PARTLY DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE VAJIĆ

1. I regret that I am unable to agree with the majority ’ s finding that Article 6 of the Convention is applicable to the second applicant. On that point I join the dissenting opinion of Judge Steiner.

2. I have voted with the majority as to the applicability of Article 6 in respect of the first applicant. However, I cannot agree with the finding that there was also a violation of Article 6 in respect of the applicant company ’ s rights to an oral hearing in the present case. In rejecting the request for an oral hearing the Administrative Court based itself, inter alia , on section 39(2) of the Administrative Court Act according to which it may decide not to hold a hearing if such a hearing is unlikely to help clarify the case ( § 25).

The dispute between the parties in the instant case related basically to the maximum quota fixed for the employment of foreign workers in Vorarlberg as the applicant contested the accuracy of the official statistics due to which the quota had been exceeded.

The majority has concluded, without any further explanation and following a somewhat mechanical approach, that the subject matter of the proceedings before the Administrative Court in the present case was not of such a “highly technical or exclusively legal nature” as to justify dispensing with the obligation to hold a hearing ( § 64). With due respect , I do not share that opinion.

In my opinion the applicant ’ s submissions to the Administrative Court were not of a kind to raise issues of fact or law which were of such a nature as to require an oral hearing for their disposition (see among others Pitkänen v. Sweden (dec.), no. 52793/99, 26 August 2003; Pursiheimo v. Finland (dec.), no. 57795/00, 25 November 2003; Varela Assalino v. Portugal (dec.), no. 64336/01,25 April 2002; D öry v. Sweden, judgment of 12 November 2002, § 44 ; Strömblad v. Sweden (dec.), no. 45935/99, 11 February 2003; Allan Jacobsson v. Sweden ( No. 2), judgment of 19 February 1998, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998-I, § 49). Having regard to the facts of the case, the main question the Administrative Court had to determine related to the finding of the Labour Market Services that the maximum quota has been exceeded and the application of the quota to the applicant, thus leaving no discretionary powers to the court to decide. In my opinion that question could have been adequately resolved on the basis of the case file and the written submissions and did not require a debate. I therefore fail to see why written submissions challenging the findings on the maximum quota and containing information and possible data trying to prove the contrary would not have sufficed. The applicant has not submitted any elements of a nature to convince me that only an oral hearing subsequent to the written submissions would have assured the fair character of the proceedings.

Moreover, it is understandable that in this sphere relating to employment quotas for foreign workers the national authorities should have regard to the demands of efficiency and economy. Systematically holding hearings could be an obstacle to the particular diligence required in such cases (see mutatis mutandis Speil v. Austria (dec.), no. 42057/98, 5 September 2002; Schuler-Zgraggen v. Switzerland , judgment of 24 June 1993, Series A no. 263, § 58).

For these reasons I am of the opinion that there were circumstances which justified dispensing with an oral hearing before the Administrative Court in the present case.

Finally, I am of the opinion that the Court should have a more flexible approach, than the one adopted by the majority in the instant case, when evaluating whether decisions of domestic authorities not to hold an oral hearing in civil cases amo unted to a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. In other words, it should examine the need for the hearing (i.e., whether it would serve any purpose and/or bring new elements to the courts ’ reasoning) on the particular facts of each case and also having special regard to the reasoning of the domestic courts. The Court should, of course, always emphasize the need for an oral hearing in really important cases, but at the same time it should avoid unnecessarily burdening domestic courts from whom we repeatedly demand particular diligence, especially in the kind of cases as the present one.