CEDH · CASELAW;DECISIONS;ADMISSIBILITYCOM;ENG — 3 octobre 2023

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Mladineo, a lawyer practising in Split; the decision to give notice of the complaints concerning the right to a reasoned judgment and to property to the Croatian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms Š. Stažnik, and to declare the remainder of the application inadmissible; the parties’ observations; Having deliberated, decides as follows: SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE 1.     The case concerns civil proceedings instituted against the applicant company by an advocate for non-payment of advocate’s fees for the representation in another set of civil proceedings. 2 .     Before the first-instance court the applicant company argued that it was under no obligation to settle the advocate’s invoice in that the deficiencies in his representation had caused it damage and had inflicted on it unnecessary costs, the issue of representation at the hearing of 19 April 2004 being one of many examples of him not doing his job properly. In particular, at that hearing the advocate had been replaced by his trainee who had not passed the Bar exam, whereas under the domestic law he could only have been replaced by a trainee who had passed the Bar exam. 3 .     On 23 December 2016 the Split Municipal Court found: (i) that the advocate in question had had a valid power of attorney to represent the applicant company in the civil proceedings concerned; (ii) that the legal acts listed in the invoice had been undertaken; (iii) that the fees for those acts had been calculated in accordance with the Scale of Advocates’ Fees, and (iv) that the applicant company had not settled the invoice. Finding also that the applicant company had never sought compensation from the advocate for the alleged damage caused by his representation in the impugned civil proceedings, nor submitted any evidence that it had actually suffered any damage on that account, the Split Municipal Court ordered the applicant company to pay the sum in dispute, including the fee for the hearing held on   19 April 2004. 4.     The applicant company appealed, arguing, inter alia , that the Split Municipal Court did not address its argument that the advocate was not entitled to the fee for the hearing of 19 April 2004, since at that hearing he had been replaced, contrary to the relevant law, by an unqualified trainee. 5 .     On 6 July 2017 the Split County Court partly overturned the first ‑ instance judgment, finding that the fees for certain acts had not been properly calculated. It dismissed the applicant company’s appeal in the remaining part. It held that the Split Municipal Court had provided valid reasons as to the facts established and the legal conclusion reached, which were not called into question by the arguments submitted in the appeal. It did not expressly address the applicant company’s argument regarding the advocate’s entitlement to the fee for the hearing of 19 April 2004. 6 .     The applicant company lodged an appeal on points of law, arguing that the lower courts had entirely failed to address its argument regarding the fee for the hearing of 19 April 2004. 7 .     On 28 November 2017 the Supreme Court dismissed the applicant company’s appeal on points of law, stating that the second-instance court had examined all the relevant arguments put forward in the appeal, and that the lower courts’ judgments were sufficiently reasoned as to the relevant facts. 8 .     The applicant company lodged a constitutional complaint, submitting that, notwithstanding its repeated arguments in that regard, the domestic courts had failed to establish that at the hearing held on 19 April 2004 the applicant company had been represented by a trainee who lacked the necessary qualification, and had furthermore failed to rule whether that fact had any bearing on the advocate’s entitlement to the fee for the hearing. 9.     On 29 May 2019 the Constitutional Court declared the applicant company’s constitutional complaint inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded. The applicant company’s representative received that decision on 7 June 2019. 10.     Before the Court the applicant company complained, under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, of a breach of its right to a reasoned decision in that none of the domestic courts addressed its argument that the advocate should not have been awarded costs for the hearing held on 19 April 2004. In this connection the applicant company also complained that the decision ordering it to pay the costs for the hearing in question had violated its rights guaranteed by Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention. THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 6 § 1 OF THE CONVENTION 11.     The Court refers to its case-law principles concerning the right to a reasoned decision, which have been summarised, inter alia , in Zayidov v.   Azerbaijan (no. 2) , no. 5386/10, § 91, 24 March 2022. 12.     In the present case, the Court observes that the applicant company’s argument before the first-instance court was that it was under no obligation to settle the advocate’s invoice because the deficiencies in his representation had caused it damage and had inflicted on it unnecessary costs, the issue of representation at the hearing of 19 April 2004 being one of many examples of him not doing his job properly (see paragraph 2 above). 13.     The first-instance court found that the applicant company had never sought compensation from the advocate for the alleged damage caused by his representation in the civil proceedings, nor submitted any evidence that it had actually suffered any damage on that account. It found it decisive that the advocate in question had had a valid power of attorney to represent the applicant company in the proceedings, that the legal acts listed in the unpaid invoice had been undertaken, and that the fees for those acts had been calculated in accordance with the Scale of Advocates’ Fees (see paragraph 3 above). In that connection the Court notes from the available documents that the acts undertaken by the trainee at the hearing of 19 April 2004 were accepted as valid by the court conducting the proceedings. 14.     The Government relied on two judgments of the Varaždin County Court (nos. Gž-703/03 of 29 May 2003 and Gž-13/13 of 31 October 2013), according to which the advocate was entitled to a fee for a hearing, even if replaced by an unqualified trainee, where no complaint to that effect had been raised during the hearing and where such representation and the acts undertaken had been accepted by the court and the parties as procedurally and legally valid. The applicant company, insofar as relevant, relied on the judgment of the Zagreb County Court no. Gž-3318/2017 of 10 December 201 ­ 9, suggesting a different approach. 15.     The Court notes that under section 95(3) of the Croatian Civil Procedure Act, a trainee who has not passed the Bar exam can replace the advocate by whom he or she is employed only before the first-instance court, and only if the value of the subject-matter of the dispute does not exceed 50,000 Croatian kunas [1] . The Court observes that in the present case the value of the subject-matter of the dispute amounted to several million Croatian kunas, meaning that the trainee in question, who had not passed the Bar exam, should not have replaced the advocate (the applicant company’s adversary) at the hearing of 19 April 2004. 16.     However, it is not the Court’s task to examine whether under domestic law the applicant company’s adversary was entitled to the fee for the hearing at which he was replaced by an unqualified trainee, it being for the national courts to determine questions of that nature (see Hiro Balani v. Spain , 9   December 1994, § 28, Series A no. 303‑B). 17.     Having regard to the way in which the applicant company formulated its arguments before the first-instance court, namely arguing that the issue of representation at the hearing of 19 April 2004 was only one of many examples of the advocate not doing his job properly (see paragraph 2 above), while the domestic courts found that the applicant company had been validly represented for all legal acts they were charged with in the invoice and had not submitted evidence of any damage caused by the advocate, the Court is ready to accept that the first-instance court, and subsequently the higher courts, gave sufficient reasons for ordering the applicant company to settle the unpaid invoice in the circumstances (see paragraphs 3, 5 and 7 above). 18.     Accordingly, it considers that the fact that the domestic courts did not explicitly address the applicant company’s argument concerning the representation at the hearing of 19 April 2004 did not render the proceedings, taken as a whole, unfair. 19.     It follows that this complaint is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article   35 §§   3   (a) and   4 of the Convention. OTHER COMPLAINT 20.     The applicant company also complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that the domestic courts’ decisions ordering it to pay the fee for the hearing of 19 April 2004 had violated its right to peaceful enjoyment of its possessions. 21.     Having regard to the fact that the proceedings complained of concerned a property dispute between private parties and that the domestic courts’ decisions were not patently unlawful, arbitrary or manifestly unreasonable, it follows that this part of the application is manifestly ill ‑ founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention. For these reasons, the Court, unanimously, Declares the application inadmissible. Done in English and notified in writing on 26 October 2023.     Dorothee von Arnim   Pauliine Koskelo   Deputy Registrar   President                         [1] Approximately 6,630 euros