THIRD SECTION

DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 58391/00 by Gennadiy MALININ against Russia

The European Court of Human Rights ( Third Section) , sitting on 8 July 2004 as a Chamber composed of:

Mr G. Ress , President , Mr I. Cabral Barreto , Mr L. Caflisch , Mr B. Zupančič , Mr J. Hedigan , Mr A. Kovler , Mrs A. Gyulumyan, judges , and Mr V. Berger , Section Registrar ,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 15 March 2000,

Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicants,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr Gennadiy Ivanovich Malinin, is a Russian national who was born in 1944 and lives in St. Petersburg. The respondent Government are represented by Mr P. Laptev, Representative of the Russian Federation at the European Court of Human Rights.

A. The circumstances of the case

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

On 21 January 1988 the applicant’s mother, Ms Malinina, offered her private house to the Vyborgskiy District Executive Committee, a Soviet era local self-government body, because the latter had earlier provided her with two flats in town.

On 31 May 1989 Ms Malinina brought a civil action to have the offer declared null and void. She submitted that at the time of the transaction she had suffered from a mental disease and her perception of reality had been distorted. The applicant and the new owner of the house, Mr E., were joined to the proceedings as third parties.

According to the applicant, between that date and 17 February 1992, the Vyborgskiy District Court of St. Petersburg fixed 14 hearings. On ten occasions the hearing was adjourned because the defendant and/or third persons failed to appear.

On 17 March 1992 Ms Malinina died, according to the information supplied by the Government. The proceedings were suspended pending the determination of her legal successor.

On 22 September 1992 (there is an apparent clerical error in the Government’s information where the year is indicated as 1993) the court designated the applicant as her legal successor in the proceedings. On the same date (on 2 November 1992, according to the applicant) it appointed an expert to carry out a post-mortem forensic examination of the mental state of the late Ms Malinina.

On 5 May 1993 the proceedings were resumed.

On 11 March 1996 the Vyborgskiy District Court of St. Petersburg granted the action and held that the offer had been null and void. No appeal was lodged against the judgment and the court proceeded with the determination of the amount of damage.

On 4 June 1997 the Presidium of the St. Petersburg City Court quashed, by way of supervisory-review proceedings, the judgment of 11 March 1996 and remitted the case for a new examination by a differently composed bench. The judgment was quashed because it had been made in the absence of the defendant.

The applicant complained to various authorities, including the Prosecutor General’s office and St. Petersburg prosecutor’s office, about unreasonable delays in the proceedings. On 3 March 1999 the St. Petersburg prosecutor’s office responded that prosecutors were not competent to review judges’ compliance with procedural time-limits.

On 5 May 1998 the Convention entered into force in respect of the Russian Federation.

On 12 May 1998 the presiding judge granted a request of a third party for additional property documents and the applicant’s request for summoning a new witness. The proceedings were accordingly adjourned.

On 19 August 1998 the hearing was adjourned as no response to the request for additional property documents had been received. The applicant, according to him, had a conflict with the presiding judge. He was fined for contempt of court.

On 12 November 1998 the presiding judge was ill.

On 25 January 1999 the defendant’s representative and the third party’s lawyer did not appear.

On 3 March 1999 the defendant and the third party did not appear.

On 13 April 1999 the hearing was adjourned. According to the applicant, it was so because the court registry had not prepared the case file. According to the Government, the presiding judge was ill.

On 28 April 1999 the hearing was adjourned because the applicant had lodged a complaint with the Prosecutor General’s office and the case-file was forwarded there.

On 5 August 1999 the presiding judge was absent. The applicant alleges that she was attending a training course. The Government indicate that she was unavailable because she was taking part in the hearing of another case.

On 5 October 1999 the court granted Mr E.’s request and joined him to the proceedings as a co-defendant. The hearing was adjourned because Mr E.’s lawyer was absent for a valid reason.

On 18 November 1999 the court granted Mr E.’s request to carry out an expert evaluation of the enhancements to the contested house. The proceedings were suspended for the time-period required for the examination. According to the applicant, he challenged the presiding judge; the challenge was dismissed.

On 26 December 1999 the St. Petersburg City Court dismissed the applicant’s complaint about the court’s decision to order the expert evaluation.

On an unspecified date the expert evaluation was ready and the proceedings resumed.

On 16 October 2000 the court joined the applicant’s claims against Mr E. to the proceedings and severed the action of the Vyborgskiy District Administration against the applicant and his relatives into separate proceedings.

On 24 October 2000 the parties were heard; the proceedings were adjourned at the applicant’s request.

On 3 November 2000 the Vyborgskiy District Court of St. Petersburg dismissed the applicant’s action and confirmed the validity of the offer made by Ms Malinina in 1988.

On 29 January 2001 the St. Petersburg City Court, on the applicant’s appeal, upheld the judgment of 3 November 2000.

B. Relevant domestic law

Article 99 of the Code of Civil Procedure of 11 June 1964 (in force at the material time) provided that civil cases were to be prepared for a hearing no later than seven days after the action was submitted to the court. In exceptional cases, this period could be extended for up to twenty days. Civil cases were to be examined no later than one month after the preparation for the hearing was completed.

COMPLAINTS

The applicant complain ed under Articles 1, 6, 13, 14, 17 and 53 of the Convention about the excessive length of the proceedings in the action originally lodged by his mother and allegedly unfair decisions of the domestic courts.

THE LAW

The applicant complained about the excessive length and alleged unfairness of the proceedings concerning the validity of the offer made by his mother. The Court considers that this complaint falls to be examined under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention which provides as follows:

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

(a) The Government indicate that the length of the proceedings was objectively justified because the applicant and the defendants had continuously amended and supplemented their claims. The defendants and third parties failed to appear at hearings. On several occasions the proceedings had to be adjourned in order to grant the applicant’s and third parties’ requests for obtaining additional evidence. Finally, hearings had to be re-scheduled because the presiding judge was ill or unavailable.

The applicant maintains that the length of the proceedings in his case was incompatible with Article 6 § 1. The proceedings dragged on for fifteen years instead of one month as required by the domestic law. The remainder of the applicant’s submissions concerns the merits of his claims determined in the domestic proceedings.

The Court notes that the period to be taken into consideration began only on 5 May 1998 when the recognition by Russia of the right of individual petition took effect. However, in assessing the reasonableness of the time that elapsed after that date, account must be taken of the state of proceedings at the time. As of that date the proceedings had been pending before a first-instance court. The period in question ended on 29 January 2001 when the St. Petersburg City Court gave its final judgment. The Court thus has competence ratione temporis to examine the period of two years, eight months and 24 days.

The Court reiterates that the reasonableness of the length of proceedings must be assessed in the light of the circumstances of the case and with reference to the criteria established by its case-law, particularly the complexity of the case, the conduct of the applicant and of the relevant authorities and what was at stake for the applicant in the dispute (see, among many other authorities, Frydlender v. France [GC], no. 30979/96, § 43, ECHR 2000-VII).

The Court considers that the case was a complex one. The domestic courts were confronted with claims of several parties who sought a confirmation of their title to the contested premises. On several occasions the parties changed, amended and supplemented their claims. They also lodged requests to have their respective procedural positions altered. A further complicating factor was that the courts were called upon to decide on the contractual capacity of a person who had died shortly after the beginning of the proceedings. The Court finds that the task of the courts was rendered more difficult by these factors, although it cannot accept that the complexity of the case, taken on its own, was such as to justify the overall length of the proceedings.

Insofar as the behaviour of the applicant is concerned, it should be noted that the proceedings were adjourned because of his actions on two occasions: on 28 April 1999 and on 24 October 2000. Whilst the latter adjournment resulted in a relatively short pause of two weeks, the former entailed a more significant delay of some three months. As the applicant failed to provide any explanation about the contents of his complaint to the Prosecutor General’s office and its relevance to the main civil proceedings, the Court infers that this delay was attributable to the applicant.

As regards the conduct of the authorities, the Court observes, firstly, that the proceedings were adjourned on 12 November 1998, 13 April and 5 August 1999 because the presiding judge was either ill or unavailable. The resulting delays spanned for slightly less than five months. It further notes the longest period, for which no detailed account was offered by either party, appears to be the one between 18 November 1999 and 16 October 2000. It transpires from the Government’s submissions that during that period an expert evaluation of the enhancements of the contested house ordered by the court at Mr E.’s request was carried out. The Court recalls in this respect that the principal responsibility for the delay due to the expert opinions rests ultimately with the State (see Capuano v. Italy , judgment of 25 June 1987, Series A no. 119, § 32). Accordingly, this period, at least in part, is imputable to the State. Apart from the period discussed above, no significant periods of inactivity can be observed, the hearings were scheduled at regular intervals and the parties’ requests were examined in the same or in the following hearing. The Court also does not lose sight of the fact that the applicant’s claims and the defendants’ counterclaims were adjudicated at two levels of jurisdiction.

Regard being had to all the circumstances of the case and the complexity of the facts and the legal issues involved, as well as to the state of the proceedings when the Convention entered in force in respect of Russia, the relatively short delays for which no plausible explanation was offered do not warrant the conclusion that the length of the proceedings was excessive, and the Court accordingly finds that the “reasonable time” requirement has been complied with.

It follows that the complaint is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

(b) Insofar as the applicant’s complaint may be understood to concern the assessment of evidence, including statements by witnesses, the Court reiterates that, according to Article 19 of the Convention, its duty is to ensure the observance of the engagements undertaken by the Contracting Parties to the Convention. In particular, it is not its function to deal with errors of fact or law allegedly committed by a national court unless and in so far as they may have infringed rights and freedoms protected by the Convention (see, e.g. , Cekic and Others v. Croatia (dec.), no. 15085/02, 9 October 2003). Moreover, while Article 6 of the Convention guarantees the right to a fair hearing, it does not lay down any rules on the admissibility of evidence or the way it should be assessed, which are therefore primarily matters for regulation by national law and the national courts (see García Ruiz v. Spain [GC], no. 30544/96, § 28, ECHR 1999 ‑ I ).

Turning to the facts of the present case, the Court finds that there is nothing to indicate that the domestic courts’ evaluation of the facts and evidence presented in the applicant’s case was contrary to Article 6 of the Convention. The applicant was fully able to present his case and challenge the evidence; all essential evidence was produced; there had been a public hearing at first instance and the courts’ decisions were satisfactorily reasoned. Having regard to the facts, as submitted, the Court has not found any reason to believe that the proceedings did not comply with the fairness requirement of Article 6 of the Convention.

It follows that the complaint is also manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Declares the application inadmissible.

Vincent berger Georg Ress Registrar President