CEDH · PRESS;GENERAL;ENG — 10 juillet 2003

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .s5FFF0A77 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:1pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s94935B0F { width:389.85pt; display:inline-block } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s33165EBA { font-family:Arial; font-size:8pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s65EE4B93 { width:6.95pt; display:inline-block } .sA4618412 { width:3.62pt; display:inline-block } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .s76CF415B { page-break-before:always; clear:both } .s3964C3A3 { width:1.36pt; display:inline-block } .s901C2590 { width:56.7pt; display:inline-block } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } .s3133A7C8 { font-family:Arial; color:#0069d6 }   EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS     378   10.7.2003   Press release issued by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENT IN THE CASE OF HARTMAN v. THE CZECH REPUBLIC   The European Court of Human Rights has today delivered at a public hearing a judgment [1] in the case of Hartman v. the Czech Republic (application no. 53341/99). The Court held unanimously that there had been   ●   a violation of Article 6 § 1 (right to a hearing within a reasonable time) 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 Mr Jan Hartman 4,000 euros (EUR) and Mr Jiří Hartman’s heir EUR 6,000 for non-pecuniary damage. It awarded them EUR 1,500 jointly for costs and expenses.   (The judgment is available only in French.)   1.     Principal facts   The application was lodged by Jan Hartman, who has dual Czech and French nationality and lives at Sapois (France), and his brother, Jiří Hartman, an American national who reacquired Czech nationality in 1999. On Jiří Hartman’s death in May 2002 the Court allowed his son, Nicholas Perizad Hartman, to pursue the proceedings on his behalf.   On 31 December 1948 the applicants left what was then Czechoslovakia in secret. All their property was seized and administered by the local communist authorities. On 1 July 1955 the Klatovy People’s Court (lidový soud) confiscated their property. After the change of regime in 1989 the applicants tried to obtain an order for its restitution.   In 1992 Jan Hartman brought an action in the Mělník District Court for restitution of land situated in Želízy, but the action was dismissed on 24 May 2000. His appeal against that decision was likewise dismissed. The Czech authorities say that the case was definitively disposed of on 2 October 2002.   In October 1995 Jiří Hartman brought an action in the court of first instance for restitution of a family villa in Želízy. That action was dismissed on 5 April 2000. He also instituted proceedings on 17 October 1995 for restitution of property belonging to him in the district of Prague 7. That action was dismissed on appeal by the Prague Municipal Court on 10 January 2002, on the ground that Mr Hartman did not fulfil the Czech nationality requirement that was a prerequisite to a claim for restitution.   2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the European Commission of Human Rights on 21 March 1996 and allocated to the Court on 1 November 1998. It was declared partly admissible on 17   December 2002. A hearing was held on 11 March 2003.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of 7 judges, composed as follows:   Jean-Paul Costa (French), President , András Baka (Hungarian), Gaukur Jörundsson (Icelandic), Karel Jungwiert (Czech), Volodymyr Butkevych (Ukrainian), Wilhelmina Thomassen (Netherlands), Mindia Ugrekhelidze (Georgian), judges , and also Sally Dollé , Section Registrar .   3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Complaints   Relying on Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the applicants complained of the length of the various sets of restitution proceedings. They also complained under Article 13 of the lack of an effective remedy for the delays.   Decision of the Court   Preliminary objections   The Government argued that the part of the application relating to the length of the proceedings brought by Mr Jiří Hartman should be dismissed because he did not fulfil the statutory nationality requirements that were a prerequisite to restitution. As there was therefore no right or obligation under Czech law on which he could base his claim, Article 6 § 1 of the Convention was inapplicable to his case. The Court noted that the Government had not raised that objection when the admissibility of the application was being examined. It therefore held that the Government could not rely on it now. In any event, the issue of the applicability of Article 6 § 1 had been examined by the Court at the admissibility stage and no ground of inadmissibility had been found.   As to the objection of failure to exhaust domestic remedies (which had been joined to the merits), the Court noted that the Government claimed that Czech law offered two forms of preventive remedy and a right to claim compensation.   The administrative appeal relied on by the Government could not be regarded as an effective remedy, as it did not confer a personal right on citizens to compel the State to exercise its supervisory powers.   The constitutional appeal allowed the Constitutional Court to request a defaulting court to put an end to delays and to resume the proceedings rapidly. However, no penalty was laid down by Czech law for failure to comply with that request. The Constitutional Court therefore had no jurisdiction to take concrete measures to expedite proceedings. Nor could it award compensation for delays that had already occurred. The action in damages under Law no.   82/1998 referred to by the Government could not compensate for that lacuna, as claimants could not seek an award for non-pecuniary damage, which was the main form of damage sustained in length-of-proceedings cases.   In the circumstances, the Court found that there was no real legal remedy for the applicants’ complaint concerning the length of the proceedings in the Czech Republic.   Article 6 § 1 of the Convention   The Court noted that the proceedings brought by Mr Jan Hartman had lasted almost 10 years for two levels of jurisdiction and the proceedings brought by Mr Jiří Hartman almost five years for one level of jurisdiction and six years and three months for two levels of jurisdiction.   It noted that the issues concerned were not complex, but the proceedings had been important to the applicants in view, notably, of their age and health. Although the applicants had been partly responsible for the delays in the proceedings, the Court found that there had been lengthy periods of inactivity that were not attributable to them. Having regard to the circumstances of the case, the Court found that the length of all three sets of proceedings, each taken as a whole, did not satisfy the “reasonable-time” requirement of Article 6 § 1.   Article 13 of the Convention   The Court reiterated that the administrative appeal procedure referred to by the Czech authorities did not afford a legal remedy in length-of-proceedings cases. The constitutional appeal and action in damages under Law no. 82/1998 could not be regarded as effective remedies in such cases either.   ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Registry of the European Court of Human Rights F – 67075 Strasbourg Cedex Contacts:   Roderick Liddell (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 24 92)   Joanna Reynell (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15)   Stéphanie Klein (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54) Fax: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 27 91   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. On 1 November 1998 a full-time Court was established, replacing the original two-tier system of a part-time Commission and Court. [1] .     Under Article 43 of the European Convention on Human Rights, 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.