilsko	23/06/2006	06/05/2010
7.	51399/09	Ismet KUDUZOVIĆ	1966	Šoštanj	06/07/2000	27/05/2010