Legal summary

December 2022

Olivares Zúñiga v. Spain - 11/18

Judgment 15.12.2022 [Section V]

Article 6

Constitutional proceedings

Article 6-1

Access to court

Amparo appeal declared inadmissible due to an unforeseeable requirement to exhaust a prior remedy : violation

Facts – The applicant contested her dismissal before the Labour Court which, in 2014, declared it unfair but not null and void. The applicant’s suplicación appeal with the Madrid High Court of Justice was dismissed in 2015. In 2016 the Supreme Court declared her appeal on points of law inadmissible. In 2017 the Constitutional Court declared the applicant’s amparo appeal inadmissible, considering that she had failed to properly exhaust prior remedies. In particular, she was required to lodge an action for the annulment against the judgment of the High Court of Justice.

Law – Article 6 § 1:

The Court attached particular importance to whether the procedure to be followed for an action for annulment, as a remedy to be used before applying to the Constitutional Court, could be regarded as foreseeable, at the relevant time, from the litigant’s point of view.

The law provided for an action for annulment only if there existed no ordinary or extraordinary appeal against the decision that had been considered to have violated a fundamental right. In that respect, the applicant could reasonably consider that she would not have to lodge an action for annulment, once the Supreme Court had decided on her appeal on points of law. Indeed, she had invoked her constitutional rights at every level of jurisdiction.

Moreover, in 2019 the Constitutional Court had acknowledged that the system previously in force had created uncertainty and that there had been a lack of foreseeability as to the available or, rather, necessary remedies to be exhausted before lodging an amparo appeal.

Thus, in the circumstances of the present case, the need to bring an action for annulment had not been foreseeable. The decision to declare the amparo appeal inadmissible for non-exhaustion of prior remedies had excessively restricted the applicant´s right of access to a court.

Conclusion : violation (unanimously).

Article 41: EUR 9,600 in respect of non-pecuniary damage. Claim in respect of pecuniary damage dismissed.

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

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