SECOND SECTION

DECISION

Application no . 49335/07 Miodrag MARKOVIĆ against Serbia

The European Court of Human Rights ( Second Section ), sitting on 14 January 2014 as a Chamber composed of:

Guido Raimondi , President, Dragoljub Popović , András Sajó , Nebojša Vučinić , Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque , Helen Keller , Egidijus Kūris , judges, and Stanley Naismith , Section Registrar ,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 2 November 2007 ,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr Miodrag Marković , is a Montenegrin national, who was born in 1964 . His whereabouts are unknown to the Court. He was represented before the Court by Mr Z. Ðukanović, a lawyer practi s ing in Belgrade. The Serbian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr S. Carić .

The facts of the case may be summarised as follows.

On 10 December 2006 the Serbian authorities arrested the applicant on the basis of an arrest warrant in connection with charges of money laundering issued by the National Central Bureau for the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (Skopje Interpol) . On the following day the investigating judge ordered the applicant ’ s detention , pending the outcome of the extradition proceedings.

On 12 December 2006 the applicant applied for Serbian nationality . It would appear that the applicant ’ s request is still pending.

By 16 February 2007 the competent Serbian courts found that the formal request for extradition , submitted on 17 January 2007 by the authorities of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia , had been received within 40 days, as required by the European Convention on Extradition , and that the procedural requirements for the applicant ’ s extradition had thus been fulfilled.

The applicant ’ s detention had been extended regularly, in view of the risk of his absconding and in pursuit of the requirements of the extradition proceedings. Upon the order of the Serbian Minister of Justice of 3 October 2007, o n 17 October 2007 the applicant was surrendered to the Macedonian authorities.

T he applicant ’ s claim in damages for “his unlawful detention pending extradition” was rejected by the domestic courts by 19 October 2011.

PROCEDURE BEFORE THE COURT

Relying on numerous Articles of the Convention and the Protocols thereto, the applicant complained before the Court about: (a) the fairness of the extradition proceedings; (b) the lawfulness of his detention ; and (c) the arbitrariness of his detention because of delays and bad faith on the side of the authorities while conducting the impugned extradition proceedings.

On 4 June 2012 the Court decided to give notice of the application to the Government. On 11 June 2012 the Court invited the Serbian Government to submit their observations on the admissibility and merits of the application by 1 October 2012 and , in view of the applicant ’ s nationality, informed the Government of Montenegro that they may, if they so wish, submit written comments on the case. The Registry informed the applicant about the communication of his case to the Government by letter of the same date, enclosing also an “Information to the applicants on the Proceedings after Communication of an Application”, the relevant part of which reads as follows:

“ ... The respondent Government are normally requested to submit their observations within sixteen weeks. Once these observations have been received, they will be sent to you for you to submit written observations in reply, usually together with any claim for just satisfaction under Article 41, within a time-limit of six weeks. These time-limits will not normally be extended.

Should you not wish to avail yourself of the opportunity to reply to the Government ’ s observations and to submit compensation claims under Article 41, you must inform the Court of this within the same time-limit. Failure to do so may lead the Court to considering that you have lost interest in pursuing your application and to striking your case out of its list of cases (Article 37 § 1 (a) of the Convention). “

On 27 September 2012 the Serbian Government sent their observations . The Montenegrin Government did not exercise their right to intervene.

B y letter of 8 November 2012 the Government ’ s observations were sent to the applicant ’ s lawyer , who was requested to submit any written comments of behalf of the applicant together with any claims for just satisfaction by 20 December 20 12 .

Having received no response, o n 4 April 2013 the Registry made enquiries with the applicant ’ s lawyer about the applicant ’ s interest in pursuing the case, as the period allowed for submission of the observations had expired and no extension of the time-limit had been requested. The applicant ’ s representative firstly stated that the Court ’ s letter might have been received by one of his assistants but ultimately maintained that he had not received the letter of 8 November 2012 and asked the Registry to re ‑ send him the letter with a new deadline.

On 8 April 2013 the applicant ’ s lawyer ’ s request for an extension of the time-limit was granted and the Registry sent to the lawyer , by registered mail, a copy of its letter of 8 November 2012 with enclosures. The new deadline was 3 June 2013 .

T he Court ’ s correspondence was returned to the Registry on 3 May 2013. The return receipt indicated that in the absence of the the applicants ’ lawyer on 17 April 2013, the correspondence had been deposited at the local post office and the lawyer had been notified about this on the same day. The applicant ’ s lawyer had not enquired about the correspondence within seven days and the post office had therefore returned it to the Court.

On 3 June 2013 the applicant ’ s lawyer informed the Registry, in a telephone conversation, that he had apparently been on a one-month holiday and that nobody had checked the mailbox during that period.

B y letter of the same date , sent by registered post, the applicant was exceptionally granted an extension for submission of any written observations, together with any claims for just satisfaction . The deadline set was 29 July 2013. However, the letter was again returned to the Registry on 25 June 2013, for the same reasons as earlier.

THE LAW

The relevant provisions of the Convention read as follows:

Article 37

“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

(a) the applicant does not intend to pursue his application; or

...

(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.”

The relevant provisions of the Rules of Court provide as follows:

Rule 37 § 1

“Communications or notifications addressed to the Agents or advocates of the parties shall be deemed to have been addressed to the parties.”

Rule 44A

“The parties have a duty to cooperate fully in the conduct of the proceedings and, in particular, to take such action within their power as the Court considers necessary for the proper administration of justice. This duty shall also apply to a Contracting Party not party to the proceedings where such cooperation is necessary.”

Rule 44C

“Where a party fails to adduce evidence or provide information requested by the Court or to divulge relevant information of its own motion or otherwise fails to participate effectively in the proceedings, the Court may draw such inferences as it deems appropriate.”

Rule 44E

“ In accordance with Article 37 § 1 (a) of the Convention, if an applicant Contracting Party or an individual applicant fails to pursue the application, the Chamber may strike the application out of the Court ’ s list under Rule 43.”

The Court recalls that it has in the past struck applications out of its list of cases for loss of interest when, inter alia , the applicants and/or persons appointed as their counsel before the Court had informed the Court that the applicant had not explicitly wished to pursue the application (see , for example, Weiss v. Austria (dec.), no. 74511/07, 13 June 2002, and Popovi ć v. Serbia (dec.), no. 42569/05, 21 October 2008); had failed to respond to a request to supply information or relevant documents (see, for example, Fitzmartin and others v. the United Kingdom (dec.), no. 34953/97, 21 January 2003, and Debeljević v. Serbia , no. 30903/04, 17 March 2009 ) ; had not complied with the Court ’ s request for observations or observed time-limits without a reasonable explanation ( see , among many authorities, Dabrowski v. Poland (dec.), no. 34087/96, 29 January 2002 ; Petkovi ć v. Serbia (dec.), no. 18734/05, 14 December 2010 , and Karaqi v. Serbia (dec.), no. 47450/07, 25 May 2010); had failed to notify a change of address which would enable communication ( see Yakhikhanov v. Russia (dec.), no. 61434/08, 3 June 2010 ; see also Arrni v. Serbia (dec.), no. 32739/04, 11 December 2012 ) ; or/and had not kept in contact with each other (see Ali v. Switzerland , 5 August 1998, § 32 , Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998 ‑ V ; Feal-Martinez and Pearson v. the United Kingdom (dec.), no. 1309/02, 1 July 2003, and Nehru v. the Netherlands (dec.), no. 52676/99, 27 August 2002). In the relevant above-cited cases , any professional misconduct of the applicant ’ s lawyer ha d a direct effect on the applicant ’ s position before the Court . The Court also recalls that, in accordance with Rule 37 § 1 of the Rules of Court, communications and notifications addressed to the applicant ’ s lawyers shall be deemed to have been addressed to the applicant.

In the present case, d espite several attempts by the Registry to correspond with him , the applicant ’ s lawyer did not show reasonable diligence in protecting and pursuing the applicant ’ s interests under the rules of an adversarial system.

The Court considers that, in these circumstances, the applicant may be regarded as no longer wishing to pursue his application, within the meaning of Articl e 37 § 1 (a) of the Convention.

Furthermore, the Court observes that the general principles relating to the issues raised in the present application have already been considered by the Convention organs (see, for example , Quinn v. France , 22 March 1995, Series A no. 311; Jėčius v. Lithuania , no. 34578/97, ECHR 2000 ‑ IX; Bordovskiy v. Russia , no. 49491/99, 8 February 2005; Kolompar v. Belgium, no. 11613/85, 24 September 1992, and Zamir v. United Kingdom , no. 9174/80, Commission ’ s report of 11 O ctober 1983, DR 40, p. 42, § 90 ‑ 91) . Therefore, in accordance with Article 37 § 1 in fine , the Court finds no special circumstances regarding respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols which would require the continued examination of the present case (contrast to Rantsev v. Cyprus and Russia , no. 25965/04, §§ 198-202, ECHR 2010 (extracts)), 13 April 2010, and Tehrani and Others v. Turkey , nos. 32940/08, 41626/08 and 43616/08, §§ 55-7) .

Accordingly, the Court considers that the present application should be struck out of its list of cases under Article 37 § 1(a) of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases.

             Stanley Naismith Guido Raimondi              Registrar              President