Vida BUSER and others v Slovenia - 29022/06 [2011] ECHR 201 (11 January 2011)

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Applications nos. 29022/06, 35506/06, 1101/07, 1803/07 and 1948/07
by Vida BUSER and others
against Slovenia

The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 11 January 2011 as a Committee composed of:

Having regard to the Government’s settlement proposals made to the applicants,

Mr JoZe Vesel was not represented before the Court. Ms Vida Buser was represented before the Court by Ms M. Končan Verstovšek, a lawyer practising in Celje. Mr Zdenko Lipovec was represented before the Court by Mr Boštjan Verstovšek, a lawyer practising in Celje. Ms Slavka Lešnik and Ms Marija Starc were represented before the Court by Ms J. Gričnik, a lawyer practicing in Zalec.

The Slovenian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr Lucijan Bembič, State Attorney-General.

The applicants were parties to civil proceedings which terminated before 1 January 2007.

The Act on the Protection of the Right to a Trial without Undue Delay (Zakon o varstvu pravice do sojenja brez nepotrebnega odlašanja, Official Gazette, No. 49/2006 – “the 2006 Act”) became operational on 1 January 2007.

Section 25 lays down the following transitional rules in relation to the applications already pending before the Court:

Section 25 - Just satisfaction for damage sustained prior to implementation of this Act

“(1) In cases where a violation of the right to a trial without undue delay has already ceased and the party had filed a claim for just satisfaction with the international court before the date of implementation of this Act, the State Attorney’s Office shall offer the party a settlement on the amount of just satisfaction within four months after the date of receipt of the case referred by the international court for the settlement procedure. The party shall submit a settlement proposal to the State Attorney’s Office within two months of the date of receipt of the proposal of the State Attorney’s Office. The State Attorney’s Office shall decide on the proposal as soon as possible and within a period of four months at the latest.....

(2) If the proposal for settlement referred to in paragraph 1 of this section is not acceded to or the State Attorney’s Office and the party fail to negotiate an agreement within four months after the date on which the party filed its proposal, the party may bring an action before the competent court under this Act. The party may bring an action within six months after receiving the State Attorney’s Office reply that the party’s proposal referred to in the previous paragraph was not acceded to, or after the expiry of the period fixed in the previous paragraph for the State Attorney’s Office to decide to proceed with settlement. Irrespective of the type or amount of the claim, the provisions of the Civil Procedure Act concerning small claims shall apply in proceedings before a court.”

The applicants complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the civil proceedings had been excessively long. They also complained that they did not have an effective domestic remedy in this regard (Article 13 of the Convention).

In the present cases, the Court notes that, after the Government had been given notice of the applications in 2010, all the applicants received the State Attorney’s Office’s settlement proposals under section 25 of the 2006 Act acknowledging a violation of the right to a trial within a reasonable time and offering redress for non-pecuniary damage (see the attached annex). It further notes that the applicants have since been in a position either to negotiate a settlement with the State Attorney’s Office or, if that should be unsuccessful, to lodge a “claim for just satisfaction” in accordance with the relevant provisions of the 2006 Act (see “Relevant domestic law” above). The latter has been considered by the Court to constitute appropriate means of redressing a breach of the reasonable time requirement of Article 6 that has already occurred (see Pohlen v Slovenia (dec.), no. 28457/03, §§ 40-43, 3 June 2008).

The Court reiterates Article 37 of the Convention, which in the relevant part reads as follows:

“1. The Court may at any stage of the proceedings decide to strike an application out of its list of cases where the circumstances lead to the conclusion that

(c) for any other reason established by the Court, it is no longer justified to continue the examination of the application.

However, the Court shall continue the examination of the application if respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and the Protocols thereto so requires.

Having regard to the foregoing, the Court considers that it is no longer justified to continue with the examination of the applications and that they should be struck out of the list of cases in accordance with Article 37 § 1 (c). In reaching this conclusion, the Court has taken into account its competence under Article 37 § 2 of the Convention to restore a case to its list of cases if it considers that the circumstances justify such a course.

No.	Application No.	Applicant’s Name	Year of Birth	Address	Date of Introduction	Date of settlement proposal or agreement signed by the State Attorney
1.	29022/06	Vida BUSER	1971	Štore	26/06/2006	30/08/2010
2.	35506/06	Zdenko LIPOVEC	1956	Koper	25/05/2006	06/10/2010
3.	1101/07	Slavka LEŠNIK	1951	Ljubno ob Savinji	20/12/2006	23/09/2010
4.	1803/07	JoZe VESEL	1947	Trzin	20/12/2006	23/08/2010
5.	1948/07	Marija STARC	1971	Šempeter v Savinjski dolini	20/12/2006	29/09/2010

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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> European Court of Human Rights >> Vida BUSER and others v Slovenia - 29022/06 [2011] ECHR 201 (11 January 2011) URL: http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/2011/201.html Cite as: [2011] ECHR 201