EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN ACTION / Alla Tymofeyeva (ed.)

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X. Y. v. the CZECH REPUBLIC

57. The regulation was somewhat tightened only after the relevant period, from DD/MM/YY; the obligation to make a second attempt at making a personal delivery at the address for service was repealed; this stricter approach was pro- voked by the large number of cases when the addressees tried to avoid the service on them of decisions that were unfavourable for them. The opportunity to avert the fiction of service by proving that one was not staying at the place of service at the respective time has remained in place. Nevertheless, in the Gove rnment’s opinion even this new procedure for service cannot be regarded as too strict and unreasonable. 58. In the case in question, the Applicant did not prove and even did not claim that he was not staying at the place of service at the respective time. On the contrary, as follows from the Prague 4 District Office’s decision not to allow the reopening of the proceedings of DD/MM/YY and from the Applicant’s p etition for the reopening of the proceedings of DD/MM/YY, in the beginning the Appli- cant collected the documents relating to the minor offence proceedings in question and only after a certain period of time he ceased to communicate with the admin- istrative authority as regards the case in question. However, he had the enforce- ment proceedings documents served on him at the same address and he collected them. As the Government mentioned above, two attempts at serving the decision in question were made, as required by the law. 59. Therefore, with regard to all of the above facts, the Government are convinced that the complaint about unfairness in minor offence proceedings, con- sisting in the denial of the opportunity to act in the case through the non-service of the decision of DD/MM/YY, is inadmissible for being manifestly ill-founded pur- suant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention. (ii) On the merits of the application in relation to the enforcement proceedings 60. In case the Court does not accept any of the inadmissibility pleas in re- lation to the enforcement proceedings, the Government would leave the assess- ment of the merits of the application to the Court’s discretion. CONCLUS I ON 61. In the light of the above facts, the Government of the Czech Republic, in their Observations on the application of Mr X. Y., invite the Court to: – declare the application inadmissible for an abuse of the right of ap- plication pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention, or alternatively to – declare the application, in relation to the minor offence proceedings, inadmissible for the non-exhaustion of domestic remedies or for be- ing late pursuant to Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention, or, sub-

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EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN ACTION