Published on 11 April 2022

FIRST SECTION

Application no. 50632/21 Zvonko BUŠIĆ against Croatia lodged on 9 October 2021 communicated on 25 March 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns proceedings for the enforcement of a prison sentence imposed on the applicant by a final criminal court judgment.

On 5 February 2015 the applicant was found guilty of an attempt of theft and sentenced to seven months’ imprisonment, substituted by community service. The judgment became final on 24 June 2015. The applicant failed to perform his community service and on 6 July 2021 the sentence execution judge ordered him to report to the relevant authority in order to start serving his prison sentence. The applicant appealed, relying on the Supreme Court’s decisions nos. Kž-360/2013 of 19 June 2013 and Kzz-19/2019 of 3 September 2019, and arguing that the enforcement of his prison sentence had become time-barred. The appeal panel dismissed the appeal, deeming that the running of the six-year statutory limitation period for the enforcement had been stayed until the moment the applicant had given his consent to perform community service, which was in 2017. It did not comment on the Supreme Court’s case-law relied on by the applicant, which suggested that the stay occurred only in situations expressly provided by law.

The applicant complains, relying on Articles 5 § 1 and 6 § 1 of the Convention, that the domestic courts’ decisions enforcing his prison sentence were contrary to the domestic law and arbitrary. If their view were to be accepted, it would lead to a situation where, owing to procrastination in the authorities’ inviting the convicted person to give consent to perform community service, that is to say, for reasons beyond the convicted person’s control, the statutory limitation period for the enforcement of prison sentence could not start to run. That situation would be irreconcilable with the principle of the rule of law.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. If the applicant starts serving the prison sentence, will his deprivation of liberty be in compliance with Article 5 § 1 of the Convention? The parties are invited to submit to the Court references to the relevant domestic provisions and judicial practice, where available.

2. Is Article 6 of the Convention applicable to the proceedings concerning enforcement of the applicant’s prison sentence (see, mutatis mutandis , Laidin v. France (no. 2) , no. 39282/98, § 76, 7 January 2003; Lazoroski v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia , no. 4922/04, §§ 65-66, 8 October 2009, and Hodžić v. Croatia , no. 28932/14, § 47, 4 April 2019)?

3. If so, did the applicant have a fair hearing in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? Was the conclusion of the domestic courts arbitrary or manifestly unreasonable? Did the appeal panel address the Supreme Court’s case-law relied on by the applicant in his appeal? If not, was the appeal panel’s decision sufficiently reasoned, as required by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?