Josef HAVELKA v the Czech Republic - 7332/10 [2011] ECHR 1498 (20 September 2011)

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The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 20 September 2011 as a Chamber composed of:

Dean Spielmann, President,
Elisabet Fura,
Karel Jungwiert,
Mark Villiger,
Isabelle Berro-Lefèvre,
Ann Power,
Ganna Yudkivska, judges,
and Claudia Westerdiek, Section Registrar,

The applicant, Mr Josef Havelka, is a Czech national who was born in 1946 and lives in Rychnov u Jablonce nad Nisou.

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.

On 22 December 1999 the applicant sued his former lawyer for unjust enrichment and sought payment of 3,561 Czech korunas (CZK), around 99 euros (EUR). At the same time he applied for a lawyer to be appointed to act on his behalf and for a waiver of the court fees.

In February 2000 the Jablonec nad Nisou District Court discontinued the proceedings; in June 2000 the decision was quashed by the Ústí nad Labem Regional Court, which also noted that the applicant should clarify his claims.

In November 2000 and March 2005 the applicant extended his action to two judges and the Ministry of Justice.

In response to the applicant’s request, on 16 February 2001 the Regional Court referred the case to the Liberec District Court on the grounds that the judges of the Jablonec nad Nisou District Court could have been biased owing to the applicant’s action against one of them.

Later, the applicant sought the exclusion of the Liberec District Court judges from the case; however, the Regional Court dismissed this request. The applicant also challenged, before the High Court, the impartiality of the Regional Court judges to examine the exclusion of the first-instance court judges, and later he challenged the impartiality of the High Court judges before the Supreme Court. All these requests were refused.

Throughout 2005 the Liberec District Court appointed two different lawyers to act on the applicant’s behalf and dismissed his request for the extension of the action to the other three parties. The relevant lawyers successfully challenged their appointments in view of their relationship to the case. In February 2006 the Regional Court changed this decision in part and granted the request for the extension of the action to one judge.

On 11 August 2006 the District Court revoked the exemption from the court fees granted to the applicant in 1999 and refused to appoint any more lawyers on his behalf. Based on the Land Registry records it found that the applicant possessed four big plots of land and that he had obtained EUR 9,000 as a result of his application before the Court (Havelka v. the Czech Republic, no. 76343/01, 2 November 2004). The applicant did not challenge this decision.

On 8 February 2007 the District Court held a hearing, refused the applicant’s request for the exclusion of the District Court judges from the case, granted the applicant’s action in relation to his former lawyer and dismissed it concerning the judge. The applicant did not attend the hearing, without providing any explanation in a timely manner and despite having been duly notified.

On 7 May 2008 the Regional Court refused the applicant’s request for the hearing to be rescheduled as unsubstantiated, refused his former request for the exclusion of a District Court judge from the proceedings and upheld the judgment. It became final on 16 June 2008.

In February 2007 the applicant lodged a claim for compensation for non-pecuniary damage arising from the excessive length of the proceedings with the Ministry of Justice under Law no. 82/1998, as amended by Law no. 160/2006.

As the Ministry did not deal with the applicant’s request within the six-month statutory time-limit, he brought a civil action for damages against the Ministry on 17 January 2008. He specified the non-pecuniary damage that he had suffered at CZK 500,000 (EUR 19,135).

In a letter of 8 February 2008 the Ministry of Justice acknowledged that the proceedings had been unreasonably lengthy. Taking into account the complexity of the proceedings and the applicant’s substantial contribution to the delay, the Ministry awarded him CZK 26,000 for non-pecuniary damage.

On 8 April 2009 the Prague 2 District Court granted the action in part and awarded the applicant CZK 14,000 in addition to the just satisfaction granted by the Ministry. The court concluded that the proceedings on the merits had been delayed from 2002 to 2004; however, they had been carried out smoothly after that period. It considered that the applicant had significantly contributed to their length when repeatedly applying for the exclusion of judges from proceedings, raising the issue even before the High and Supreme Courts. Although he had exercised his undisputed rights, the examination of all his requests must objectively have taken due time.

On 14 October 2009 the Prague Municipal Court refused the applicant’s request to exclude the judges of the Municipal and High Courts from the proceedings for their alleged bias and upheld the judgment, finding that the applicant had initially claimed a sum representing less than half the minimum monthly salary and that the litigation could have hardly caused considerable non-pecuniary damage. Overall, the applicant was awarded just satisfaction of CZK 40,000 (EUR 1,515).

The relevant domestic law and practice concerning remedies for the allegedly excessive length of judicial proceedings are set out in the Court’s decision in the case of Vokurka v. the Czech Republic (no. 40552/02 (dec.), §§ 11-24, 16 October 2007).

Above all, the applicant complained that the proceedings had been unreasonably lengthy, contrary to Article 6 § 1, which provides as follows:

“In the determination of his civil rights and obligations ... everyone is entitled to a ... hearing within a reasonable time by [a] ... tribunal ...”

The Court must first determine whether this complaint is admissible under Article 35 of the Convention, as amended by Protocol No. 14, which entered into force on 1 June 2010.

The Protocol added a new admissibility requirement to Article 35, which, in so far as relevant, provides as follows:

“3. The Court shall declare inadmissible any individual application submitted under Article 34 if it considers that: (...)

(b) the applicant has not suffered a significant disadvantage, unless respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and the Protocols thereto requires an examination of the application on the merits and provided that no case may be rejected on this ground which has not been duly considered by a domestic tribunal.”

In view of the circumstances of the present case the Court finds it appropriate to examine at the outset whether the applicant’s complaints comply with this new admissibility requirement.

The Court has previously held that this criterion applies where, notwithstanding a potential violation of a right from a purely legal point of view, the level of severity attained does not warrant consideration by an international court (see Ionescu v. Romania (dec), no. 36659/04, 1 June 2010; Korolev v. Russia (dec.), no. 25551/05, 1 July 2010, ECHR 2010-...; and Holub v. the Czech Republic (dec.), no. 24880/05, 14 December 2010).

The Court reiterates that the absence of any such disadvantage can be based on criteria such as the financial impact of the matter in dispute or the importance of the case for the applicant (see Ionescu, cited above). Contrary to the majority of cases in which the Court has already applied the new inadmissibility criterion, in cases concerning the length of proceedings the financial loss or the amount of the initial claim involved cannot be taken as a sole indication of a “significant disadvantage” (see, mutatis mutandis, Holub, cited above). The Court is mindful that in these circumstances the applicant’s subjective perceptions and what is objectively at stake for him (see Korolev, cited above) have to be assessed in a more general way.

In the present case the Court cannot overlook that the applicant, while having been duly notified of the hearings, attended neither the hearing before the first-instance court, nor before the appellate court. At the same time, he did not excuse himself properly so that the hearing could be rescheduled. The Court further notes that the applicant challenged the impartiality of almost every judge that was to decide on his case and complained of their bias in his application before the Court. Yet he has never raised this issue before the Constitutional Court. In view of the above, the Court considers that the random nature of the applicant’s behaviour does not disclose his particular concern for the proceedings.

Initially, the applicant claimed EUR 99 from his lawyer and his claim was eventually granted. The Court observes that the proceedings on the merits began on 22 December 1999 and ended on 16 June 2008, thus lasting eight years, four months and twenty-six days at two levels of jurisdiction. The proceedings themselves were not complex; however, they were complicated by the applicant’s procedural activities, which on numerous occasions required the cooperation between courts at different levels of jurisdiction. The Court emphasises that the applicant contributed to the delays in the proceedings when repeatedly questioning the impartiality of judges. In the rare cases in which his challenge was successful it was only owing to the litigation the applicant himself had initiated against the particular judge or his colleague before. The Court has already held that while applicants are entitled to make use of their procedural rights, they have to bear the consequences when this leads to delays (see, mutatis mutandis, Malicka-Wasowska v. Poland (dec.), no. 41413/98, 5 April 2001). In this connection, the Court observes that the applicant’s conduct in the present proceedings must be seen in the overall context of his litigious involvement in an extensive number of judicial proceedings both at the domestic level and before the Court, where he has lodged thirteen applications so far (see, mutatis mutandis, Dudek (VIII) v. Germany (dec.), nos. 12977/09 et al., 23 November 2010).

The Court lastly notes that the applicant was awarded the equivalent of EUR 1,515 for the length of the proceedings on the merits. While the award cannot, strictly speaking, be considered as providing adequate and sufficient redress under the Court’s relevant case-law, the sum does not differ from the appropriate just satisfaction to such an extent as to cause the applicant a significant disadvantage.

Having regard to all the foregoing considerations, the Court arrives at the conclusion that the applicant’s inconsistent attitude towards the proceedings which involved only a modest claim do not testify to the general importance of the case for him. Nor can the mildly inadequate just satisfaction have a considerable impact on the applicant’s life in view of his own contribution to the length of the proceedings in this particular case and more generally. Thus, the Court cannot discern that the applicant has suffered a significant disadvantage as a result of the alleged violations of the Convention.

2. Whether respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols requires an examination of the application on the merits

Under this safeguard clause, the Court is compelled to continue examining an application if it raises questions of a general character affecting the observance of the Convention. The Court points out that it has already held that respect for human rights does not require it to continue the examination of an application when, for example, the relevant law has changed and similar issues have been resolved in other cases before it (see Ionescu, cited above).

The Court reiterates that the issues of lengthy proceedings in the Czech Republic and of an effective remedy in this regard have been addressed on numerous occasions (see, for example, Vokurka, cited above, and Golha v. the Czech Republic, no. 7051/06, 26 May 2011).

It follows that the examination of the application would not bring any new element in this regard. The Court therefore concludes that respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols does not require an examination of the present application on the merits.

This second safeguard clause was designed to ensure that every case receives a judicial examination either at national level or at European level in order to avoid a denial of justice (see Korolev, cited above).

The Court notes that the applicant’s length complaint was examined both by the Ministry of Justice and by the Prague 2 District Court and the Prague Municipal Court. The domestic authorities acknowledged the delays and awarded the applicant EUR 1,515 in just satisfaction.

The Court concludes that the applicant’s case was duly considered by a domestic tribunal within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (b).

The applicant further complained about the fairness of the proceedings under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the relevant part of which reads as follows:

“In the determination of his civil rights and obligations ..., everyone is entitled to a fair ... hearing ... by [a] ... tribunal...”

The Court notes that despite the applicant’s numerous challenges as to the impartiality of the judges raised before the directly superior courts the applicant failed to bring the issue before the Constitutional Court.

It follows that this part of the application is inadmissible for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies within the meaning of Article 35 § 1 of the Convention and must be declared inadmissible pursuant to Article 35 § 4 (a) of the Convention.

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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> European Court of Human Rights >> Josef HAVELKA v the Czech Republic - 7332/10 [2011] ECHR 1498 (20 September 2011) URL: http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/2011/1498.html Cite as: [2011] ECHR 1498