THIRD SECTION

DECISION

Application s no s . 17292/06 , 18825/06, 19181/06, 30528/06, 266/07, 31426/08 and 51399/09 by Nedžad SOFTIČ and Others against Slovenia

The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 2 November 2010 as a Committee composed of:

Elisabet Fura , President, Boštjan M. Zupančič , Ineta Ziemele , judges, and Santiago Quesada, Section Registrar ,

Having regard to the above applications,

Having regard to the Government ’ s settlement proposals made to the applicants,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

1 . Six applicants are nationals of Slovenia (see the attached appendix).

The applicant Mr I. Kudozović is a national of Bosnia and Herzegovina .

2 . Mr N. Softič , Ms J. Šlebinger , Mr A. Drač and Mr Kudozović were represented before the Court by Ms M. Končan Verstovšek , a lawyer practising in Celje .

3 . Mr M. Zorc was represented before the Court by Mr B. Verstovšek , a lawyer practising in Celje .

4 . Mr M. Uršič was represented before the Court by Mr. S. Jeglič , a lawyer practising in Ljubljana .

5 . Mira, Dušan and Nives Matjašič were represented before the Court by Mr D. Teržan , a lawyer practising in Celje .

6 . The Slovenian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr Lucijan Bembič , State Attorney-General.

The circumstances of the case

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

8 . The applicants were parties to civil proceedings which were finally resolved ( pravnomočno končan postopek ) before 1 January 2007, that is, before the 2006 Act on the Pr otection of the Right to a Trial Without Undue Delay (“the 2006 Act ” ) became operational.

9 . Subsequently, some of them lodged an appeal on points of law with the Supreme Court ( Vrhovno sodišče ) , and in certain cases also a constitutional complaint to the Constitutional Court ( Ustavno sodišče ).

10 . In some cases the applicants lodged acceleratory remedies under the 2006 Act.

11 . The details concerning each particular case are indicated in the attached table.

COMPLAINTS

12 . The applicants complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the civil proceedings had been excessively long. They also complained that they did not have an effective domestic remedy in this regard (Article 13 of the Convention).

THE LAW

13 . I n the present cases, the Court notes that, after the Government had been given notice of the applications in 2009 , they submitted their observations and informed the Court that they had made a settlement proposal to each of the applicants.

14 . By the settlement agreements signed by the State ’ s Attorney ’ s Office and the applicants, the former acknowledged a violation of the right to a trial within a reasonable time and accepted to pay the applicants the non-pecuniary damage sustained and costs and expenses incurred . The applicants accepted the amount as a full compensation for the damage sustained due to the length of the above proceedings and waive d any further claims against the Republic of Slovenia in respect of this complaint.

15 . T he applicant s subsequently informed the Court that they had reached settlement s with the State ’ s Attorney ’ s Office and that they wished to withdraw their application s introduced before the Court.

16 . The Court recalls Article 37 of the Convention which, in the relevant part, reads as follows:

“1. The Court may at any stage of the proceedings decide to strike an application out of its list of cases where the circumstances lead to the conclusion that

(a) the applicant does not inte nd to pursue his application;

...

However, the Court shall continue the examination of the application if respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and the Protocols thereto so requires.”

17 . The Court takes note that following the settlement s reached between the parties the matter has been resolved at the domestic level and that the applicant s do not wish to pursue their application s . It is satisfied that respect for human rights as defined in the Convention or its Protocols does not require the examination of the application to be continued (Article 37 § 1 in fine of the Convention).

18 . In view of the above, it is appropriate to strike the case s out of the list in accordance with Article 37 § 1 (a) of the Convention.

19 . As to the second set of the proceedings in application no. 17292/06 the Court notes that they were final and terminated on 5 November 2009. It was therefore open to the applicant to effectively avail himself of the remedies provided under the 2006 Act , but he failed to do so. Thus, t he complaint made under Article 6 for must be rejected non-exhaustion of domestic remedies and the complaint made under Article 13 as manifestly ill-founded ( Grzin čič v. Slovenia , no. 26867/02, 3 May 2007) pursuant to Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.

For these r easons, the Court unanimously

Decides to join the applications;

Decides to strike the application s out of it s list of cases with regard to the complaints about the length of the civil proceedings and the lack of an effective remedy in that respect under Articles 6 and 13 of the Convention;

Declares inadmissible the complaints regarding the second set of proceedings in the application no. 17292/06.

Santiago Quesada Elisabet Fura Registrar President

Appendix

No.

Application No.

Applicant ’ s Name

Year of Birth

Address

Date of Introduction

Date of the applicant ’ s withdrawal of the application

1.

17292/06

Nedžad SOFTIČ

1963Velenje

10/04/2006

02/06/2009

2.

18825/06

Matjaž ZORC

1968Å tore

19/04/2006

05/05/2010

3.

19181/06

Jerica Å LEBINGER

1952Ljubljana

24/04/2006

24/05/2010

4.

30528/06

Albin DRAČ

1974Velenje

18/07/2006

08/06/2010

5.

266/07

Matjaž URŠIČ

1964Ljubljana

11/12/2006

21/05/2010

6.

31426/08

Mira, Dušan , Nives MATJAŠIČ

1958, 1982, 1980

Gomilsko

06/05/2010

7.

51399/09

Ismet KUDUZOVIĆ

1966Šoštanj

06/07/2000

27/05/2010