CYIL vol. 10 (2019)

VÍT ALEXANDER SCHORM CYIL 10 ȍ2019Ȏ Court’s own knowledge of 52 applications the applicant had already sent to Strasbourg were also taken into account. 9 As a result, the complaint of excessive length was held admissible only with respect to one set of main proceedings and to six sets of compensation proceedings. The excessive length of the main proceedings under scrutiny had already been acknowledged at the domestic level, but not compensated for. When it came to the compensation proceedings, the Court held that when the parties seek redress for damages sustained due to unreasonable length of proceedings, special diligence is required from the authorities and these proceedings should not take more than one and a half years at one level of jurisdiction and two years at two levels of jurisdiction, unless special circumstances justify a longer examination. However, none of the pertinent compensation proceedings conducted by the applicant met this requirement. It moreover appeared that domestic case law, while in principle favourable to higher awards of compensation for excessively lengthy compensation proceedings, in practice prevented, with reference to procedural rules (the so-called ‘principle of concentration of the proceedings’), the victims from raising such claims later than before the first instance court started to hear the case. Since delays can easily occur or the overall length can be deemed excessive even later than at the commencement of the proceedings, this approach seems to thwart the application of such a remedy in many cases. The applicant, in light of Article 13 of the Convention, inferred a lack of effectiveness of the compensation proceedings from their excessive length, but the Court found that their duration, even though amounting to a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, was not so significant as to call into question the effectiveness of the remedy as such, and declared this complaint manifestly ill-founded. It reiterated, however, its previously expressed concerns about the risks of the lengthening of compensatory proceedings in the Czech Republic, which can be assessed at several levels of jurisdiction; if it were to become a common deficiency, it could finish by making the remedy inadequate. Compensation proceedings are indeed conceived as normal civil proceedings that can be conducted on four levels of jurisdiction (i.e. before ordinary courts and the Constitutional Court). In addition, the State Liability Act 10 provides the defendant (usually represented by the Ministry of Justice) with an opportunity to settle the case within six months from the victim’s request, which can also prolong the overall process of settlement of these claims if they remain the subject of the dispute. In connection with the case at hand, a wide-range discussion about the effectiveness and functioning of the compensation remedy took place and resulted in two sets of measures. First, conditions for an overall increase in compensation when the compensation proceedings alone exceeded the reasonable time requirement were relaxed by way of a jurisprudential change. 11 Second, the legislature attempted to reduce the number of frivolous (some four fifths of these lawsuits are dismissed) or abusive claims 9 Some of them have been communicated to the Czech Government and resulted in two judgments (including in the case at hand) and five inadmissibility decisions, available on HUDOC. Statistically speaking, Mr Žirovnický has been the most active and successful of the applicants in the whole history of the Czech Republic’s membership in the system in terms of applications lodged and applications communicated to the respondent Government. 10 Act no. 82/1998, on Liability for Damage Incurred in the Course of Exercise of Public Powers through Decision or Incorrect Official Procedure, as amended in particular by Act no. 160/2006. 11 The Supreme Court in its judgment no. 30 Cdo 5189/2016 of 19 July 2017 reinterpreted the principle of concentration of the proceedings in the sense that it does not hamper an increase in compensation. A motion to that end must be perceived as a reflection of a new circumstance arising out of the excessive length of the proceedings rather than an independent claim or extension of the original subject matter of the dispute.

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