Communicated on 29 November 2019

THIRD SECTION

Application no. 15765/17 Jason Scott GERBER against Slovakia lodged on 11 February 2017

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns, above all, the applicant ’ s right of access to the Constitutional Court. By the latter ’ s decisio n no. I. ÚS 390/2016 of 15 June 2016 (served on 11 August 2016), the constitutional complaint in which the applicant complained about the unfairness of the proceedings having led to the adoption of a preliminary measure denying him any contact with his children and about a violation of his right to respect for family life was rejected as not complying with formal requirements. The Constitutional Court considered that, in a situation where the authority form accompanying the constitutional complaint empowered an attorney office (legal person) to act on the applicant ’ s behalf and where the authorised representative of that attorney office had been suspended in the exercise of her activities of attorney, the applicant should have submitted a new authority form empowering another attorney.

Under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the applicant complains that he was deprived of access to the Constitutional Court due to an excessively formalistic and unforeseeable application of procedural rules. He asserts that, as stated in his constitutional complaint and the authority form, he was represented by an attorney office as a legal person (acting, at the time of the Constitutional Court ’ s decision, through a new authorised representative who was also an attorney), which complied with the Constitutional Court Act and the Advocacy Act.

The applicant further complains, under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, about the unfairness of the proceedings on the preliminary measure which has denied him any contact with his children and has thus amounted to a violation of his right to respect for family life under Article 8 of the Convention. Relying on Article 13 of the Convention, he asserts that the formal rejection of his constitutional complaint rendered this remedy ineffective.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Did the applicant have access to the Constitutional Court, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, given that his constitutional complaint was rejected without having been examined on the merits although he was duly represented by an attorney office?

2. Assuming that the applicant can be considered as having exhausted domestic remedies, did he have a fair hearin g in the proceedings no. 11 CoP 526/2014 before the Bratislava Regional Court, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?

3. Did the preliminary measure adopted in those proceedings breach the applicant ’ s right to respect for family life within the meaning of Article 8 of the Convention (see, mutatis mutandis , Prodělalová v. the Czech Republic , no. 40094/08, 20 December 2011)?