Published on 2 January 2023

FOURTH SECTION

Application no. 31326/17 Arusyak ABRAHAMYAN and Sargis ABRAHAMYAN against Armenia lodged on 15 April 2017 communicated on 7 December 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The case concerns the Court of Cassation’s refusal to admit the applicants’ appeals on points of law on the grounds that they had failed to pay the correct amount of court fees.

On 19 May 2015 A.G., a private person, lodged a claim with the Administrative Court against the State and the State Real Estate Agency, seeking to have a 1984 decision concerning the registration of a real estate declared unlawful and, as a consequence of that, to have subsequent transactions, registrations and inheritance certificates issued to the applicants set aside and her ownership to it recognised (in total 11 claims). The applicants were third parties in those proceedings.

By a judgment of 30 October 2015, the Administrative Court declared the 1984 decision unlawful and found that, as a consequence of granting A.G.’s main claim, the claims deriving from the main one had to be granted too. It also recognised A.G.’s ownership to the property. At the same time, it granted A.G. compensation for the incurred court fees in the amount of AMD 4,000 (approximately EUR 10), the amount due under the Law on State Fees for filing a non-pecuniary claim before the Administrative Court.

Upon appeal, the Administrative Court of Appeal upheld the judgment. It also decided that the applicants had to pay court fees in the amount of AMD 10,000 (approximately EUR 25), the amount due under the law on State Fees for lodging an appeal before the Administrative Court of Appeal in a case concerning a non-pecuniary claim.

The applicants appealed on points of law to the Court of Cassation and requested a deferral of the payment of the court fees for their appeals.

On 14 September 2016 the Court of Cassation returned their appeals on the grounds that they had failed to submit evidence of their financial situation. It gave the applicants 5 days to rectify the errors and resubmit their appeals.

The applicants resubmitted their appeals after having paid AMD 20,000 (approximately EUR 50), that amount being indicated under the law on State Fees as the rate of court fees for an appeal on points of law in a case concerning a non-pecuniary claim.

On 12 October 2016 the Court of Cassation left the applicants’ appeals without examination. It found that the applicants had only partially rectified the errors in that they had paid court fees only for one claim while the subject matter of the case comprised 11 claims. It did not set a new time-limit to resubmit the appeals. By that time, the one-month time-limit for such resubmission had already expired․

The applicants complain that there was no clear legal basis for requiring them to pay 11 times the amount they had paid. They submit that such a requirement was all the more unforeseeable given that both the Administrative Court and the Administrative Court of Appeal, being governed by legal provisions having essentially the same formulation, interpreted and applied those provisions differently.

QUESTION TO THE PARTIES

Was the refusal of the Court of Cassation to examine the applicants’ appeals on points of law in breach of their right of access to a court guaranteed under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see, for the relevant principles, Zubac v. Croatia [GC], no. 40160/12, §§ 76-99, 5 April 2018)?

The parties are invited to provide information on and examples of the relevant domestic practice at that time concerning the amount of court fees to be paid in cases of multiple non-pecuniary claims within the same set of proceedings, in particular in presence of a main claim and other deriving claims.