Information Note on the Court’s case-law 35

October 2001

Markass Car Hire Ltd v. Cyprus (dec.) - 51591/99

Decision 23.10.2001 [Section III]

Article 6

Civil proceedings

Article 6-1

Civil rights and obligations

Applicability of Article 6 to proceedings concerning an interim court order

The applicant company was the owner and hire-purchaser of a fleet of vehicles. Company K. instituted proceedings to seek damage s from the applicant following the alleged breach of an agreement between the two companies whereby the applicant had rented 127 cars to company K. and had not given them all. Company K. further sought a decision preventing the applicant company from inter fering with its activities insofar as they related to the allegedly breached agreement and ordering the applicant to hand over the vehicles which were still in its possession. In March 1998, while the applicant was gathering the missing vehicles, company K . obtained, in the framework of new proceedings before the District Court and on an ex parte basis, an interim decision according to which the applicant was to hand over the said vehicles to company K. The applicant lodged an appeal against this decision. The parties having reached no settlement, the District Court fixed a hearing for July 1998. The hearing started on time but was adjourned a number of times. In April 1999, as a result of the repeated adjournments, the applicant filed an application for cer tiorari and prohibition with the Supreme Court, which rejected it. The applicant appealed against this decision. Following a request by the applicant to have these proceedings speeded up, the president of the District Court assigned the case to a new court in June 1999. Meanwhile, company K. applied for an order of imprisonment of the managers of the applicant company for contempt of the interim order of March 1998. In September 1999, the District Court decided that the hearing relating the interim order of March 1998 should precede that of the last mentioned proceedings initiated by company K. The hearing started in September 1999 but was adjourned several times. The hearing was resumed in February 2000. In May 2000, the District Court held that the interim order was no longer in force and declared it null and void.

Admissible under Article 6 § 1: As regards the applicability of this provision to proceedings relating to injunctions or interim orders, the European Commission of Human Rights held in a number o f cases that such proceedings did not determine civil rights or obligations. More recently, the Court held that Article 6 did not apply to proceedings concerning an interim order for designation of an expert adopted prior to the proceedings on the merits. However, in the present case the interim order of March 1998 partly coincided with the principal action and, unless reversed by the appeal court within a short time, it would affect the legal rights of the parties to the agreement in question. The interim measure was drastic in that it concerned almost the whole of the company’s fleet of vehicles. The combined effect of the measure and its duration caused irreversible prejudice to the applicant company’s interests and deprived to a substantial extent the ou tcome of the proceedings of its significance. Thus, the interim measure partly determined the rights of the parties in relation to the final claim against the applicant company in the initial proceedings instituted by company K. and thereby acquired the ch aracter of a dispute over a civil right and obligation to which Article 6 was applicable.

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

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