European Court of Human Rights

SECOND SECTION

DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 7053/06
by Istvánné KOCSÁR
against Hungary

The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on
9 March 2010 as a Chamber composed of:

Françoise Tulkens, President,
Ireneu Cabral Barreto,
Vladimiro Zagrebelsky,
Danutė Jočienė,
Dragoljub Popović,
András Sajó,
Nona Tsotsoria, judges,
and Françoise Elens-Passos, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 7 February 2006,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mrs Istvánné Kocsár, is a Hungarian national who was born in 1957 and lives in Debrecen. The Hungarian Government (“the Government”) were represented by Mr L. Höltzl, Agent, Ministry of Justice and Law Enforcement.

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

On 7 August 2002 expropriation proceedings started in regard to the applicant's real estate. On 5 May 2003 expropriation was ordered by the competent administrative authority, and the applicant was compensated with 16.5 million Hungarian forints (HUF). She was dissatisfied with the amount and lodged a court action.

On 11 May 2004 the Hajdú-Bihar County Regional Court raised the amount to HUF 18.5 million. On 2 February 2005 the Supreme Court quashed this judgment as ill-founded.

In the resumed proceedings, on 18 October 2005 the Regional Court again arrived at the amount of HUF 18.5 million¹. On 6 September 2006 the Supreme Court upheld this decision. It was served on the applicant's lawyer on 18 October 2006.

COMPLAINTS

The applicant complained under Article 6 about the length and the outcome of the case. In the latter respect she also invoked Article 13, without further developing that complaint.

THE LAW

Concerning the length of the proceedings, the Court observes that they lasted four years and two months for one administrative and two court instances. In the absence of any particular period of inactivity imputable to the authorities, the Court is satisfied that there has been no undue delay, in breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.

In so far as the applicant's complaint may be understood to concern the assessment of the evidence and the result of the proceedings before the domestic courts, 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 (García Ruiz v. Spain [GC], no. 30544/96, § 28, ECHR 1999 I). In the present case, the Court considers that the applicant's submissions do not disclose any elements of arbitrariness and, hence, no appearance of a violation of her rights under Articles 6 or 13 of the Convention has been demonstrated.

It follows that the application is manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 and must be rejected, pursuant to Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Declares the application inadmissible.

Françoise Elens-Passos Françoise Tulkens
Deputy Registrar President