European Court of Human Rights

FIFTH SECTION

CASE OF I.B. v. GEORGIA

(Application no. 4639/23)

JUDGMENT
 

STRASBOURG

11 July 2024

This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.

In the case of I.B. v. Georgia,

The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:

 Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström, President,
 Lado Chanturia,
 Mykola Gnatovskyy, judges,
and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the application (no. 4639/23) against Georgia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms ("the Convention") on 13 January 2023 by a Georgian national, I.B. ("the applicant"), who was born in 1984, lives in Tbilisi and was represented by Mr N. Legashvili, a lawyer practising in Rustavi;

the decision to give notice of the complaints concerning the length of the civil proceedings and the alleged unavailability of an effective domestic remedy in this respect to the Georgian Government ("the Government"), represented by their Agent, Mr B. Dzamashvili, of the Ministry of Justice, and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application;

the decision not to have the applicant's name disclosed;

the parties' observations;

Having deliberated in private on 20 June 2024,

Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

1.  The present case concerns the length of the civil proceedings in a labour dispute which lasted six years and ten days and the alleged unavailability of an effective domestic remedy in this respect. The applicant relied on Article 6 § 1 and Article 13 of the Convention.

2.  On 20 June 2016 the applicant initiated civil-law proceedings against his employer.

3.  Between 21 June 2016 and 23 January 2018, while the main proceedings were pending before the Tbilisi City Court, seven decisions were delivered by that court and the Tbilisi Court of Appeal concerning (a) the applicant's application for provisional measures to have the respondent's assets frozen (which was eventually granted in part), (b) his subsequent application to have the measure modified, and (c) the related appeals lodged by both parties.

4.  On 22 December 2016 and 24 July 2017 the applicant was instructed by the High Council of Justice that a disciplinary complaint concerning the length of proceedings ought to have been submitted by means of an official application form. No such complaint appears to have been submitted.

5.  On 13 November 2018 the Tbilisi City Court adopted a judgment on the merits. The applicant was not reinstated but he was awarded a lump-sum compensation for wrongful termination in the amount of 18,360 United States Dollars (USD) and a compensation for the loss of income in the amount of USD 6,268.

6.  On 15 January 2019 the applicant lodged an appeal which was accepted for consideration on 21 March 2019, after he paid the relevant court fee.

7.  On 3 December 2019 the Tbilisi Court of Appeal upheld the lower court's judgment.

8.  On 17 January 2020 the applicant lodged an appeal on points of law.

9.  In December 2020 and February 2021 the correspondence sent by the Supreme Court to the respondent party requesting it to submit written observations could not be delivered. In the first instance the address had been incomplete, in the second case the addressee had not been designated. The letter was eventually served on 1 March 2021.

10.  On 5 May 2022 the Supreme Court held an oral hearing to inquire if the parties wished to settle the case and gave them ten days to negotiate.

11.  On 30 June 2022 the Supreme Court delivered a final decision, by means of written proceedings, declaring the applicant's appeal on points of law inadmissible.

RELEVANT LEGAL FRAMEWORK

12.  Under Articles 193, 194, 197 and 1971 of the Code of Civil Procedure, first-time applications for a provisional measure are to be decided within one day from their submission; a decision on the matter may be appealed within five days; an application requiring a modification of a provisional measure must be decided within five days; and the time-limit for courts to decide on an appeal against a decision regarding provisional measures is twenty days, once such an appeal is accepted for consideration within five days from its submission.

THE COURT'S ASSESSMENT

ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 6 § 1 AND ARTICLE 13 OF THE CONVENTION

13.  The applicant complained about the excessive length of civil proceedings and the absence of an effective remedy in that respect.

14.  The Government submitted that the application was to be declared inadmissible on four alternative grounds. Firstly, the applicant had failed to mention his applications for provisional measures at domestic level and thus had abused the right of individual application. Secondly, he had failed to exhaust an effective domestic remedy by submitting a disciplinary complaint. The Government referred to the establishment of the Office of the Independent Inspector in 2017 whereby the Inspector had power to examine complaints lodged against judges concerning, among other issues, delays in the examination of cases and to submit the relevant opinion to the High Council of Justice which was vested with the ultimate authority of deciding whether disciplinary proceedings were called for. Thirdly, the Government argued that the applicant had not suffered a significant disadvantage as the domestic courts had eventually awarded him a substantial compensation for wrongful termination. Finally, the application was manifestly ill-founded as the domestic courts had handled the labour dispute within a reasonable time.

15.  In this latter regard, the Government submitted that the length of proceedings before the Tbilisi City Court (over two years and four months) could be explained by the conduct of the parties. Namely, this period had primarily been concerned with processing applications for provisional measures while the merits' stage of the proceedings had only taken nine months (see paragraphs 3 and 5 above). As for the length of proceedings before the Supreme Court (over two years and six months), it was, according to the Government, explained by the difficulties serving the respondent party with a request to submit observations (see paragraph 9 above) and that court's attempt to assess the parties' wish to settle the case (see paragraph 10 above).

16.  The applicant disagreed, without detailed elaboration.

17.  The Court observes, as regards the alleged abuse of the right of application, that while the applicant did not, indeed, elaborate on the proceedings relating to his applications for provisional measures, the material submitted in support of the original application form included a copy of his application instituting proceedings against the employer which had contained the request to have provisional measures applied. Accordingly, there is no basis to conclude that the applicant intended to mislead the Court. Having regard to the Court's case-law on the issue (see Gross v. Switzerland [GC], no. 67810/10, § 28, ECHR 2014, with further references), the applicant's omission cannot, therefore, be regarded as an abuse of the right of application within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention.

18.  As regards the exhaustion of domestic remedies, the Court notes that the Georgian legal system provides neither for a specific preventive remedy capable of expediting the proceedings, nor for a compensatory remedy as such. As for the disciplinary action, the argument regarding its effectiveness was previously examined and dismissed by the Court in the case of Schrade v. Georgia ([Committee], no. 15016/07, §§ 41-42, 11 March 2021). While the system of disciplinary proceedings has evolved to incorporate the institution of an Independent Inspector, the Court does not see how the addition of an extra layer to disciplinary proceedings could render the proposed remedy effective in length-of-proceedings cases. Importantly, the Court recalls that remedies which have no precise time-limits, thus creating uncertainty and rendering nugatory the four-month rule (previously the six-month rule) contained in Article 35 § 1 of the Convention, are not effective remedies within the meaning of Article 35 § 1 (see Nicholas v. Cyprus, no. 63246/10, § 38, 9 January 2018). The applicant was not, accordingly, required to attempt the remedy proposed by the Government.

19.  As for the question of significant disadvantage, the Court notes that the award which the applicant eventually obtained was granted over six years after his unlawful termination by the employer. It cannot, therefore, be said that the applicant suffered no significant disadvantage on account of the delay in obtaining the award in question.

20.  Additionally, the applicant's complaints are not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention or inadmissible on any other grounds. They must therefore be declared admissible.

21.  The Court reiterates that the "reasonableness" of the length of proceedings must be assessed in the light of the circumstances of the case and with reference to the following criteria: the complexity of the case, the conduct of the applicant and the relevant authorities, and what was at stake for the applicant in the dispute (see, among many other authorities, Pélissier and Sassi v. France [GC], no. 25444/94, § 67, ECHR 1999-II, and Frydlender v. France [GC], no. 30979/96, § 43, ECHR 2000-VII). It is for the Contracting States to organise their judicial systems in such a way that the courts are able to meet the "reasonable time" requirement under Article 6 (see Lupeni Greek Catholic Parish and Others v. Romania [GC], no. 76943/11, § 142, 29 November 2016).

22.  Turning to the circumstances of the present case, the civil proceedings started on 20 June 2016 and ended on 30 June 2022. The period to be examined is thus six years and ten days at three levels of jurisdiction.

23.  The Court takes note of the Government's submissions that the parties' conduct had contributed to the length of proceedings (see paragraph 15 above). It does not, however, consider that the applicant's use of a procedural possibility to have provisional measures applied in his case contributed significantly to the overall length of the proceedings. Setting aside the question of whether the first-instance court could decide on the merits of the case pending the final decision regarding provisional measures, the Court does not lose sight of the rather short time-limits applicable to the processing of such applications (see paragraph 12 above). In the absence of a suggestion that the trial court had held more than one hearing on the merits of the case, the proceedings involving the application of provisional measures could not sufficiently account for the fact that it took the first-instance court over two years and four months to deliver a judgment in the applicant's case.

24.  As for the Government's submission concerning the delay before the Supreme Court (see paragraph 15 above), a minor setback involving the respondent's address and one hearing to assess the parties' position regarding the settlement of the case does not sufficiently account for the apparent prolonged inactivity and the delay of over two years and six months to deliver a decision on the inadmissibility of the applicant's appeal on points of law.

25.  Considering that it has not been argued that the applicant's case had been complex from a legal or a factual point of view, the Court is not convinced that the arguments provided by the Government in the present case can absolve the State from its responsibility for an overall length of the civil proceedings of more than six years at three levels of jurisdiction. Thus, the length of the proceedings in the instant case was excessive, especially considering what was at stake for the applicant (see paragraph 19 above), and failed to meet the "reasonable time" requirement.

26.  As regards the question of whether the applicant had an effective remedy at his disposal in respect of his length-of-proceedings complaint, within the meaning of Article 13 of the Convention, the Court has already noted that the remedy suggested by the Government was not effective (see paragraph 17 above). Accordingly, it cannot find that the applicant was provided with an effective remedy, as required under Article 13 of the Convention, in respect of the length-of-proceedings complaint.

27.  In the light of the foregoing, there has been a violation of Article 6 § 1 and Article 13 of the Convention.

APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION

28.  The applicant claimed 144,197.1 euros (EUR) in respect of pecuniary damage and EUR 150,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage. He also requested EUR 9,237.07 for costs and expenses incurred before the domestic courts and the Court.

29.  The Government submitted that the claims regarding pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage had been unsubstantiated and excessive. As for the costs and expenses, the Government stated that the applicant had failed to submit information as to the amount of work done by the representative, rendering it impossible to assess whether the relevant expenses had been necessarily or reasonably incurred.

30.  The Court does not discern any causal link between the violation found and the pecuniary damage alleged; it therefore rejects this claim. However, it awards the applicant EUR 400 in respect of non-pecuniary damage, plus any tax that may be chargeable to him.

31.  Having regard to the documents in its possession, the Court is prepared to award a total of EUR 1,000 in respect of the applicant's claim for legal costs and expenses, plus any tax which may be chargeable.

FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT, UNANIMOUSLY,

1. Declares the application admissible;
2. Holds that there has been a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention;
3. Holds that there has been a violation of Article 13 of the Convention;
4. Holds

(a)  that the respondent State is to pay the applicant, within three months, the following amounts, to be converted into the currency of the respondent State at the rate applicable at the date of settlement:

(i)  EUR 400 (four hundred euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable, in respect of non-pecuniary damage;

(ii)  EUR 1,000 (one thousand euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable to the applicant, in respect of costs and expenses;

(b)  that from the expiry of the above-mentioned three months until settlement simple interest shall be payable on the above amounts at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points;

5. Dismisses the remainder of the applicant's claim for just satisfaction.

Done in English, and notified in writing on 11 July 2024, pursuant to Rule 77 §§ 2 and 3 of the Rules of Court.

 Martina Keller Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström
 Deputy Registrar President