FIRST SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 27702/16 Ivor HORVAT against Croatia

The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting on 22 February 2022 as a Committee composed of:

Erik Wennerström, President, Lorraine Schembri Orland, Ioannis Ktistakis, judges, and Liv Tigerstedt, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the application (no. 27702/16) against Croatia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 10 May 2016 by a Croatian national, Mr Ivor Horvat, who was born in 1978 and lives in Ivanić-Grad (“the applicant”) and who was represented by Ms N. Owens , a lawyer practising in Zagreb;

the decision to give notice of the complaints concerning the applicant’s property rights and his right of access to court to the Croatian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms Š. Stažnik, and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application;

the parties’ observations;

the decision to reject the Government’s objection to examination of the application by a Committee;

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

SUBJECT-MATTER OF THE CASE

1. The case concerns the allegedly unreasonable costs of civil proceedings. The applicant brought a civil action against two insurance companies seeking damages in the amount of 130,000 Croatian kuna (HRK - approximately 17,330 euros (EUR)) as a result of injuries sustained in a road traffic accident. The Ivanić Grad Municipal Court assessed the amount of damage sustained to HRK 41,050 (approximately EUR 5,473). However, since the court found that the applicant had contributed to the occurrence of the damage in the amount of 40% for not using a seat belt and for agreeing to sit in a car with a driver under the influence of alcohol, it reduced that amount and ultimately awarded the applicant HRK 24,630 (approximately EUR 3,284).

2. As regards the costs of proceedings, the first-instance court found that the applicant succeeded with 19% of his claim and awarded him HRK 13,160 (approximately EUR 1,754) in respect of his own costs of the proceedings. At the same time, it ordered the applicant to reimburse the costs of the two defendants in the amount of HRK 40,022 (approximately EUR 5,336).

3. The first-instance judgment was upheld on appeal and by the Supreme Court. Ultimately, on 19 November 2015 the Constitutional Court declared the applicant’s constitutional complaint inadmissible considering that there was no constitutional issue in the case. That decision was served on his representative on 12 December 2015.

4. The applicant complained, under Articles 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 thereto, about the unreasonable costs of proceedings he was ordered to pay to the defendants in his case.

THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT

5. The relevant general principles have been summarised in Čolić v. Croatia (no. 49083/18, §§ 39-44, 18 November 2021 ) , Cindrić and Bešlić v. Croatia (no. 72152/13, §§ 116-18, 6 September 2016), and Klauz v. Croatia (no. 28963/10, §§ 76-85, 18 July 2013).

6. The applicant was ordered to pay the defendants costs in an amount higher than that he had been awarded in damages (see paragraphs 1 and 2 above). Such a situation may, in principle, raise an issue under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 thereto, unless there are weighty reasons to justify such a result (see Čolić , cited above, §§ 46 and 69).

7. In this connection, the Court observes that the applicant’s claim was unjustifiably inflated (see Klauz , cited above, §§ 31 and 90). Consequently, the parties incurred additional costs because the value of the subject matter of the dispute fell into a higher grade of the renumeration scale according to the Scale of Advocate’s Fee (see, a contrario , Čolić , cited above, §§ 14 and 56).

8. Moreover, the Court notes that the applicant only partly succeeded with the grounds of his claim, the domestic courts having found that he contributed to the damage in question in the amount of 40% for not using a seat belt and for agreeing to sit in a car with a driver under the influence of alcohol (see paragraph 1 above).

9. The foregoing two factors are, in the Court’s view, sufficiently weighty reasons to justify the financially unfavourable outcome for the applicant in the present case. While it is true that, as the applicant claimed, most procedural activities in the case had been aimed at establishing whether the defendants’ objection to the grounds of his claim had been well-founded and that the domestic courts did not take this into account when calculating the parties’ costs of proceedings, the negative consequences that this may have produced for the applicant were primarily the result of his above described procedural shortcomings: the fact that he had artificially inflated his claim as well as that he was found to have contributed to the damage (contrast Čolić , cited above, § 59 in fine ). Thus, the manner in which the domestic courts applied the domestic legislation in the present case, as questionable as it may be, remained within their margin of appreciation under Article 6 § 1 and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 thereto.

10. It follows that these complaints are manifestly ill-founded must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Declares the application inadmissible.

Done in English and notified in writing on 17 March 2022.

Liv Tigerstedt Erik Wennerström Deputy Registrar President