JOINT DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGES LORENZEN, MARUSTE AND JAEGER

The majority has found that there has been a breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention because the length of the proceedings was excessive in the present case. We are not able to agree with this finding for the following reasons.

The proceedings involved court instances at three levels and lasted in total a little less than 5 years and 3 months. Furthermore the case had to be heard twice in the first instance due to the quashing of the judgment of 5 October 2000 by the Regional Court . It is true as stated by the majority that there was a period of around fifteen months in total before the first instance court for which the Government have not put forward any plausible explanation. However, the proceedings before the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court were terminated within a year and the global period for determining the case cannot be considered unreasonable. Thus in cases where several instances are involved it is in our opinion important not to consider the length of the proceedings separately because an exhaustive examination of the factual and legal issues by a first instance court may often reduce the time needed by higher courts. Furthermore it must be taken into account – as rightly stated by the majority – that the applicant to some extent contributed to the length of the proceedings and that it was a civil case of a non urgent nature.

Having regard to the circumstances of the case the period in question cannot be regarded as unacceptable if viewed in the context of the total duration of the proceedings, as it must be, cf. for example G.L. v. Italy judgment of 3 October 2002, no. 54283/00, and Hadjikostova v. Bulgaria, judgment of 4 December 2003, no. 36843/97 with further references. Accordingly there has in our opinion been no violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.

[1] . Around 1,308 euros – “EUR”.