Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 72

February 2005

Bozinovski v. “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” (dec.) - 68368/01

Decision 1.2.2005 [Section III]

Article 35

Article 35-1

Six month period

Late substantiation of complaint: inadmissible

The applicant was a defendant in civil proceedings concerning the title to part of a house. The proceedings had commenced in 1991 or earlier and came to end in 2000, when the Appellate Court rejected the applicant’s appeal. Before the Court the applicant complained about the length of the proceedings. He submitted that he had fully complied with Article 35 § 1 as had received the final decision on 15 August 2000 and had submitted his application on 30 January 2001.

The Court found that the six-month period had begun to run from 15 August 2000, whereas the applicant’s complaint about the length of the proceedings had been mentioned only in an application form dated 4 April 2001. While it was true that an earlier application form had been submitted by the applicant dated 30 January 2001, this had not included any explanation as to the alleged violations in his case and had merely annexed the documents from the domestic proceedings. The Court was not persuaded that the provision of the documents from the proceedings was sufficient to constitute an introduction of all subsequent complaints based on those proceedings. Some indication of the nature of the alleged violation under the Convention was required to introduce a complaint and thereby interrupt the running of the six-month time-limit: non-compliance with the six-month rule.

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

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