SECOND SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 16008/20
Albert ŽIROVNICKÝ
against the Czech Republic
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 20 May 2021 a Committee composed of:
Branko Lubarda, President,
Carlo Ranzoni,
Pauliine Koskelo, judges,
and Viktoriya Maradudina, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 16 March 2020,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
FACTS AND PROCEDURE
The applicant is a Czech national who was born in 1968. He was represented by Ms E.-M. Bollecker, a lawyer practising in Strasbourg.
The applicant's complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention concerning the excessive length of civil proceedings were communicated to the Czech Government ("the Government").
Main proceedings no. 21 C 170/2007
On 28 June 2007 the applicant brought an action against J.Š., seeking to have a book of poems returned which he had once offered to his former wife and which the latter had handed over to J.Š., in his capacity as a police officer, as an alleged proof of the applicant's involvement in a crime. Alternatively, he requested to be paid damages.
Until October 2008 the Prague 6 District Court dealt with the applicant's request to be exempted from paying court fees and tried to remedy various shortcomings of his action. The applicant also asked that a hearing scheduled for 12 May 2009 be postponed. The court then sought to secure evidence, including the police file, and repeatedly tried to hear evidence from the applicant's ex-wife who eventually refused to provide any statement.
By a judgment of 18 January 2012, the court dismissed the action in part and discontinued the proceedings for the remainder.
On 25 October 2012 the Prague Municipal Court dismissed the applicant's appeal; its judgment became final on 7 February 2013.
In view of lodging an appeal on points of law, the applicant asked to be exempted from court fees and appointed a lawyer. After his request was granted, the appeal on points of law was lodged through his representative. The proceedings ended with the Constitutional Court's decision of 19 June 2018.
Compensation proceedings no. 23 C 6/2014
On 4 July 2013 the applicant claimed compensation under the State Liability Act (Act no. 82/1998) from the Ministry of Justice for non-pecuniary damage arising from the excessive length of the main proceedings. As the Ministry did not grant his request, he brought a civil action on 15 January 2014.
In a judgment of 22 September 2015, the Prague 2 District Court acknowledged that there had been a violation of the applicant's right to have his case heard within a reasonable time but dismissed the action regarding financial compensation. According to the court, the finding of a violation constituted adequate redress, given that the proceedings - still pending at that time - had not been of any major importance for the applicant and that their length, to which he had partly contributed, had neither had any negative impact on him nor resulted in such a degree of uncertainty which would have required financial compensation.
On 17 May 2016 the Prague Municipal Court upheld the judgment, finding the District Court's reasoning exhaustive and convincing.
On 31 October 2017 the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal on points of law. A constitutional complaint was dismissed as manifestly ill-founded by the Constitutional Court on 19 November 2019.
THE LAW
Relying on Article 6 of the Convention, the applicant complained about the excessive length of both sets of the proceedings to which he had been a party.
The Government submitted that the application was inadmissible because the applicant had not suffered any significant disadvantage, his action having been doomed to failure from the very outset; that the applicant, known for his obstructive and litigious behaviour, abused his right of application; and that he could no longer claim to be a victim of the alleged violation of the Convention. The domestic courts had explicitly acknowledged that his right to a hearing within a reasonable time had been breached and duly explained why there had been no reason to grant him financial compensation on that account. With regard to the length of the compensation proceedings, the Government contended that the applicant had not exhausted domestic remedies since he had failed to follow the current domestic courts' practice and to seek, by submitting the relevant claim in a qualified manner, a higher compensation for non-pecuniary damage due to protracted compensation proceedings (see also Final Resolution CM/ResDH(2020)252 of 1 December 2020, adopted in the applicant's previous case).
The applicant disagreed, having insisted that the compensatory remedy provided by Act no. 82/1998 was not effective.
Having examined all the material before it, the Court does not consider it necessary to determine whether the applicant suffered a significant disadvantage or whether his procedural activity amounted to an abuse of the right of individual petition, given that the application is in any event inadmissible for the reasons stated below.
When considering whether the applicant may still claim to be a victim in the present case, the Court is required to verify whether the national authorities have acknowledged and then afforded appropriate and sufficient redress for the breach of the Convention (see Cocchiarella v. Italy [GC], no. 64886/01, §§ 71-72, ECHR 2006-V). In this respect, the Court reiterates that, in some cases, the length of proceedings may result in only minimal non-pecuniary damage or no non-pecuniary damage at all (see Nardone v. Italy, no. 34368/98, 25 November 2004). The domestic courts have to justify their decision by giving sufficient reasons (see Apicella v. Italy [GC], no. 64890/01, § 93, 29 March 2006, and Šedý v. Slovakia, no. 72237/01, § 89, 19 December 2006).
It is not disputed by the parties that the domestic courts expressly acknowledged the undue length of the main proceedings instituted by the applicant, which lasted for almost eleven years before four levels of jurisdiction. They, however, dismissed the applicant's request for compensation of non-pecuniary damage, noting that the proceedings had not been of any major importance for the applicant and that their length neither had any negative impact on him nor resulted in such a degree of uncertainty which would have required financial compensation.
In light of the above facts the Court finds the reasons relied on by the domestic courts sufficient. It further notes that, while non-pecuniary damage is mainly intended to compensate for the anxiety, inconvenience and uncertainty caused by the violation, the applicant's practice of having extensive recourse to judicial proceedings necessarily affects its perception of the non-pecuniary damage arising from their unreasonable length (see, for example, Žirovnický v. the Czech Republic [Committee], nos. 10092/13 and 6 others, § 117, 8 February 2018).
The Court therefore concludes that, even assuming that the length of the main proceedings would otherwise raise an issue under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the applicant can no longer claim to be a "victim" within the meaning of Article 34 of the Convention in this regard.
As regards the compensation proceedings, the Court observes that it is conceivable that the court in determining the amount of compensation will acknowledge its own delay and that accordingly, and in order not to penalise the applicant later, it will award a particularly high amount of compensation in order to make good the further delay (see Cocchiarella, cited above, § 98).
Taking into account that the domestic judicial practice allowing for such a possibility has evolved since the above-mentioned judgment in Žirovnický (§ 156), as submitted by the Government and accepted by the Committee of Ministers, the Court observes that it does not appear from the documents accompanying the present application that the applicant had submitted within the compensation proceedings a concrete and quantified claim for higher compensation which could offer him redress for the length of those proceedings. In this context, the Court also notes that while the compensation proceedings lasted for more than six years and four months before four levels of jurisdiction, the applicant was not obliged to pursue them all the way through the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court (see Najvar v. the Czech Republic (dec.), no. 8302/06, 3 March 2009).
It follows that the applicant's complaint concerning the length of the compensation proceedings must be declared inadmissible for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies pursuant to Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons
, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 10 June 2021.
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Viktoriya Maradudina Branko Lubarda
Acting Deputy Registrar President