CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 7 juillet 2009

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s40F41F73 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s3DC36BA9 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sC7EAD8B { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt }   552 07.07.2009   Press release issued by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENT STAGNO v. BELGIUM   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment [1] in the case of Stagno v. Belgium (application no. 1062/07). The Court held by six votes to one that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair hearing) of the European Convention on Human Rights on account of the fact that an action brought by the applicants, complaining that the money from their deceased father’s life insurance had been partly squandered by their mother while they were still minors, had been rejected.   Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded each applicant 3,000   euros   (EUR) for non-pecuniary damage. ( The judgment is available only in French .)   1.     Principal facts   The applicants are two Italian nationals who live in Belgium. Maria Stagno was born in 1977 and lives in Dilbeek, and her sister, Manuela Stagno, was born in 1979 and lives in Asse. After their father’s death, the two sisters, together with their three brothers and one other sister, were granted a payout by the company Fortis AG as beneficiaries of his life insurance. Their mother, being the statutory administrator of her minor children’s property, was paid by the insurer, on 2 February 1987, the sum of 3,058,071 Belgian francs, which she deposited in savings accounts that were emptied within less than a year.   In 1996 and 1997 the Stagno sisters each brought an action against their mother and the company Fortis Banque. During the proceedings they dropped the claim against their mother after entering into an agreement in which she undertook to pay them one third of the sums owed to them.   The court declared their action against Fortis Banque inadmissible on the ground that the three-year limitation period was applicable, regardless of the capacity of the parties, to any claim arising from an insurance policy.   The applicants appealed against that decision in 2004 but were unsuccessful, as the Court of Appeal rejected their argument that, since they had been minors, it had been legally impossible for them to act at the relevant time.   In 2006 an appeal on points of law lodged by the sisters was also dismissed on the ground that the aim pursued by the limitation period, namely to avoid the disappearance of evidence and means of verification, could not be fulfilled if it were open to insured persons or their beneficiaries to bring a claim many years after the event on which it was based.   The applicants argued that they should not be penalised for failing to apply, at the ages of 9 and 10, for the appointment of a special guardian, and that they had found themselves de facto in a situation where they had no legal representative through whom they could have asserted their rights. The Court of Cassation found that it was not appropriate to allow different treatment for persons without legal representation.   2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 21 December 2006. It was decided that the admissibility and merits of the case should be examined at the same time.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Ireneu Cabral Barreto (Portugal), President , Vladimiro Zagrebelsky (Italy), Danutė Jočienė (Lithuania), Dragoljub Popović (Serbia), András Sajó (Hungary), Işıl Karakaş (Turkey), judges , Paul Lemmens (Belgium) , ad hoc judge , and also Françoise Elens-Passos , Deputy Section Registrar   3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Complaint   Relying on Article 6 § 1, the Stagno sisters complained of a violation of their right of access to a court, alleging that the Belgian courts had deprived them of any effective remedy before a court by rejecting their action as statute-barred, given that the statutory limitation period had not been suspended while they were minors even though they had been unable to bring legal proceedings during that period.   Decision of the Court   The Court reiterated that statutory limitation periods pursued the legitimate aim of ensuring legal certainty, as a time-bar on claims protected potential defendants from belated complaints and meant that the courts would not have to give judgments based on evidence that had become uncertain or incomplete with the passing of time.   However, it had been practically impossible for the Stagno sisters to defend their property rights against the company Fortis AG before reaching their majority, and when they did come of age, their claim against the company had become time-barred.   The Court took the view that the strict application of a statutory limitation period, without taking into account the particular circumstances of the case, had prevented the Stagno sisters from using a remedy that in principle was available to them. That limitation on their right of access to a court was disproportionate in relation to the aim of guaranteeing legal certainty and the proper administration of justice, in violation of Article 6 § 1.     Judges Jočienė and Karakaş expressed a joint partly concurring opinion and Judge Sajó a dissenting opinion, both of which are annexed to the judgment.     ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Press contacts Céline Menu-Lange (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 58 77) Stefano Piedimonte (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 04) Tracey Turner-Tretz (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30) Kristina Pencheva-Malinowski (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 70) Frédéric Dolt (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 53 39)   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. [1] Under Article 43 of the Convention, within three months from the date of a Chamber judgment, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the 17 ‑ member Grand Chamber of the Court. In that event, a panel of five judges considers whether the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or its protocols, or a serious issue of general importance, in which case the Grand Chamber will deliver a final judgment. If no such question or issue arises, the panel will reject the request, at which point the judgment becomes final. Otherwise Chamber judgments become final on the expiry of the three-month period or earlier if the parties declare that they do not intend to make a request to refer. [2] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.