First section case of uniya ooo and belcourt trading company
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- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- A. The parties’ submissions
- B. The Court’s assessment
62 UNIYA OOO AND BELCOURT TRADING COMPANY v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT A. The parties’ submissions 311. The Government claimed that the applicant companies had had access to the courts in respect of their complaints concerning the seizure and destruction of the alcohol. Thus, the courts had examined their claims, and had even satisfied them in part. Although those decisions were subsequently quashed, and the outcome of the proceedings was unfavourable to the applicants, this did not mean that they had been deprived of the right to have their claims examined by the courts. The Government also asserted that the applicant companies did not make proper use of remedies available to them to complain about the seizure and destruction of the alcohol. 312. The applicant companies maintained that the proceedings concerning the alcohol seized had been unnecessarily protracted. For many years the commercial courts and the courts of general jurisdiction had declined to review the lawfulness of the seizure orders and rule on the applicant companies’ claims for damages, referring to the pending investigation in the criminal case against Mr Golovkin. The applicant companies maintained that they used all possible legal avenues to complain about the seizure and destruction of the alcohol. B. The Court’s assessment 313. Before turning to the merits, the Court notes that the Government’s objection of non-exhaustion, which was joined to the merits, related inter alia to their complaint under Article 6 of the Convention. Consequently, while addressing the merits of their Article 6 complaint the Court will, at the same time, examine whether the applicant companies used appropriate domestic procedures and thus complied with the requirements of Article 35 § 1 of the Convention. 1. Scope of the case 314. The Court observes that the first applicant company (Uniya) withdrew its complaint concerning the seizure and destruction of the second consignment. The Court accepted that withdrawal; furthermore, it accepted that the second applicant company (Belcourt) could complain, in its own name, about the loss of the second consignment under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (see the “Preliminary issues” section above). However, the complaint under Article 6 § 1 concerning the first applicant company’s (Uniya’s) right to a court cannot be treated in the same way. The Court notes that Belcourt participated as a plaintiff only in the last round of the proceedings which ended on 11 September 2012. It is clear that Belcourt did not whish to submit any particular complaint under Article 6 about that last round. As to the previous rounds, which are at the heart of the present case, they were intiated by the first applicant company, which alone has a UNIYA OOO AND BELCOURT TRADING COMPANY v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT 63 standing to complain under Article 6 of the Convention in respect of those proceedings. 315. The question is whether Uniya whished to maintain its complaint under Article 6 in this part, or drop it, as it did in respect of the complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. The Court considers that if the second consignment did not belong to Uniya, all its claims, complaints, applications etc. before the domestic courts in that part become to a large extent moot. Uniya did not show sufficiently whether it had any substantive interest in those proceedings; in such circumstances the Court infers that Uniya whished to withdraw its application concerning the seizure and destruction of the second consignment in its integrity, not only under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, but also under Article 6 of the Convention. 316. It follows that the Court will only examine whether the applicant companies had a right to a court in respect of their complaints concerning the seizures and destruction of the first consignment. That being said, in analysing that complaint the Court will not loose sight of the proceedings in which the seizure and destruction of the second consignment was examined. 2. General principles 317. The Court reiterates that Article 6 § 1 secures to everyone the right to have any claim relating to his civil rights and obligations brought before a court or tribunal. In this way the Article embodies the “right to a court”, of which the right of access, that is, the right to institute proceedings before courts in civil matters, constitutes one aspect only (see Golder v. the United Kingdom, 21 February 1975, p. 18, § 36, Series A no. 18, and Waite and Kennedy v. Germany [GC], no. 26083/94, § 50, ECHR 1999-I). The “right to court” is not absolute, and may be subject to limitations permitted by implication. The State enjoys a certain margin of appreciation in regulating that right. Those limitations, however, must not impair its very essence (see, mutatis mutandis, Melikyan v. Armenia, no. 9737/06, § 45, 19 February 2013; Zborovský v. Slovakia, no. 14325/08, § 47, 23 October 2012; and Guérin v. France, 29 July 1998, § 37, Reports 1998-V). 318. Most often the Court cites “the right to court” in situations where examination of a civil claim by a court is precluded once and for all by a procedural barrier, such as a time-limit or the immunity of the defendant. There is, however, other situations where the Court is confronted with such limitations and obstacles which make “the right to court” de facto ineffective, without formally depriving the person of the right. In the case of
23 July 2002), the Court found, in the context of tax assessment proceedings, that an undue delay in the court determination of the main issue concerning the imposition of additional taxes and tax surcharges made access to the courts ineffective. In the case of Stankov v. Bulgaria (no. 68490/01, §§ 59 et seq., 12 July 2007) the Court considered that the Yüklə 0,78 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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