Alois HLASENSKY and Helena HLASENSKA v the Czech Republic - 63233/09 [2010] ECHR 1755 (5 October 2010)

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Application no. 63233/09
by Alois HLÁSENSKÝ and Helena HLÁSENSKÁ
against the Czech Republic

The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 5 October 2010 as a Chamber composed of:

Karel Jungwiert,
Mark Villiger,
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska,
Zdravka Kalaydjieva,
Ganna Yudkivska, juges,
and Claudia Westerdiek, Section Registrar,

The applicants, Mr Alois Hlásenský and Mrs Helena Hlásenská, are Czech nationals who were born in 1955 and live in Slavkov u Brna. They are represented before the Court by Mr Petr Zivěla, a lawyer practising in Vyškov.

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

On 6 August 2009 the applicants lodged a constitutional appeal before the Constitutional Court. The constitutional appeal was signed by the applicants and dated 2 August 2009. Attached to it was a power of attorney, dated 6 August 2009.

On 31 August 2009 the Constitutional Court informed the applicants and the attorney that the constitutional appeal had to be written by the legal representative. They were invited to rectify the shortcoming by resubmitting the constitutional appeal, written by the attorney, within twenty days. The Constitutional Court noted that in case of failure on the part of the applicants, the constitutional appeal would be rejected under
Section 43 § 1 a) of the Constitutional Court Act.

On 10 September 2009 the applicants' attorney sent to the Constitutional Court a letter in which he stated that he had been representing the applicants from the very beginning of the proceedings and that, after consulting the applicants, he would not supplement the constitutional appeal in any way.

On 24 September 2009 the Constitutional Court rejected the constitutional appeal, holding that the applicants had failed to rectify its shortcomings in due time. It also noted that one of the applicants had lodged several constitutional appeals in the past and had previously been invited to rectify his submissions, and hence was well aware of the formal requirements.

Pursuant to Section 30 (1), natural and legal persons must be represented by an attorney before the Constitutional Court.

Section 43 (1) (a) provides that the Rapporteur shall, by preliminary ruling, reject the application if the applicant fails to rectify defects in the application in the time-limit set.

Under Articles 6, 13, 14, 17 and 18 of the Convention the applicants complained about the obligation to be represented by a lawyer before the Constitutional Court. They also contended that the Constitutional Court's interpretation of that obligation had been too formalistic and discriminatory as the Constitutional Court had not been satisfied with the letter in which the attorney had stated that he had represented the applicants from the beginning of the proceedings.

The applicants complained about the requirement of legal representation before the Constitutional Court and about the very formalistic interpretation of that requirement, relying on Articles 6, 13, 14, 17 and 18 of the Convention. The Court considers it appropriate to examine this complaint only 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 and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law (...)”

The applicants disputed the arguments that the Constitutional Court had stated in its decision of 24 September 2009. They maintained that they had submitted a power of attorney during the proceedings before the Constitutional Court, fully in accordance with the Constitutional Court Act. As they had complied with the request by the Constitutional Court, it was too formalistic to reject their constitutional appeal only because they had not been represented by the attorney from the very beginning of the proceedings and because the attorney had not written the appeal himself.

The Court notes that that the right of access to a court is not absolute. It is in the first place for the national authorities, and notably the courts, to interpret domestic law and the Court will not substitute its own interpretation for theirs in the absence of arbitrariness. This applies in particular to the interpretation by courts of rules of a procedural nature. Although time-limits and procedural rules governing appeals by the prosecution must be adhered to as part of the concept of a fair procedure, in principle it is for the national courts to police the conduct of their own proceedings (see Tejedor García v. Spain, 16 December 1997, § 31, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997 VIII).

Where the individual's access is limited either by operation of law or in fact, the Court will examine whether the limitation imposed impaired the essence of the right and, in particular, whether it pursued a legitimate aim and there was a reasonable relationship of proportionality between the means employed and the aim sought (see Ashingdane v. the United Kingdom, judgment of 28 May 1985, § 57, Series A no. 93, and Związek Nauczycielstwa Polskiego v. Poland, no. 42049/98, 21 September 2004, §§ 28-29). If the restriction is compatible with these principles, no violation of Article 6 will arise (see Z and Others v. the United Kingdom [GC],
no. 29392/95, §§ 92-93, ECHR 2001 V).

As regards the requirement of legal representation before the Czech Constitutional Court, the Court points out that it is intended to limit frivolous applications to this supreme judicial authority. The Court considers that such a requirement pursues the legitimate aim of ensuring the proper administration of justice (see, for example, Werner Kröhnert v. the Czech Republic (dec), no. 60224/00, 9 October 2001).

As for the interpretation of this statutory obligation, the Court notes that the domestic courts are better placed to interpret national law. In the present case the applicants lodged a constitutional appeal which was signed and sent by them; attached to it was a power of attorney of a later date. They were informed by the Constitutional Court, referring to Section 30 § 1 of the Constitutional Court Act, that they had not met the statutory requirements laid down for submitting a constitutional appeal and they were advised on how to rectify their submission. Despite the fact that the applicants were given sufficient extra time and were warned in unambiguous terms about the consequences of their failure to resubmit the constitutional appeal properly, they did not submit any constitutional appeal signed by their lawyer.

The Court finds that the requirement to resubmit the constitutional appeal written and signed by a lawyer does not per se disclose any disproportionate burden or clog on the exercise of the right of access to court. The Court considers that the Constitutional Court's approach in this case pursued the legitimate aims of legal security and proper administration of justice and cannot be qualified as excessively formalistic (see, mutatis mutandis, Steiniger v. the Czech Republic (dec.), no. 3673/03, 24 August 2010).

It follows that the application is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected under Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.

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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> European Court of Human Rights >> Alois HLASENSKY and Helena HLASENSKA v the Czech Republic - 63233/09 [2010] ECHR 1755 (5 October 2010) URL: http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/2010/1755.html Cite as: [2010] ECHR 1755