CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 21 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 } .s6B505E72 { margin:0pt; padding-left:0pt } .s1C7BEF1E { margin-left:28.52pt; padding-left:7.48pt; font-family:serif } .s3DC36BA9 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .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 }   590 21.07.2009   Press release issued by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENT LESJAK v. SLOVENIA   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment [1] in the case of Lesjak v. Slovenia (application no. 33946/03).   The Court held unanimously that there had been:   a violation of Article 6 (right to a fair hearing) of the European Convention on Human Rights; and, a violation of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the Convention.   Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded the applicant 4,800   euros   (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR   600 for costs and expenses. ( The judgment is available only in English .)   1.     Principal facts   The applicant, Robert Lesjak, is a Slovenian national who was born in 1979 and lives in Petrovce (Slovenia). In April 1995 he was injured in a car accident. In October 1999 he brought civil proceedings against the perpetrator of the accident and their insurance company seeking compensation for the injuries sustained. The first interim judgment was delivered in September 2006, followed by a judgment delivered on appeal in May 2007. In June 2007 the insurance company appealed to the Supreme Court on points of law and the proceedings are still pending.   At the beginning of March 2007 Mr Lesjak lodged a supervisory appeal with the Celje District Court complaining that the proceeding were pending for over seven years and asking that they be expedited and a decision delivered immediately. Later that month, the President of the Celje District court, referring to the 2006 Act of the protection of the Right to a Trial without Undue Delay (“the 2006 Act”) replied that the case has been transferred to the Celje Higher court.   2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 14 October 2003 and was examined at the same time for admissibility and merits.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Josep Casadevall (Andorra), President , Elisabet Fura-Sandström (Sweden), Corneliu Bîrsan (Romania), Boštjan M. Zupančič (Slovenia), Alvina Gyulumyan (Armenia), Egbert Myjer (Netherlands), Luis López Guerra (Spain), judges ,   and Santiago Quesada , Section Registrar ,   3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Complaints   Relying on Article   6   §   1 (right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time) and Article   13 (right to an effective remedy), the applicant complained of the excessive length of the civil proceedings and that he had no effective remedy in that respect under the new legislation concerning remedies for the length-of-proceedings complaints in Slovenia.   Decision of the Court   Article 6 §1   The Court first recalled the view it had taken in earlier case law in respect of Slovenia, namely that applicants had to exhaust the aggregate of remedies available under the 2006 Act, found on previous occasions to be effective as regards proceedings pending before first and second instance courts. This requirement for exhaustion of the remedies applied irrespective of whether applicants had lodged their application with the Court before the entry into force of the 2006 Act. The Court then noted that since June 2007 the case had been pending before the Supreme Court. While in proceedings before the regular courts the remedies under the 2006 Act meant in effect an appeal to a higher instance court, this was not the case for excessively lengthy proceedings before the Supreme Court, given that the appeals against those proceedings were decided by the same court. In addition, no compensation could be claimed in respect of the length of the proceedings before the Supreme Court. Having had regard to the nature of the acceleratory remedies provided in the 2006 Act, the Court found that they did not provide effective redress in respect of the length of the Supreme Court proceedings and therefore could not require the applicant to have used them.   Furthermore, the Court observed that before the new legislation - the 2006 Act - had taken effect Mr Lejsak’s case had been pending for more than seven years, most of the time before the first-instance court. The only way to remedy the situation had been to subsequently provide a compensatory remedy for the damage suffered as a result of the delays. However, having noted the conflicting position of the Government of the question of when a compensatory remedy had been available to the applicant and the lack of explicit provision in the 2006 Act addressing that issue, the Court found that the 2006 Act did not afford the applicant an effective remedy in respect of delays occurred in the proceedings so far. Finally, having observed that the proceedings had lasted in all over nine years and seven months, and were still pending, the Court considered that in the instant case the length of the proceedings, in particular before the first-instance court, had been excessive, in breach of Article 6 § 1.   Article 13   The Court noted that the Government had failed to show that the 2006 Act offered the applicant an effective remedy. As regards the remedies available prior to the implementation of the 2006 Act, the Government had also failed to submit anything that could lead the Court to a different conclusion from the one reached in earlier cases in which these remedies had been considered ineffective. Accordingly, the Court held that there had been a violation of Article 13 on account of the lack of a remedy under domestic law whereby the applicant could have obtained a ruling upholding his right to have his case heard within a reasonable time, as set forth in Article 6 § 1.     ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Press contacts Kristina Pencheva-Malinowski (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 70) Stefano Piedimonte (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 04) Tracey Turner-Tretz (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30) Céline Menu-Lange (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 58 77) 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.