SECOND SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 31441/17 KLUB PRÁVNÍ PODPORY, NADACE V LIKVIDACI against the Czech Republic

The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 4 February 2021 as a Committee composed of:

Branko Lubarda, President, Carlo Ranzoni, Pauliine Koskelo, judges,

and Liv Tigerstedt, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 20 April 2017,

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

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

FACTS AND PROCEDURE

The applicant is a foundation established in July 1992, which has been in liquidation since 2003. The applicant foundation was represented by Ms M. Pospíšilová, a lawyer practising in Prague.

The applicant foundation’s complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention concerning the excessive length of civil proceedings were communicated to the Czech Government (“the Government”). In its observations the applicant foundation raised further complaints under that provision.

Because of an incompatibility of its statutes with the relevant law, the applicant foundation has never been registered in the register of foundations; the ensuing proceedings on its dissolution and liquidation have been pending since 2003 but the liquidation cannot be completed before all the sets of proceedings to which the applicant is a party have ended.

According to the Government, two of the applicant foundation’s founders, T.H. and M.Š., have a highly litigious profile. In July 1994, they had a verbal conflict with a prosecutor whose behaviour amounted, in their view, to a misconduct damaging the good reputation of the applicant foundation as a legal person.

Consequently, on 1 September 1994, the applicant foundation filed an action for the protection of its personality rights against that prosecutor, seeking a written apology. There were five rounds of proceedings before the Prague 1 District Court and the Municipal Court who adopted conflicting views as to the applicant foundation’s actual legal personality and legal standing. The District Court eventually dismissed the action by a judgment of 11 April 2006, finding that the prosecutor’s behaviour could not have interfered with the applicant foundation’s good reputation because it had been aimed at the individual persons, T.H. and M.Š. On 21 March 2007, this judgment was upheld by the appellate court. The applicant foundation’s appeal on points of law and its constitutional appeal were dismissed, respectively, on 22 April 2010 and 10 November 2011.

In the meantime, the applicant foundation claimed financial compensation for non-pecuniary damage sustained due to the length of the above proceedings. The Ministry of Justice acknowledged the misconduct and considered such an acknowledgement as sufficient redress, given that the applicant foundation had considerably contributed to the overall length of the proceedings and that the proceedings were of little importance.

On 26 April 2007 the applicant foundation brought a civil action for damages against the Ministry under Act no. 82/1998.

By a judgment of 28 November 2014, the Prague 5 District Court awarded the applicant foundation damages amounting to 14,250 Czech korunas (CZK - approximately 520 euros [EUR]). It considered that the impugned proceedings were complex, inter alia because of the necessity to determine the applicant foundation’s legal personality and the running of several parallel proceedings, that the applicant foundation had contributed to their length by having lodged numerous procedural motions and that the subject matter of the proceedings was of little importance for the applicant foundation. Upon the applicant foundation’s appeal, the Prague Municipal Court awarded the applicant foundation an additional sum of CZK 22,642 (approximately EUR 830), underlying the exceptional nature of the case which, in its view, justified reducing the compensation to one tenth of its regular amount. The applicant foundation’s subsequent appeal on points of law and its constitutional appeal were dismissed, respectively, on 20 May 2016 and 11 October 2016. In its decision no. IV. ÚS 2719/16 adopted on the latter date, the Constitutional Court pointed out that the amount awarded by the lower courts reflected the applicant foundation’s obstructive behaviour which contributed to a protraction of the impugned proceedings.

THE LAW

Having examined all the material before it, the Court considers that for the reasons stated below, these complaints are inadmissible.

The Government submitted, in particular, that the applicant foundation could no longer claim to be a victim of the alleged violation of the Convention. Indeed, the domestic courts had explicitly acknowledged that its right to a hearing within a reasonable time had been breached and granted it an adequate overall compensation of EUR 1,350. Their decision in this respect is justified by sufficient reasons, based on which the regular reference amount had been substantially reduced.

The applicant foundation disagreed, claiming that the compensation award had not been sufficient and that the Government’s arguments about a highly litigious or even abusive profile of its founders were unsubstantiated.

When considering whether the applicant foundation may still claim to be a victim in the present case, the Court is required to verify that there has been an acknowledgement by the authorities of a violation of the applicant foundation’s right under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and whether the payment of the given sum of money can be considered as an appropriate and sufficient redress. In this respect, the Court reiterates that, in some cases, the length of proceedings may result in only minimal non ‑ pecuniary damage or no non-pecuniary damage at all (see Nardone v. Italy , no. 34368/98, 25 November 2004). The domestic courts have to justify their decision by giving sufficient reasons (see Apicella v. Italy [GC], no. 64890/01, § 93, 29 March 2006, and Å edý v. Slovakia , no. 72237/01, § 89, 19 December 2006).

It is not disputed by the parties that the domestic courts expressly acknowledged the undue length of the proceedings on the applicant foundation’s action, which lasted for more than seventeen years before four levels of jurisdiction. As regards the non-pecuniary damage awarded to the applicant foundation, amounting to EUR 1,350, the courts admitted that they had reduced the reference amount to one tenth. Applying the criteria laid down in the Court’s case-law, they considered that amount to be adequate in the particular circumstances of the case, taking into account the complex issue of the applicant foundation’s legal standing, the fact that the applicant foundation had obstructed the proceedings by numerous motions and that the subject matter of the proceedings was of little importance for the applicant foundation.

In the light of the above facts the Court finds the reasons relied on by the domestic courts sufficient. It further notes that non-pecuniary damage is mainly intended to compensate for the anxiety, inconvenience and uncertainty caused by the violation; whether an award should be made under this head to a legal entity will depend on the circumstances of each case.

In this respect, the Court cannot overlook the fact that the applicant foundation in the present case has never been registered in the register of foundations, which indicates that it could hardly have suffered any particular damage as a result of the unreasonable length of the proceedings at issue (see, mutatis mutandis , Domira, spol. s r.o. and Meluzínová v. the Czech Republic (dec.) [Committee], nos. 60702/11 and 59633/12, § 57, 7 March 2017) . Moreover, the activity of the applicant foundation seems to be limited to conducting a large number of proceedings related to its legal existence, dissolution and legal standing, which necessarily affects its perception of the non-pecuniary damage arising from their unreasonable length (see, for example, Žirovnický v. the Czech Republic [Committee], nos. 10092/13 and 6 others, § 117, 8 February 2018).

The Court therefore concludes that, even assuming that the length of the impugned proceedings would otherwise raise an issue under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the applicant foundation can no longer claim to be a “victim” within the meaning of Article 34 of the Convention in this regard.

These complaints must therefore be declared incompatible ratione personae with the provisions of the Convention and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

In its observations of 29 October 2020, the applicant foundation raised a new complaint concerning the excessive length of the compensation proceedings. The Government objected to such an extension of the scope of the application and considered that, in any event, such a complaint should be rejected either for non-exhaustion of the domestic remedies, or for the failure to observe the six-month time-limit.

The Court observes that the applicant foundation did not complain about the length of the compensation proceedings in its initial application form. Even assuming that it intended to raise such a complaint in its observations, the Court notes that the compensation proceedings ended on 11 October 2016, that is more than six months before the filing of those observations.

Accordingly, this complaint has been introduced out of time and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Declares the application inadmissible.

Done in English and notified in writing on 25 February 2021.

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Liv Tigerstedt Branko Lubarda Acting Deputy Registrar President

APPENDIX

Application raising complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention

(excessive length of civil proceedings)

Application no.

Date of introduction

Applicant’s name

Year of registration

Representative’s name and location

Start of proceedings

End of proceedings

Total length

Levels of jurisdiction

Domestic court

File number

Domestic award

(in euros)

31441/17

20/04/2017

KLUB PRÁVNÍ PODPORY, NADACE V LIKVIDACI

1992Miluše Pospíšilová

Prague

01/09/1994

10/11/2011

17 years, 2 months and 10 days

4 levels of jurisdiction

Prague 5 District Court

File no. 9 C 216/2010

1,350