CEDH · CASELAW;COMMUNICATEDCASES;ENG — 3 décembre 2014

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .sA6BC7FA7 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-indent:14.2pt; text-align:right } .s9793A85B { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-indent:14.2pt } .s5E1364CA { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14pt } .s8229ABDD { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:center } .s68C46B95 { margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:center } .s2D57E2E { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline; text-transform:uppercase } .sA8776625 { margin-top:18pt; margin-left:29.2pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-indent:-17.6pt; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .sD3B63DAD { margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:12pt; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14pt } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s3F59B822 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-transform:uppercase }     Communicated on 3 December 2014   SECOND SECTION Application no. 48590/11 László SZILÁGYI against Hungary lodged on 1 August 2011 STATEMENT OF FACTS The applicant, Mr László Szilágyi, is a Hungarian national, who was born in 1959 and lives in Székesfehérvár. He is represented before the Court by Mr A. Litresits, a lawyer practising in Budapest. The circumstances of the case The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows. In a real estate dispute, in 2008 the Székesfehérvár Municipality filed an action against the applicant, requesting the Székesfehérvár District Court to order him to pay a large sum of money. The District Court found for the plaintiff. On appeal, on 12 November 2009 the Fejér County Regional Court upheld the first-instance decision. The president of the panel in charge did not declare during the proceedings that one of his sons was a member of the plaintiff municipality’s general assembly and a member of two municipal committees and his other son was a member of the board of Sz. Rt. (a company that had joined the proceedings on the plaintiff’s side on 11   December 2008). The applicant’s complaints about the perceived incompatibility to the President of the Fejér County Regional Court and to the President of the National Judicial Council were to no avail. Upon the applicant’s petition for review (a remedy going to points of law), on 28 October 2010 the Supreme Court upheld the Regional Court’s judgment. It was satisfied that the parental link between the second-instance president and the officials of the plaintiff’s side did not as such deprive the appeal bench of its impartiality. This decision was served on the applicant on 4 February 2011.   COMPLAINT The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the hearing was not fair in that the close parental relationship between the president of the second-instance bench and two individuals with links to the opposing party amounted to a breach of the requirement of objective impartiality.     QUESTION TO THE PARTIES Was the second-instance tribunal which dealt with the applicant’s case objectively impartial, as required by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, given the parental relationship between the president of the bench and two officials with links to the plaintiff?