Information Note on the Court’s case-law 15

February 2000

García Manibardo v. Spain - 38695/97

Judgment 15.2.2000 [Section IV]

Article 6

Civil proceedings

Article 6-1

Access to court

Dismissal of appeal due to non-consignation, as a result of failure to deal with appellant's legal aid request: violation

Facts : Florencia Garcia Manibardo, the applicant, was a Spanish national born in 1957 and residing in Vila Seca. On 10 October 1990 her husband had died in a road accident. The insurance company of Mr P., who appeared to have been driving the vehicle involved in the accident, paid the applicant the sum of 18,250,000 pesetas (ESP) in compensation for the death of her husband.

The widow and children of the presumed driver of the vehicle were also paid compensation; however, having found the amount inadequate, Mrs P., acting in her own name and that of her two minor children, lodged an application for the recover y of damages with the Amposta Investigating Judge no. 1 against the heirs of the applicant’s husband, those of the owner of the vehicle, who had also died in the accident, and the insurers of the vehicle.

The applicant, acting in her own name and that of her minor children, and represented by a lawyer who took on the case “as if appointed under the legal aid regime”, had orally challenged the claim against her referring to “the facts and reasons in the attached document(s)”. In these documents, which had b een mentioned in the transcripts of her appearance on 5 July 1994, the applicant gave written answers to the plaintiff’s arguments and requested legal aid.

Having found that it had been the deceased spouse of the applicant who had been driving the vehicle at the time of the accident and not the plaintiff’s husband, the Amposta Court of First Instance no. 1 declared the heirs of the applicant’s spouse and the insurers of the vehicle involved in the accident to be jointly and severally liable, and in default , the heirs of the owner of the vehicle, to pay eighteen million pesetas (ESP) to Mr. P’s widow and his children.

All the parties appealed against this decision. The same first instance judge required the applicant to make an advance deposit of the amount she had been ordered to pay in the first instance court’s judgment as a precondition for her lodging an appeal. Th e applicant lodged an appeal in reposición against this decision on the ground of the impossibility of making an advance deposit of the sum ordered by the Audiencia provincial . Her appeal was ruled admissible and the applicant was released from the obliga tion to make a prior payment into court of the amount stipulated.

The Tarragona Audiencia provincial upheld the judgment of the first instance court and found the applicant’s appeal to be inadmissible on the ground that she had not paid the requisite amou nt into court or shown that she had tried to discharge that obligation in other ways.

The applicant then lodged a recurso de amparo with the Constitutional Court which was dismissed in a decision of 10 March 1997 for having no constitutional basis.

In the interim the Amposta First Instance Court had ordered, in the context of the enforcement of the Tarragona Audiencia provincial ’s judgment, the seizure of the property of the applicant and the insurers of the vehicle involved in the accident to cover payment of the compensation awarded to Mrs P.

On 7 January 1997 the applicant submitted a pleading to the to the Amposta First Instance Court in which she requested examination of an application for legal aid she had made on 23 June 1994. On 16 January 19 97 the court decided to admit the examination of the applicant’s request. The Amposta Court of First Instance no. 1 granted her legal aid in a decision of 15 April 1997. No appeals were lodged against this decision.

The applicant complained of the fact tha t the Tarragona Audiencia provincial had ruled her appeal inadmissible on the ground that she had not deposited in advance the sum she had been ordered to pay in the first instance decision at a time when no decision had been taken on her entitlement to le gal aid. She invoked Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.

Law : The Court noted that both Article 30 § 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure in force at the time, and the case-law of the Constitutional Court allowed a litigant’s economic situation to be taken into c onsideration, and, in particular, for him or her to be discharged of the obligation to make an advance deposit when he or she had been granted legal aid. In this case, even though the applicant had fulfilled all of the requirements, she had not been grante d the said legal aid in the requisite time.

The applicant’s appeal had however been ruled inadmissible for failure to deposit the requisite amount with the court. In this respect, the Court found that requiring the applicant to deposit in advance the damag es ordered under the first judgment had prevented her from using an existing and available appeal so that she had been subjected to disproportionate interference with her right of access to a court. As a result, there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1.

Conclusion : violation (unanimous).

The Court awarded the applicant the amount claimed for costs and expenses before the Constitutional Court and the institutions of the Convention, that is ESP 520,572.

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

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