European Court of Human Rights

FIFTH SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 26770/06
Andrej TOPLAK
against Slovenia

The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 29 May 2012 as a Committee composed of:

Ann Power-Forde, President,
Boštjan M. Zupančič,
Angelika Nußberger, judges,
and Stephen Phillips, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 6 June 2006,

Having regard to the comments submitted by the parties,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr Andrej Toplak, is a Slovenian national, who was born in 1972 and lives in Koper. He is represented before the Court by Ms M. Verstovšek, a lawyer practising in Celje.

The Slovenian Government (“the Government”) are represented by their Agent.

A.  The circumstances of the case

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

On 22 April 2003 the applicant lodged a request for enforcement against an Italian company.

On 18 August 2003 the Koper District Court issued an enforcement order.

On 18 September 2003 the first-instance court unsuccessfully tried to serve the order on the debtor.

On 19 February 2004 the applicant informed the first-instance court of the new address of the debtor.

On 11 September 2004 the order was successfully served on the debtor.

On 23 September 2004 the debtor lodged an objection to the enforcement order.

On 26 October 2005 the first-instance court rejected the objection in part. Both parties appealed.

On 19 September 2006 the Koper Higher Court upheld the applicant’s appeal and rejected the debtor’s objection in its entirety.

Following a request by the applicant the first-instance court issued on 19 February 2007 a decision on termination of proceedings.

B.  Relevant domestic law

For relevant domestic law see decision Repar v. Slovenia, no. 40739/05, 12 October 2010).

COMPLAINTS

The applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention about the excessive length of civil proceedings and under Article 13 of the Convention about the lack of an effective domestic remedy in that regard.

THE LAW

Further to the communication of the case under Rule 54 § 2 (b) of the Rules of Court, the Government argued non-exhaustion of domestic remedies. The applicant contested this argument.

The Court recalls that the “reasonable” length of proceedings must be assessed in accordance with the circumstances of the case and the following criteria: the complexity of the case, the behaviour of the applicant and that of the competent 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 observes that the time to be taken in consideration in the present case started on 22 April 2003, the date when the domestic proceedings were instituted, and ended on 19 February 2007, the date when the decision on the termination of proceedings was issued. The proceedings therefore lasted three years and ten months at two levels of jurisdiction.

Having regard to all the material submitted to it and having regard to the Court’s case-law on the subject (see for example Repar v. Slovenia (cited above), Vuk v. Slovenia, no. 45496/06, 3 April 2012 and Hornak v. Slovakia, no. 43527/04, 24 November 2009) and despite some difficulties of the first-instance court with serving the enforcement order on the debtor the Court considers that in the instant case the length of the proceedings can still be considered as reasonable.

The Court therefore finds that this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected under Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.

As to the complaint regarding the lack of effective remedies the Court recalls that Article 13 requires the State to provide an effective legal remedy to deal with the substance of an “arguable complaint” under the Convention and to grant appropriate relief (see Sürmeli v. Germany [GC], no. 75529/01, § 98, 8 June 2006). Considering that the complaint about the excessive length of the proceedings is inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded, the Court finds that the applicant did not have an arguable claim that his right to an effective remedy within the meaning of Article 13 was violated. Therefore, this claim does not reveal any appearance of violation of this provision.

Accordingly, this complaint is manifestly ill-founded and must be declared inadmissible in the meaning of Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Declares the application inadmissible.

Stephen Phillips Ann Power-Forde
Deputy Registrar President