Information Note on the Court’s case-law 5

April 1999

Vidacar S.A. and Opergrup S.L. v. Spain (dec.) - 41601/98 and 41775/98

Decision 20.4.1999 [Section IV]

Article 6

Civil proceedings

Article 6-1

Civil rights and obligations

Fairness of tax proceedings: inadmissible

The two applicant companies, who operated a gaming concern, were required to pay an annual duty on their fruit machines. The rates of duty for 19 90 were set by legislative decree but were increased by a statute passed that same year. The applicant companies brought various proceedings challenging the statute and requested that the issue of its constitutionality be referred to the Constitutional Cou rt. The first-instance and appellate courts refused to make the referral and the Constitutional Court, sitting as a final court of appeal, dismissed the applicant companies’ amparo appeal, despite having declared the provision concerned unconstitutional an d void a few months earlier on a referral from another court. Unlike the companies that had been successful in those proceedings, the applicant companies were therefore unable to recover the additional duty they had paid. They relied on Article 6 § 1 and A rticle 14.

Inadmissible under Article 6, which did not apply to tax proceedings. The fact that proceedings were of a pecuniary nature was not enough to make them “rights and obligations of a civil nature”, notably where the pecuniary obligation had arisen from fiscal legislation: incompatible ratione materiae .

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

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