SECOND SECTION

DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 40867/98 by Izabella PAAR against Hungary

The European Court of Human Rights, sitting on 20 September 2001 as a Chamber composed of [Note1]

Mr C.L. Rozakis , President , Mr A.B. Baka , Mr G. Bonello , Mrs V. Strážnická , Mr P. Lorenzen , Mr M. Fischbach , Mr A. Kovler , judges , and Mr E. Fribergh , Section Registrar ,

Having regard to the above application lodged with the European Commission of Human Rights on 7 November 1997 and registered on 22 April 1998,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Ms Izabella Paar , has the citizenship of Hungary and Australia. She was born in 1929 and lives in Perth, Australia. Her previous application (no. 22762/93) was declared inadmissible by a Committee on 7 April 1994.

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

In 1988 the applicant decided to repatriate to Hungary from her emigration in Australia. Upon her arrival in Hungary, her personal belongings were taken into customs storage pending the termination of the repatriation proceedings. On 10 March 1989 the Budapest 8th Customs Office rejected the applicant’s request for recovery of her belongings before the end of those proceedings. Her administrative appeal was to no avail.

On 19 April 1989 the applicant’s repatriation was acknowledged by the Budapest Police Department.

On 14 July 1989 the Ministry of Finance dismissed the applicant’s administrative complaint about the denial of recovery of her belongings.

Upon the applicant’s repeated complaints, on 21 May 1991 the Ministry of Finance established that no advance in the applicant’s customs affair had taken place since 1989, given that the applicant had failed to proceed to obtain an identity card. On 14 November 1991 the Deputy Head of the National Customs Authority informed her that as long as she did not deposit her Australian passport, no identity card and, consequently, no certificate for customs clearance could be issued.

On 19 June 1992 the applicant brought a compensation action before the Budapest XX/XXI District Court. The action was subsequently forwarded to the Budapest Regional Court to which the applicant submitted on 5 November 1992 that she sought compensation from the National Customs Authority on account of the customs authorities’ reluctance to proceed with the customs clearance of her belongings and on account of the damages which had resulted from their long storage.

On 20 December 1993 the Regional Court dismissed the action. The applicant appealed.

On 14 March 1995 the Supreme Court, acting as second instance, held a hearing and upheld the first-instance judgment.

On 16 May 1995 the applicant filed with the Regional Court a petition for review by the Supreme Court. She also requested that a legal-aid lawyer be appointed for her. Subsequently she left Hungary and returned to Australia.

The Supreme Court appointed a legal-aid lawyer. On 10 January 1996 the Supreme Court notified this decision to the applicant using her last known address in Budapest. The next day this notification was returned by the post on account of the fact that the applicant had moved out without having left her new address behind.

On 9 February 1996 the applicant’s legal-aid lawyer filed a completed petition for review.

On 28 June 1996 the review bench of the Supreme Court upheld the second-instance decision. This decision was served, in accordance with Section 97 of the Code of Civil Procedure, on the applicant’s lawyer on 6 September 1996. On 9 September 1996 the lawyer forwarded the decision to the applicant’s last known address in Budapest.

The applicant submits that she obtained a copy of the decision only on 18 July 2000 when she received, under her Australian address, her legal-aid lawyer’s repeated communication in the matter.

THE LAW

The applicant’s first complaint relates to the length of the proceedings, which began in 1992 and ended on 6 September 1996 with the service of the Supreme Court’s review decision on the applicant’s lawyer. They therefore lasted three years and ten months subsequent to the Convention’s entry into force with respect to Hungary on 5 November 1992.

According to the applicant, the length of the proceedings is in breach of the “reasonable time” requirement laid down in Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. In addition, she submits that the Supreme Court deliberately failed to arrange for its review decision to be served on her under her Australian address.

The Government reject the allegation. They submit that the proceedings ended on 6 September 1996 whereas the applicant introduced her application only on 7 November 1997 and thus missed the six months’ time-limit. In any event, she did not exhaust domestic remedies in that she failed to bring an official liability action. On the merits, they assert that the proceedings lasted less than four years following ratification, a period involving three court instances, which altogether did not exceed the “reasonable time” requirement.

The remainder of the applicant’s complaints concerns the Hungarian customs authorities’ procedure and the outcome of the compensation litigation. In these respects she invokes Articles 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 14 of the Convention.

Article 35 § 1 of the Convention provides:

“The Court may only deal with the matter after all domestic remedies have been exhausted, according to the generally recognised rules of international law, and within a period of six months from the date on which the final decision was taken.”

The Court notes that the final domestic decision was given by the review bench of the Supreme Court on 28 June 1996 and was served on the applicant’s lawyer on 6 September 1996, thus more than six months before 7 November 1997, the date on which the application was introduced. For the Court, the fact that the final decision could not reach the applicant under her Australian address in good time cannot be imputed to the State. Having been a party to civil proceedings in review before the Supreme Court, she could reasonably be expected to have made arrangements so that mail addressed to her was forwarded to her new address, in particular as she was represented by a lawyer (see, mutatis mutandis , the Hennings v. Germany judgment of 16 December 1992, Series A no. 251-A, p. 11, § 26; and Darnay v. Hungary, application no. 36524/97, Commission decision of 16 April 1998, unpublished).

It follows that the application has been submitted too late and must be rejected, in accordance with Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Declares the application inadmissible.

Erik Fribergh Christos Rozakis Registrar President

[Note1] Judges names are to be followed by a COMMA and a MANUAL LINE BREAK ( Shift+Enter ). When inserting names via Alt+S please REMOVE the substitute judge’s names, if necessary, and the extra paragraph return(s). (There is to be no extra space between the judges’ names and that of the Registrar.)