Communicated on 15 June 2020 Published on 6 July 2020

THIRD SECTION

Application no. 63783/19 Gabriela KOVÁČOVÁ against Slovakia lodged on 4 December 2019

STATEMENT OF FACTS

The applicant, Ms Gabriela Kováčová , is a Slovak national, who was born in 1978 and lives in Podlužany . She is represented before the Court by Ms E. Braxatorisová , a lawyer practising in Bratislava.

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.

On 29 December 2009 the applicant sued her ex-husband for the settlement of matrimonial property before the Levice District Court (case file no. 9C 322/2009).

On 29 November 2011 the court of first instance adopted its first judgment on the merits. Both parties appealed and the case file was transmitted to the Nitra Regional Court for a determination of the appeals (case file no. 7Co/46/2012). On 30 December 2013 the appellate court quashed the judgment of the court of first instance and remitted the case back before it.

On 12 November 2014 the Levice District Court adopted its second judgment on the merits. Both parties appealed and the case file was transmitted once again to the appellate court (case file no. 7Co/53/2015). On 30 June 2016 the judgment of the court of first instance was quashed again and the case was remitted for fresh examination.

On 14 July 2017 the court of first instance adopted its third judgment on the merits. Both parties appealed and the case file was transmitted to the appellate court (case file no. 7Co/356/2017).

On 9 January 2019, while the proceedings before the appellate court under the case file no. 7Co/356/2017 were pending, the applicant lodged her complaint under Article 127 of the Constitution, complaining i.a . of the excessive overall length of the civil proceedings at issue. She directed her complaint, in its summary, at both levels of jurisdiction ( Levice District Court and Nitra Regional Court). In respect of the proceedings before the appellate court, she indicated the case file number of the pending proceedings only, not the case file numbers of the previous two segments.

On 25 April 2019 the appellate court overturned the third judgment of the court of first instance. The decision was served on the applicant on 25 June 2019.

On 30 April 2019, the Constitutional Court dismissed the applicant ’ s complaint (I. ÚS 182/2019). In its assessment of the length of the proceedings, it separated the proceedings before the court of first instance from those before the appellate court. With regards to the former, the Constitutional Court held that they had no longer been pending when the complaint had been lodged. With regards to the latter, it ruled that the applicant had not complained of the previous two segments of the proceedings on appeal (case file nos. 7Co/46/2012 and 7Co/53/2015) and that the most recent segment of the appellate proceedings (case file no. 7Co/356/2017) was only pending for one year and three months when the complaint was lodged. It added that, in any event, the judgment on the merits had, in the meantime, been delivered on 25 April 2019.

Article 48 § 2 provides, inter alia , that every person has the right to have his or her case tried without unjustified delay.

Pursuant to Article 127, natural and legal persons can complain ( sťažnosť ) about a violation of their fundamental rights and freedoms. Under this provision, the Constitutional Court has the power, in the event that it finds a violation of Article 48 § 2 of the Constitution, to order the authority concerned to proceed with the case without delay. It may also grant adequate financial satisfaction to the person whose constitutional rights have been violated as a result of excessive length of proceedings.

The implementation of the above constitutional provisions is set out in more detail in sections 122 to 135 of the Constitutional Court Act (Law no. 314/2018 Coll.), as amended, which replaced the previous Constitutional Court Act (Law no. 38/1993 Coll.) as of 1 March 2019.

Pursuant to Section 45 (previously section 20 (3) of the repealed law), as a general rule, the scope of the Constitutional Court ’ s examination of a case is limited by the summary of the motion for commencement of the proceedings, as formulated in a standardised and prescribed form by the plaintiff.

Section 124 (previously section 53 (3) of the repealed law) provides that a constitutional complaint can be filed within a period of two months from the date on which the decision in question has become final and binding or on which a measure has been notified or on which a notice of other interference has been given. As regards the measures and other interferences, the above period commences when the complainant could have become aware of them.

It has been the Constitutional Court ’ s established practice to entertain complaints concerning the allegedly excessive length of proceedings only where the proceedings complained of are pending before the authority liable for the alleged violation at the moment at which such complaints are lodged (see the Constitutional Court ’ s case-law cited in Mazurek v. Slovakia ( dec. ), no. 16970/05, 3 March 2009; for the general case-law principles, as well as the existing case-law on exhaustion of domestic remedies in relation to complaints about length of proceedings in Slovakia, see Ištván and Ištvánová v. Slovakia , no. 30189/07, §§ 63-75, 12 June 2012).

COMPLAINTS

The applicant complains under Articles 6 § 1 and 13 of the Convention about the overall length of the civil proceedings on the settlement of matrimonial property and the failure by the Constitutional Court to examine the entire duration of the proceedings.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Did the applicant lodge her constitutional complaint in accordance with the applicable procedural rules and established practice of the Constitutional Court so as to allow it to examine the overall length of the civil proceedings at issue (contrast Obluk v. Slovakia , no. 69484/01, § 62, 20 June 2006)?

2. Taking into account the overall duration of the civil proceedings on the settlement of the matrimonial property at issue, was their length in breach of the “reasonable time” requirement of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see, among many other authorities, Frydlender v. France [GC], no. 30979/96, § 43, ECHR 2000-VII)?

3. Did the applicant have at her disposal an effective domestic remedy for her complaint under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, as required by Article 13 of the Convention? In particular, having regard to the fact that the Constitutional Court did not examine the entire length of the civil proceedings at issue, was the remedy under Article 127 of the Constitution “effective” for the Convention purposes (see Hoholm v. Slovakia , no. 35632/13, §§ 56-58, 13 January 2015, and A.R., spol . s r.o . v. Slovakia , no. 13960/06, §§ 59-60, 9 February 2010)?