European Court of Human Rights

FIFTH SECTION

CASE OF SKVYRASILRYBGOSP, VAT v. UKRAINE

(Application no. 27128/11)

JUDGMENT
 

STRASBOURG

30 November 2023

This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.

In the case of Skvyrasilrybgosp, VAT v. Ukraine,

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

 Mārtiņš Mits, President,
 María Elósegui,
 Kateřina Šimáčková, judges,

and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the application (no. 27128/11) against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms ("the Convention") on 18 April 2011 by a Ukrainian joint-stock company, Skvyrasilrybgosp, VAT, eventually transformed into a limited liability company, Skvyraplemrybgosp, TOV ("the applicant company") represented by Mr M. Mykolyuk, a lawyer practising in Kyiv;

the decision to give notice of the application to the Ukrainian Government ("the Government"), represented by their Agent, most recently Ms M. Sokorenko, of the Ministry of Justice;

the parties' observations;

Having deliberated in private on 9 November 2023,

Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE-�

1.  The application concerns the allegedly unjustified extension in November 2010 of the time-limit for lodging an appeal against the judgment of the Kyiv Regional Commercial Court of 24 March 2010 finding for the applicant company in its claim to title to use rights over several plots of land, the quashing of that judgment and the dismissal of the claim. The applicant company complains of a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 on that account.

2.  On 21 October 2010 the Deputy Prosecutor of the Kyiv Region lodged an appeal with the Kyiv Commercial Court of Appeal on behalf of the Skvyra District Administration, a party to the proceedings, against the above-mentioned judgment of 24 March 2010, arguing that the State had retained the use rights to the land. The deputy prosecutor also requested an extension of the then applicable ten-day time-limit for lodging an appeal, stating that he had been informed of the judgment by the Office of the General Prosecutor on 11 October 2010. By a procedural ruling of 8 November 2010, the appellate court granted the extension requested, finding that the time-limit had been missed for "justifiable reasons". No further details were given in that regard. On 14 December 2010 the same court quashed the judgment of 24 March 2010, having disagreed with the first-instance court's findings. According to the appellate court, in 1999 a local council had allocated the contested land to a State company for permanent use. Having been privatised in 2000, the State company had ceased to exist and had been transformed into the applicant company. However, pursuant to the relevant domestic law, the applicant company had not acquired the right of permanent use of the land in question, which had been terminated when its predecessor had ceased to exist. Nor had the applicant company registered any title to the land in the meantime. On 23 February 2011 the Higher Commercial Court upheld the appellate court's decision.

3.  According to the Government's submissions of 5 December 2022, the applicant company continued using the land at issue.

THE COURT'S ASSESSMENT

1. ALLEGEDLY UNJUSTIFIED EXTENSION OF the appeal time-limit

4.  The applicant company complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the appellate court had unlawfully extended the time-limit for lodging the deputy prosecutor's appeal against the judgment of the Kyiv Regional Commercial Court of 24 March 2010.

5.  The Government disagreed, contending that the time-limit for lodging an appeal had been lawfully extended after a short delay, and that this had been justified by the need to correct the erroneous judgment of the first-instance court.

 
6.  The Court notes that this complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention or inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible.

7.  The general principles concerning the rights guaranteed by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention in cases of extension of procedural time-limits have been summarized in, among other authorities, Ponomaryov v. Ukraine (no. 3236/03, §§ 40-41, 3 April 2008) and Ustimenko v. Ukraine (no. 32053/13, §§ 46-47, 29 October 2015).

8.  The Court has already found violations of that provision regarding similar complaints of unjustified extension of time-limits for lodging appeals in civil cases, including when it concerned a delay of around six months (see Ponomaryov, § 42, and Ustimenko, §§ 49-54, both cited above, and also Sabadash v. Ukraine [Committee], no. 28052/13, §§ 30-34, 23 July 2019). In the present case too, when granting the requested extension of the appeal time-limit the appellate court simply endorsed the deputy prosecutor's argument - that the time-limit had been missed for "justifiable reasons", as he had become aware of the judgment of 24 March 2010 around six months later, without having verified whether he or generally the authorities, including the Office of the Prosecutor General and the Skvyra District Administration, on behalf of which he had lodged the appeal, could have been informed of the judgment earlier (see paragraph 2 above).

9.  Accordingly, there has been a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention in the present case on account of the lack of proper justification for granting an extension to the time-limit for appealing.

2. REMAINING COMPLAINTS

10.  The applicant company also complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that the judgment of the Kyiv Regional Commercial Court of 24 March 2010, which was favourable to it, had been quashed for no acceptable reason and its claim to the disputed land had been unlawfully dismissed by the appellate court on 14 December 2010.

11.  The Court notes that that claim was limited to contesting the domestic courts' factual findings and the legal assessment of the applicant company's claim and does not appear to be duly substantiated or persuasive. The Court's above finding that the extension of the appeal time-limit was in violation of Article 6 § 1, which preceded the quashing at issue, does not mean that the subsequent examination of the merits of the deputy prosecutor's appeal was deficient or unlawful (see, mutatis mutandis, Ukraine-Tyumen v. Ukraine, no. 22603/02, § 52, 22 November 2007, and Industrial Financial Consortium Investment Metallurgical Union v. Ukraine, no. 10640/05, § 198, 26 June 2018). The applicant company did not argue that it had been denied the opportunity effectively to pursue its claim before the appellate and cassation courts and there is no basis for a finding that the proceedings before those courts were flawed to the extent that their outcome could not be accepted (compare and contrast with Sovtransavto Holding v. Ukraine, no. 48553/99, §§ 97-98, ECHR 2002-VII, and Agrokompleks v. Ukraine, no. 23465/03, §§ 135, 138 and 170, 6 October 2011; see, for a somewhat similar case, Sabadash, cited above, §§ 41-44).

12.  It follows that this part of the application must be rejected as manifestly ill-founded in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.

APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION

13.  The applicant company claimed 1 euro (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage.

14.  The Government contended that the claim had to be dismissed.

15.  The Court considers that, in the present circumstances, the finding of a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention in itself constitutes adequate just satisfaction for the purposes of Article 41.

FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT, UNANIMOUSLY,

1. Declares the complaint under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention concerning the allegedly unjustified extension of the appeal time-limit in the applicant company's case admissible and the remainder of the application inadmissible;
2. Holds that there has been a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention;
3. Holds that the finding of a violation constitutes in itself sufficient just satisfaction for any non-pecuniary damage sustained by the applicant company.

Done in English, and notified in writing on 30 November 2023, pursuant to Rule 77 §§ 2 and 3 of the Rules of Court.

 Martina Keller Mārtiņš Mits
 Deputy Registrar President