Communicated on 11 May 2018

FIRST SECTION

Application no. 64596/16 Jovan MILJEVIĆ and Damjan MILJEVIC against Croatia lodged on 3 November 2016

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The case concerns the applicants ’ inability to participate effectively in the civil proceedings (a property dispute over a plot of land) the Osijek Airport instituted against them. The proceedings ended on 8 May 2007 in the applicants ’ disfavour. In those proceedings they were appointed and represented by a guardian ad litem because their address was a llegedly unknown. Within thirty days of learning about the final judgmen t the applicants, on 24 October 2007, filed a petition for reopening on the ground of non-participation in the proceedings, arguing that their address was indicated in the cadastre entry for the property in question. However, their petition was declared inadmissible as out of time because the domestic courts held that the statutory thirty-day time-limit had to be calculated from the moment the final judgment had been served on their guardian ad litem , that is, from 15 June 2007.

QUESTIONS tO THE PARTIES

1. Was a petition for reopening of proceedings, the applicants resorted to, an effective remedy to be exhausted in the specific circumstances of the present case (compare and contrast Riedl-Riedenstein and Others v. Germany ( dec. ), no. 48662/99, 22 January 2002, and Babinsky v. Slovakia ( dec. ), no. 35833/97, 11 January 2000 with Melis v. Greece , no. 30604/07, § 18, 22 July 2010; Nikula v. Finland ( dec. ), no. 31611/96, 30 November 2000, and Kiiskinen and Kovalainen v. Finland ( dec. ), no. 26323/95, 1 June 1999 )?

2. If so, were the applicants able to participate effectively in the proceedings complained of, as required by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?