DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE ZIEMELE

1. I voted against the finding that there had been no violation in this case. I can accept that in general a period of just over four years in criminal and civil proceedings falling within the ratione temporis jurisdiction of the Court is not excessive and that it was about time that the Court became more pragmatic in its assessment of the length of domestic proceedings compared to its previous case-law.

2. It is true, however, that the proceedings in the applicants ’ case started as far back as 1994, that is, before Latvia ratified the Convention, and thus took almost seven years. The Court stated in the case of Lavents v. Latvia ( no. 58442/00, 28 November 2002 ) that it will keep in mind in such cases the time a person has already spent in court proceedings before the entry into force of the Convention in the country concerned. This has to be balanced against the particular circumstances of the case such as the fact that, at the time of the car accident, the second applicant was only eight years old and that the injuries were such as to require extensive medical treatment and thus financial resources which the mother did not have. In the case of Gheorghe and Maria Mihaela Dumitrescu v. Romania (no. 6373/03, 29 July 2008 ), the Court found that the length of proceedings for damages lasting for just over three years, in circumstance where the car accident led to paralysis of the lower limbs of a five-year-old girl, was in breach of Article 6.

3. In the case in issue the majority considered that since there were two sets of proceedings and the applicants waited for one year before lodging their civil claim for damages and, in fact, seemingly failed to submit their civil claim in the criminal proceedings in the proper manner, a considerable portion of responsibility for the length of the proceedings should be imputed to them. I believe that the civil claim that the applicants submitted within the criminal proceedings was of sufficient quality (see paragraph 17 of the judgment). The only difficulty was that the total amount of the claim did not correspond to the heads of damages claimed. In this respect the applicants readily admitted a possible mistake in the final calculation. It is therefore perplexing that the criminal courts left the claim unexamined, given the urgency of the matter in view of the child ’ s state of health. I cannot agree with the majority that this fact, when compared to the many delays in the proceedings caused by the absences of the respondent and witnesses (see paragraphs 13, 14 and 16) should weigh against the applicants. Furthermore, there is nothing unusual in the fact that it took the applicants one year to lodge a civil claim (see paragraph 70), given the circumstances in which they found themselves after the car accident. The applicant, who is not a lawyer, had to attend to the needs of her daughter and mount a case in the civil courts. That is no simple matter in practice. I also note that in the civil proceedings the hearing finally took place on 10 December 2001 whereas the claim was lodged on 9 May 2001 (see paragraphs 19-20). In sum, I do not agree that the applicants ’ behaviour was such as to outweigh the various delays caused in this case before the national courts, taking into consideration the interests at stake, namely, compensation for physical injury following a car accident involving the second applicant, an eight ‑ year-old child. I do not think that this was a good case in which to start pursuing a more pragmatic judicial policy as regards Article 6 § 1 complaints regarding the length of proceedings, bearing in mind that the application was lodged with the Court in 2002.

4. Finally, a point on the Article 13 complaint raised by the applicants. They are right. At the relevant time there certainly existed no remedy in the Latvian legal system enabling individuals faced with delays in different types of court proceedings to speed up those proceedings. Today, there is some remedy in criminal proceedings, as provided for by section 14 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2005. However, this will most likely not be particularly relevant or even helpful to the victims of a crime. It is therefore, and despite the outcome in this case, of great importance that the respondent State review the state of the legal mechanisms available with a view to ensuring compliance with the Article 13 requirements as articulated by the Court in KudÅ‚a v. Poland ([GC], no. 30210/96, ECHR 2000 ‑ XI ) .