NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

Convention. Relying on Articles 6 § 1 (the right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time) and Article 13 (right to an effective remedy), the association also complained about the allegedly excessive duration of the relevant proceedings before the Supreme Administrative Court of Greece. The Court held that there had been a breach of all three Articles of the Convention. When discussing the question of the right to an effective remedy, the Court referred back to the case of Fraggalexi v. Greece in which it previously had the occasion to rule that Greek law did not provide an efficient remedy to those who wished to complain about the length of proceedings within the meaning of Article 13 of the Convention. 1034 There were no reasons for the Court to depart from its previous case-law because the Greek law had not changed the way that it would provide such a remedy. Consequently, the Court held that in this case there had been a violation of Article 13 of the Convention on account of the absence of domestic legal remedies that would allow the applicant to fulfil the right to have its case heard within a reasonable time as provided by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. However, the Court’s finding of a breach of Article 6 § 1, on account of the fact that the length of the impugned proceedings was excessive and did not meet the ‘reasonable time’ requirement, will not always lead to the recognition of a violation under Article 13. In the case of Provide S.r.l. v. Italy , 1035 the applicant company brought proceedings against two parties before the domestic courts to obtain compensation for damages suffered in a road accident. Preparations for trial began in 1992 and the judgment was delivered in 1998. Afterwards, relying on the ‘Pinto’ Act, the applicant company took the case before the national court again, alleging that the proceedings had taken too long and requesting compensation on an equitable basis for the non pecuniary damages sustained. This time the court did not rule in accordance with the applicant’s request. Before the Strasbourg Court, the applicant company argued that the Pinto procedure did not constitute an effective remedy. In this connection, the Court referred to its previous finding in the case of Scordino v. Italy (no. 1) 1036 that the remedy introduced in Italy by the Pinto Act is accessible and that there is no reason to question its effectiveness. It noted that the Venice Court of Appeal had jurisdiction to entertain the applicant company’s complaint and duly examined it. Therefore, the mere fact that the amount of compensation awarded in the present case was not large is not sufficient in itself to call into question the effectiveness of the Pinto remedy. Consequently, there has been no infringement of Article 13 of the Convention. 1037 In theory, Article 13 can be invoked together with Article 7 of the Convention, but there are currently no examples of a judgement by the Court on the subject. 1038 Natural persons have successfully alleged a violation of this provision taken together with Article 8 of the Convention. 1039 However, no such judgments were rendered by

1034 Fraggalexi v. Greece , no. 18830/03, § § 18, 23, 9 June 2005. 1035 Provide S.r.l. v. Italy , no. 62155/00, 5 July 2007. 1036 Scordino v. Italy (no. 1) [GC], no. 36813/97, § 144, ECHR 2006-V. 1037 Provide S.r.l. , cited above, § 39. 1038 The data are valid for 21 June 2015.

1039 See, Vintman v. Ukraine, no. 28403/05, § 117, 23 October 2014; Husayn (Abu Zubaydah) v. Poland , no. 7511/13, § 545, 24 July 2014 ; and Nada v. Switzerland [GC], no. 10593/08, § 214, ECHR 2012.

192