European Court of Human Rights

FIFTH SECTION

Application no. 43549/10
Jitka ZBEŽKOVÁ
against the Czech Republic
lodged on 28 July 2010

STATEMENT OF FACTS

The applicant, Ms Jitka Zbežková, is a Czech national, who was born in 1962 and lives in Prague. She is represented before the Court by Mr P. Cáp, a lawyer practising in Dobríš.

A.  The circumstances of the case

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

The applicant’s father died on 12 January 2004.

On 9 March 2004 a certain M. informed the public notary administering the inheritance proceedings of the applicant’s late father that she had had an illegitimate child with him, P.M., born on 21 September 1968. The notary stayed the proceedings and advised M. to start court proceedings to establish the paternity of the child.

On 19 May 2004 the Prague 5 District Court, after having been informed by M. that she wished to lodge a paternity action against the applicant’s late father, appointed a certain K. as a guardian of the applicant’s father. According to the applicant, K. was a friend of M.

On 13 January 2005 the Prague 10 District Court to which the paternity proceedings had been transferred, accepted the applicant as a third party to the proceedings in support of her late father represented by the guardian. It acknowledged that the applicant had interest in the proceedings; not least because of her inheritance rights.

On 25 June 2008 the District Court established that P.M. was a child of the applicant’s father. It based its decision mainly on his affidavit from 1973 in which he had acknowledged his paternity to the child. The court also ordered a DNA test but the applicant never submitted a DNA sample.

The applicant appealed and suggested to take further evidence.

On 1 September 2009 the Prague Municipal Court dismissed his appeal because the guardian did not give her consent to it.

The applicant lodged a constitutional appeal alleging a violation of his rights to fair trial by both the District Court and the Regional Court.

On 4 February 2010 the Constitutional Court dismissed her appeal against the decision of the Regional Court as manifestly ill-founded and against that the District Court as belated. It held that the Regional Court had not dismissed her appeal for reasons depending on its discretion and therefore such an appeal could not have postponed the time limit for lodging a constitutional appeal. Under the applicable law, courts were obliged to dismiss an appeal lodged by a third party, if the main party did not agree with lodging it. It added that the applicant could have lodged a constitutional appeal at the same time as the appeal if she had been unsure about the opinion of the guardian to her appeal.

B.  Relevant domestic law and practice

The relevant domestic law and practice concerning access to the Constitutional Court are set out in the Court’s judgment in the case of Adamícek v. the Czech Republic, no. 35836/05, § 12-33, 12 October 2010.

COMPLAINTS

The applicant complains under Article 6 of the Convention that she was denied access to the Constitutional Court.

Further, relying on the same provision of the Convention, the applicant complains that the domestic decisions were wrong because they were based on insufficient evidence and a correct procedure was not followed in appointing a guardian for her late father.

QUESTION TO THE PARTIES

Was the applicant denied the right of access to the Constitutional Court in violation of Article 6 of the Convention?