THIRD SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 45784/15 Marian LONSKÝ against Slovakia

The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 7 May 2019 as a Committee composed of:

Dmitry Dedov , President, Alena Poláčková , Jolien Schukking , judges , and Stephen Phillips , Section Registrar ,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 4 September 2015,

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

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

1. The applicant, Mr Marian Lonský , is a Slovak national, who was born in 1986 and lives in Bratislava. He was represented before the Court by Mr B. Drgo ň a, a lawyer practising in Bratislava.

The Government of the Slovak Republic (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Ms M. Piro šíková .

The circumstances of the case

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

1. The facts submitted by the applicant

3. The applicant is his mother ’ s only child and her sole heir. The facts revolve around the ownership of a piece of land situated in the centre of Bratislava, of which the applicant ’ s mother was the registered owner.

4. In April 1998 the applicant ’ s mother was informed by the Bratislava I Land Registry that it had registered another owner of the property on the basis of a sale and purchase contract dated earlier that month.

5. In response, the applicant ’ s mother filed a criminal complaint and challenged the validity of the contract in court. She argued that she did not know the buyers or the real estate agency involved in the transaction and that she had neither concluded the contract herself nor authorised anyone to conclude it on her behalf.

6. The investigation into her complaint was stayed as no grounds were found to bring charges against a specific person. The validity of the contract was confirmed in a judgment that became final and binding on 3 September 1999.

7. Nevertheless, in 2006 the applicant ’ s mother brought a separate set of proceedings aimed at obtaining a declaratory ruling to the effect that she was the owner of the property. Courts at two levels of jurisdiction allowed the action in a judgment that became final and binding on 10 May 2013.

8. However, in response to an extraordinary appeal on points of law lodged by the Prosecutor General following an application by the buyers, the Supreme Court quashed that judgment on the ground that the lower courts had erred in law when examining the applicant ’ s mother ’ s title to the property by determining anew the validity of the contract of 1998 as a preliminary issue. As that issue had already been settled by a final and binding judgment, the lower courts should have based their assessment of that preliminary point on that judgment.

As a result, the matter was remitted to the first-instance court for re ‑ examination.

9. On 2 February 2015 the applicant ’ s mother challenged the Supreme Court ’ s judgment in the Constitutional Court by way of a complaint under Article 127 of the Constitution, arguing, inter alia , that the quashing of the final and binding judgment in her favour in the given circumstances had been contrary to the principles of legal certainty and equality of arms.

10. The applicant ’ s mother died on 11 March 2015 and the applicant expressed the wish to continue the constitutional proceedings in her stead.

11. On 2 June 2015 the Constitutional Court discontinued the proceedings. It referred to the special character of proceedings in respect of complaints under Article 127 of the Constitution as concerning the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms of a personal nature par excellence , which was in principle not transferrable. It found that the subject matter of the proceedings did not allow them to be continued after the applicant ’ s mother had passed away.

2. Facts completed by the Government

12. In their observations on the admissibility and merits of the present application, the Government completed the facts as follows.

13. The applicant is currently registered in the cadastral records as the lawful owner of the property in question, having acquired title to it by way of a gift from his mother in April 2013.

14. Since April 2015 third parties have been claiming title to the land in a separate set of proceedings which the applicant unsuccessfully sought to have stayed pending the outcome of his a pplication before the Court. In those proceedings, a judgment was given on 9 May 2017 recognising the claimants ’ title and finding that the deed of gift, which had been concluded on 19 April 2013, was void. The applicant appealed against that decision and the proceedings are ongoing.

15. Meanwhile, the applicant, as the sole heir of his deceased mother, became a party to the proceedings that had originally been initiated by her. After the Supreme Court had quashed the judgment declaring her to be the owner of the property, those proceedings were remitted to the first-instance court for re-examination. After the dismissal of the applicant ’ s request that they be stayed pending the outcome of the present application before the Court, those proceedings are still pending re-examination at first instance.

COMPLAINTS

16. The applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the discontinuation of the constitutional proceedings had been contrary to his right of access to court and that the quashing of the final and binding judgment in favour of his legal predecessor was contrary to the principles of legal certainty and equality of arms. In relation to the quashing of the judgment, he also alleged a violation of his rights under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention. Lastly, under Article 13 of the Convention, he asserted that he had been denied an effective remedy in relation to his complaints concerning the quashing of the final and binding judgment in his legal predecessor ’ s favour.

THE LAW

17. In their observations on the admissibility and merits of these complaints, the Government supplemented the relevant facts as outlined above. They argued that the transfer of the title to the property in question to the applicant by way of a gift in 2013 as well as the fact that this gift was being contested in a separate set of proceedings were matters of crucial importance for the assessment of the case in its context and objected that, by failing to disclose these facts to the Court, the applicant had abused the right of individual application within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention.

18. In reply, the applicant contended that these matters were irrelevant to the assessment of the present case, the core of which he summarised as being that his rights had been violated by the quashing of the final and binding judgment in his mother ’ s favour which had constituted her possession.

19. The Court notes that, under Rule 47 § 7 of the Rules of Court, applicants are to keep it informed of all circumstances relevant to the application and that, under Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention, it is required to declare any individual application inadmissible if it considers that the application is an abuse of the right of individual application.

20. The Court reiterated the relevant principles in its judgment in the case of Gross v. Switzerland [GC] (no. 67810/10, § 28, ECHR 2014) as follows. An application may be rejected as an abuse of the right of individual application if, among other reasons, it was knowingly based on untrue facts. The submission of incomplete and thus misleading information may also amount to an abuse of the right of application, especially if the information concerns the very core of the case and no sufficient explanation has been provided for the failure to disclose that information. The same applies if new and important developments have occurred during the proceedings before the Court and where, despite being expressly required to do so by Rule 47 § 7 (formerly Rule 47 § 6) of the Rules of Court, the applicant has failed to disclose that information to the Court, thereby preventing it from ruling on the case in full knowledge of the facts. However, even in such cases, the applicant ’ s intention to mislead the Court must always be established with sufficient certainty.

21. The present application involves a peculiarity in that it was introduced by a person (the applicant) other than the one directly affected by the contested decision (the applicant ’ s mother). It has been based on the premise that the applicant became affected by the domestic court ’ s decision as his late mother ’ s sole heir, including in so far as it related to her title to the property in question.

22. However, as the correspondence with the parties has revealed, the applicant is currently registered as the lawful, albeit challenged, owner of that property, on the basis of a deed of gift that pre-dates both his mother ’ s death and the introduction of the present application.

23. The application is based on the premise that the applicant inherited the property although in fact, as matters legally stand at the current time, he actually acquired title to it by other means. By not providing the Court with that piece of information, the applicant based his application on information that was incomplete.

24. The withheld information is of crucial importance for the assessment of whether the judgment in his late mother ’ s favour actually related to a determination of any civil rights and obligations on her part and, if so, whether the applicant can be said to have any legitimate interest in pursuing those rights before the Court in his own name. It accordingly affects the very core of the case.

25. The applicant sought to explain why he withheld that information by arguing that he considered it to be irrelevant for the subject matter of this case. However, that explanation is contradicted by his attempts to have two sets of ongoing domestic proceedings stayed pending the outcome of the Convention proceedings, which in and of itself constitutes an admission that the subject matters of these proceedings are interrelated.

26. It is true that, if viewed alone, the present application involves a well-defined set of Convention questions limited to one specific phase of one set of domestic proceedings. However, those proceedings form a part of a larger interrelated series of cases dealing with essentially one and the same matter. While the applicant expected the Court ’ s decision to have an impact on the other sets of domestic proceedings, he did not inform it of the relevant facts to be determined in those proceedings.

27. In these circumstances, the applicant ’ s explanation cannot be accepted as sufficient, particularly as at all stages before the Court he has been assisted by a lawyer (see Buzinger v. Slovakia ( dec. ), no. 32133/10, § 23, 16 June 2015).

28. What is more, the Court notes that the existence of the deed of gift in relation to the property, from the date it was created up to the date of the decisions contested by the present application, does not appear to have been disclosed in the domestic proceedings that sought to have his mother declared as the lawful owner of that property. In the Court ’ s view, this cannot but be seen as indicative of a prima facie deliberate strategy.

29. In that regard, the Court would emphasise that, in general, lawyers must understand that, having due regard to the Court ’ s duty to examine allegations of human rights violations, they must show a high level of professional prudence and meaningful cooperation with the Court by sparing it from the introduction of unmeritorious complaints and, once proceedings have been instituted, then meticulously abide by all the relevant rules of the procedure and urge th eir clients to do the same (see Bekauri v. Georgia (preliminary obj ection), no. 14102/02, § 24, 10 April 2012).

30. In view of that standard, the Court finds it sufficiently established that by omitting to disclose the information in question to the Court the applicant intended to mislead it within the meaning of the above-cited case ‑ law.

31. Accordingly, it is appropriate to reject the application as an abuse of the right of individual application, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Declares the application inadmissible.

Done in English and notified in writing on 28 May 2019 .

Stephen Phillips Dmitry Dedov Registrar President