FOURTH SECTION

PARTIAL DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 35656/97 by Jadwiga HULEWICZ against Poland

The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section) , sitting on 6 July 2000 as a Chamber composed of

Mr G. Ress, President , Mr A. Pastor Ridruejo, Mr L. Caflisch, Mr J. Makarczyk, Mr V. Butkevych, Mr J. Hedigan, Mrs S. Botoucharova , judges , [Note1]

and Mr V. Berger, Section Registrar ,

Having regard to the above application introduced with the European Commission of Human Rights on 10 June 1996 and registered on 18 April 1997,

Having regard to Article 5 § 2 of Protocol No. 11 to the Convention, by which the competence to examine the application was transferred to the Court,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant is a Polish national, born in 1952 and residing in Lębork , Poland. She is represented before the Court by Mrs M. Zawitkowska , a lawyer practising in Słupsk , Poland.

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

In 1990 the applicant acquired a right to a long-term lease of a flat ( spółdzielcze lokatorskie prawo do lokalu ) in a building owned by the Lębork Housing Co-operative ( Spćłdzielnia Mieszkaniowa ).  The applicant was (and still is) a member of the co-operative.

Since the co-operative had obtained a mortgage loan for the construction of the building, the relevant lease contracts stipulated that members of the co-operative pay off a certain part of the mortgage in monthly instalments.

On 22 July 1993 the co-operative sued the applicant in the Lębork District Court ( Sąd Rejonowy ), seeking payment.  It alleged that she had not made the required payments. On 25 October 1993 the court granted the claim but ruled that the payment be made in instalments. The applicant appealed against this judgment, arguing that the instalments had incorrectly been calculated.

On 19 January 1994 the Słupsk Regional Court ( Sąd Wojewódzki ) amended the first-instance judgment, i.e., it reduced the number of instalments and the amount of the last instalment.  It upheld the remainder of the judgment.

Subsequently, the applicant twice requested the Minister of Justice to grant her leave to file an extraordinary appeal with the Supreme Court ( Sąd Najwyższy ). Her first request was rejected on 10 October 1994.

On 1 July 1996 the Law of 1 March 1996 on Amendments to the Code of Civil Procedure and Other Statutes entered into force.  On that date the provisions relating to an extraordinary appeal were repealed and this remedy was replaced by a cassation appeal which, without any prior leave being given by the Minister, could be lodged by a party itself.   However, under transitional provisions, the Minister of Justice retained his right to lodge a cassation appeal on behalf of a party to civil proceedings.

On an unspecified later date in 1996 the Minister of Justice filed a cassation appeal on the applicant’s behalf, contesting the judgment of the Słupsk Regional Court of 19 January 1994.  On 29 April 1997 the Supreme Court quashed both judgments given in the applicant’s case and remitted the case to the court of first instance. The Supreme Court found that the lower courts committed serious errors of fact and law.

The proceedings are pending.

COMPLAINTS

1. The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention about the length of the proceedings.

2. In respect of these proceedings she also submits the following complaints:

a) under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, that her right to a “fair hearing” has not been respected and that certain judges have been biased against her;

b) under Article 8 of the Convention, that her right to respect for her family life and home has been violated.

THE LAW

1. The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention about the length of the proceedings.

The Court considers that it cannot, on the basis of the file, determine the admissibility of this complaint and that it is therefore necessary, in accordance with Rule 54 § 3 (b) of the Rules of the Court, to give notice of this complaint to the respondent Government.

2. The applicant also complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that in the proceedings in question her right to a “fair hearing” has not been respected and that certain judges have been biased against her.  Lastly, invoking Article 8 of the Convention, she complains that in these proceedings her right to respect for her family life and home has been violated.

However, the Court observes that the relevant proceedings are pending and that, therefore, these complaints are premature.

It follows that this part of the application is inadmissible as being manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention and that it must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 § 4.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

DECIDES TO ADJOURN the examination of the applicant’s complaint that the length of the proceedings in her case exceeded a “reasonable time” within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention;

DECLARES INADMISSIBLE the remainder of the application.

Vincent Berger Georg Ress Registrar President

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