Information Note on the Court’s case-law 45

August-September 2002

Mifsud v. France (dec.) [GC] - 57220/00

Decision 11.9.2002 [GC]

Article 35

Article 35-1

Exhaustion of domestic remedies

Effective domestic remedy

Length of proceedings: effectiveness of appeal based on article L. 781 of the Code of Judicial Organisation

The applicant complained of the length of proceedings he had instituted for the repayment of penalties ordered against him. These had been pending since 1994.

Inadmissible under Articles 6 § 1 and 13: the remedy available in French law under Article L.781-1 of the Judicature Code had acquired by 20 September 1999 the requisite degree of legal certainty to oblige an applicant to use it for the purposes of Article 35 § 1. It allowed litigants to obtain a finding of a breach of their right to have their case heard within a reasonable time and compensation for the ensuing loss in respect of all dom estic proceedings without distinction, whether they be completed or pending. This purely compensatory remedy amounted to an “effective” remedy for the purposes of Article 35 § 1 of the Convention. Accordingly, any complaint based on the length of judicial proceedings lodged before the Court after 20 September 1999, without having first been submitted to the French courts under Article L.781-1 of the Judicature Code, was inadmissible, regardless of the stage reached in the proceedings at domestic level: non- exhaustion.

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

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