JOINT DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGES COSTA AND MULARONI

(Translation)

We are sorry to have to disagree with the majority of our colleagues on the reasonable-time issue. This is, however, a matter of principle for us, especially as the Court has decided in the present case not to make an award to the applicants under Article 41 of the Convention.

In this unexceptional case , the applicants ’ claims were dismissed in turn by the District Court, the Regional Court (which amended the first-instance judgment), the Supreme Court and finally the Constitutional Court . They thus applied to four levels of jurisdiction and the overall length of the proceedings was five years and almost nine months.

The judgment acknowledges (in paragraph 33) that the proceedings generally progressed at a normal pace except as regards the time taken for the Regional Court to examine the appeal (more than three years).

We readily admit that this stage of the proceedings was long. But we firmly believe that, except in special circumstances, it is the length of the proceedings as a whole that should be deemed satisfactory or excessive. Everyone is entitled to have his or her case settled within a reasonable time, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, in which a “hearing” means the hearing of the case up to the final determination . Litigants are entitled to use the remedies available to them in domestic law; however, the more levels of jurisdiction there are, the longer it will take for their case to be heard.

The present case even seems a distortion of reality to us. On average, each of the four levels of jurisdiction took less than a year and a half to give a decision. Leaving aside the excessively slow Regional Court , the other three levels each examined the case in less than a year! Are there many other judicial systems in Europe that could do better than the Czech Republic in this case?

Furthermore, if in each case the Court condemns the unreasonable time taken by an individual court rather than looking at the case as a whole, on the one hand it will almost always find a violation of Article 6 § 1, and on the other hand it will have disregarded the requirements of the Convention whereby it is the case, and hence the case as a whole, that must be heard within a reasonable time.

In other words, and with all due respect, we find this judgment ... unreasonable.