European Court of Human Rights

Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 167

October 2013

Savickas and Others v. Lithuania (dec.) - 66365/09, 12845/10, 29809/10 et al.

Decision 15.10.2013 [Section II] See: [2013] ECHR 1214

Article 35

Article 35-1

Exhaustion of domestic remedies

Effective domestic remedy

Length-of-proceedings complaint under Article 6.272 of the Civil Code as interpreted by domestic courts: effective remedy: inadmissible

 

Facts - The applicants were serving or former judges or their lawful heirs. Following a reduction in judges’ salaries by 30% in 1999, the applicants instituted proceedings before the domestic courts claiming payment of the lost part of their salaries. The litigation ended in 2009-10, when the Supreme Administrative Court eventually granted the applicants’ claims in part. Relying on, inter alia, Articles 6 § 1 and 13 of the Convention the applicants complained before the European Court about the excessive length of the domestic proceedings and the lack of an effective domestic remedy in that respect.

Law - Article 35 § 1: In its judgment of 6 February 2007 the Lithuanian Supreme Court established that Article 6.272 of the Lithuanian Civil Code provided compensation in respect of the unjustified length of court proceedings in the same way as Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. Since that decision, Article 6 § 1, as interpreted by the European Court, had been applied by the Lithuanian courts of all jurisdictions in the context of length-of-proceedings complaints. Furthermore, when assessing the reasonableness of the length of proceedings, the domestic courts applied the criteria established by the Court, namely what was at stake for the applicant, the complexity of the case, and the conduct of the applicant and of the domestic authorities. The Court further welcomed the 2011 Government proposal to supplement Article 6.272 with a norm which explicitly established a right to compensation for excessively long court proceedings and the introduction of legislative amendments aimed at expediting civil proceedings. In the light of the above, the Court considered that the uncertainty regarding the effectiveness of Article 6.272 as a domestic remedy had been removed by judicial interpretation on 6 February 2007. When a particular remedy resulted from court interpretation, the persons concerned could be obliged to use it only after six months from the date on which the decision establishing the remedy was delivered, in order to allow the case-law development to acquire a sufficient degree of legal certainty. Therefore, applicants in cases concerning the length of civil, criminal or administrative court proceedings in Lithuania whose applications were lodged with the Court after 6 August 2007 were required to make use of the remedy. In the applicants’ case, since they had lodged their application with the Court between 2009 and 2011, their length-of-proceedings complaints were inadmissible.

Conclusion: inadmissible (non-exhaustion of domestic remedies).

(See also Turgut and Others v. Turkey (dec.), 4860/09, 26 March 2013, Information Note no. 161; and Balakchiev and Others v. Bulgaria (dec.), 65187/10, 18 June 2013, Information Note no. 164)

 

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes