Publication: [not yet received]
Title: Vassilios Athanasiou and others v. Greece
Application No: 50973/08
Date of Judgment: 21-12-2010
Articles: 6-1, 13, 41
Conclusion: Violation of article 6-1, Violation of article 13, Compensation awarded
Summary:
Excessive length of administrative proceedings: Greece must take measures to deal with this structural problem
The case concerned the length of administrative proceedings which lasted more than 13 years. Today’s pilot judgment in this case – the first pilot judgment with regard to Greece – identifies a structural problem in the legal system:
– between 1999 and 2009, the Court delivered about 300 judgments concluding that there had been an excessive length of judicial proceedings in Greece, the majority of which concerned the excessive length of administrative proceedings.
– more than 200 cases of this kind – including about 100 before the administrative courts alone – are currently pending before the Court.
The applicants are ten Greek nationals2, born between 1934 and 1947. Following their compulsory retirement, they brought proceedings in 1994 claiming an additional retirement premium from the Army Solidarity Fund, which refused to grant their request. In 1996 their appeal against that decision was dismissed as ill-founded by the Athens Administrative Court. On 19 January 2000, a hearing was held in the context of their 1997 appeal against the administrative court’s decision, following which their case was dismissed. They applied to the Supreme Administrative Court for judicial review; the hearing in their case, initially scheduled for 6 October 2003, was postponed seven times and finally took place on 25 September 2006. The judgment of 1 October 2007 by which the Supreme Administrative Council dismissed their application was certified by that court on 4 April 2008.
Relying on Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time), the applicants complained of the excessive length of the proceedings instituted by them in 1994 and which ended in 2008, with a view to obtaining an additional retirement pension from the Army Solidarity Fund. Under Article 13 (right to an effective remedy), they complained that there was no effective remedy under Greek law for their situation.
Article 6 § 1
The proceedings in question lasted 13 years and eight months for three levels of jurisdiction; the time required to issue the certificate confirming the Supreme Administrative Council’s ruling had to be included in the period to be taken into consideration, since that step had made the judgment enforceable.
Although the Greek Government had argued that the applicants had had the option of requesting that hearings be held more quickly, it had not been shown that the administrative courts would have brought forward the hearings had such requests been submitted. The Court emphasised that a possible failure by the applicants to use any means to expedite the proceedings did not compensate for the State’s general obligation to guarantee that proceedings took place within a reasonable time. In addition, the Court did not consider that the subject-matter of the dispute, namely the payment of an additional premium, could be described as insignificant for the resources of retired individuals.
Consequently, and having regard to its conclusions in numerous similar cases, the Court held that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1 on account of the excessive length of the administrative proceedings instituted by the applicants.
Article 13
As the Court had already had occasion to conclude that the Greek legal system provided no effective remedy for raising a complaint about the length of proceedings, and that the Greek Government had submitted no new information in that respect, the Court concluded that there had been a violation of Article 13 on account of the absence of a remedy that would have enabled the applicants to have their case heard within a reasonable time, as guaranteed by Article 6 § 1.
Article 46
The Court decided to examine this case under the pilot-judgment procedure, which enabled it to highlight clearly the existence of structural problems, indicate the measures to be taken by the State and encourage it to find a solution at domestic level. In that respect, the Court, in its Interlaken Declaration, had emphasised the need to guarantee effective domestic remedies.
Although this case differed from certain “pilot cases” that the Court had examined – it did not concern a “specific category of citizens” and the structural problem had already been identified in a large number of judgments – the Court considered that it was appropriate to apply the pilot-judgment procedure, regard being had, in particular, to the chronic and persistent nature of the problems in question and the urgent need to provide the large number of people involved with rapid and appropriate redress at national level.
Between 1999 and 2009 the Court adopted about 300 judgments finding that there had been excessive length of proceedings in Greece, the majority of which concerned the excessive length of administrative proceedings, a chronic problem in the country that was highlighted in a 2007 resolution by the Committee of Ministers6 (which noted a large number of judgments by the Court finding violations of Articles 6 § 1 and 137). No remedy appeared to have been put in place by the Greek authorities in the meantime; in particular, the draft law on “compensation for applicants following an excessive length in legal proceedings”, referred to in that resolution, had not to date been enacted.
In addition, since the 2007 resolution was adopted, the Court had delivered about 50 judgments finding violations of Article 6 § 1 and 15 judgments finding violations of Article 13 on the same grounds. The Court noted that, in several cases, it had been required to examine proceedings which had lasted more than ten years for three levels of jurisdiction, as in the present case. It also noted major delays in the processing of cases before the Supreme Administrative Court. In the Court’s view, the 200-odd cases against Greece which concerned the length of judicial proceedings – about 100 of which concerned the administrative courts alone – confirmed the structural nature of that problem.
The Court considered that those delays were a matter of particular concern and were likely to undermine public confidence in the effectiveness of the judicial system, noting in particular that the unjustified absence of a decision by the courts for a particularly prolonged period could in practice be regarded as a denial of justice, contrary to the right of access to a court as guaranteed by Article 6 § 1.
General measures to be adopted:
While reiterating that it was for Greece to select, subject to supervision by the Committee of Ministers, the domestic remedies to be adopted, the Court noted that a remedy allowing for the expedition of proceedings would make it possible to avoid a finding of successive violations in respect of the same set of proceedings, rather than merely repairing the breach a posteriori, as did a compensatory remedy. Nonetheless, where a State had taken a significant step by introducing a compensatory remedy, the Court had to leave it the necessary latitude to allow it to organise that remedy in a manner consistent with its own legal system and the standard of living in the country concerned.
The Court reiterated the criteria governing compensation for excessive length of judicial proceedings: the action for compensation was to be decided rapidly, the sum awarded had to be paid within six months of the decision becoming final, the action for compensation had to comply with the principles of a fair hearing, court costs were not to be excessive and the amount of compensation had to be consistent with the awards made by the Court in other cases. In that last respect, the Court considered that the national courts were not best placed to rule on the issue of the non-pecuniary damage – in contrast to pecuniary damage – which almost always existed in cases of excessive length of judicial proceedings.
In consequence, while recognising certain recent developments in the Greek legal order, the Court held that Greece was to introduce, without delay, an effective remedy or a combination of effective remedies at national level, within one year from the date on which its judgment would become final.
Procedure to be followed in similar cases:
The Court did not consider it necessary to adjourn the examination of all the cases concerning the length of judicial proceedings pending the introduction of the necessary remedy (remedies), in order to avoid a situation where the time taken by Greece to implement the general measures would be added to the period required to examine the pending applications.
Article 41
Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court held that Greece was to pay each of the applicants 14,000 euros (EUR) in respect of non pecuniary damage and EUR 2,500 jointly in respect of costs and expenses.