Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 101

October 2007

Vokurka v. the Czech Republic - 40552/02

Decision 16.10.2007 [Section V]

Article 35

Article 35-1

Exhaustion of domestic remedies

Effective domestic remedy

Effectiveness of new domestic remedies concerning the length of judicial proceedings: inadmissible

In 1993 the applicant brought a court action against a public transport company, seeking compensation. His claims were allowed in part. The proceedings ended in 2002 with a decision of the Constitutional Court dismissing the applicant’s appeal.

The preventive remedy : the possibility of applying for a time-limit to be set for the completion of a procedural step was introduced into the Czech judicial system as of 1 July 2004, in order to guarantee the right to a hearing within a reasonable time. However, such an application could be made only if the interested party had previously and unsuccessfully lodged a complaint with the competent judicial authority for delays in the proceedings. That being so, it was really no more than an extension of administrative appeal to a higher authority. On several occasions, however, the Court had found that administrative appeal in Czech law did not constitute an effective remedy within the meaning of Article 35 § 1. It followed that this preventive remedy could not be considered as such either.

Concerning the compensatory remedy introduced into Czech law in April 2006, compensation for the non-pecuniary damage sustained as a result of failure to take a step or deliver a decision within a reasonable time had to be claimed from the State authorities – generally the Ministry of Justice. While acknowledging that this system had its advantages, the Court could not avoid expressing reservations about the risk of proceedings being drawn out unduly, but deemed it premature to pronounce itself on that issue. It considered it particularly important that the State’s liability should also apply to any damage caused prior to the date of entry into force of the law concerned. Where a person had lodged an application with the Court complaining of the excessive length of proceedings brought before the new law came into force, the right to compensation for non-pecuniary damage was not time-barred until one year after the date on which the law had entered into force. Although the ideal solution would be to prevent delays, the fact that the remedy in question – which could be used during or after the proceedings – was purely compensatory was not decisive in determining its effectiveness. This new remedy thus afforded the Czech people a genuine possibility of obtaining redress at the domestic level, a possibility of which they should, in principle, avail themselves. Although the Registry of the Court had informed him of its existence, the applicant had not availed himself of a remedy which was considered effective and accessible: non-exhaustion of domestic remedies.

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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