CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 31 mai 2005

.s3ABFC313 { font-size:10pt } .sEB86A30B { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:14pt; page-break-after:avoid } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .sA241FE93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:18pt; text-align:justify; page-break-after:avoid; border-bottom:0.75pt solid #000000; padding-bottom:1pt } .s2EF62ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:12pt } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s8F2B0B1B { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:12pt } .s9FF10068 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .s5F48796F { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify } .s5CB9E8AB { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify; border-bottom:1pt solid #000000; padding-bottom:1pt } .sDF790F1E { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s3DC36BA9 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 75 May 2005 Ratajczyk v. Poland (dec.) - 11215/02 Decision 31.5.2005 [Section IV] Article 35 Article 35-1 Exhaustion of domestic remedies Effective domestic remedy Effectiveness of new remedy concerning length of judicial proceedings: admissible   The applicant had signed a lease contract with a co-operative. In April 1993, he brought a civil action concerning the early termination of the contract by the lessor. The first-instance judgment was given by the Regional Court in April 1997. The judgment was quashed on two successive occasions by the Court of Appeal, and remitted for re-examination. In 2000, the Regional Court decided to discontinue the proceedings considering that the defendant co-operative had been declared bankrupt. The applicant’s appeal against this decision was dismissed by the Court of Appeal in April 2001. Admissible under Article 6. The Government’s objection (non-exhaustion): None of the various legal remedies designed to counteract and/or redress the undue length of judicial proceedings which had been introduced by the Law of 17 June 2004 (the so-called “Kudla law”)were applicable to the applicant’s situation. As to whether the applicant could have brought a civil action for damages on the basis of Article   417 of the Civil Code read together with Section 16 of the Law of 2004, the Court observed that such an action was time-barred after the lapse of three years from the day on which the person who suffered the damage had learned of it. In the applicant’s case, this period had started to run in April 2001, when the judicial decision in his case had become final. Consequently more than three years had elapsed between this date and the entry into force of the 2004 Law. In the light of the foregoing, such an action could not be regarded with a sufficient degree of certainty as an effective remedy. The applicant’s complaint about the unreasonable length of the proceedings (seven years and eight months) therefore required an examination of the merits.   © Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court. Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes