5.  The applicant was born in 1951 and lives in Subotica. 6.  The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows. 7.  On 9 March 1994 the Municipal Court in Sombor (Opštinski sud u Somboru) ruled in favour of the applicant and ordered S.B., her former husband, to pay her a monthly maintenance allowance in the amount of 25% of the minimum salary in Serbia, starting from 10 December 1993, plus the arrears of that allowance which had already accrued, together with statutory interest. 8.  By 31 May 1994 this judgment had become final. 9.  On 9 September 1996 the applicant filed a request for the enforcement of the above judgment and specified that the amount of maintenance due was 5,226 Yugoslav Dinars plus statutory interest. She proposed, in particular, that this enforcement be carried out through the auctioning of the debtors movable assets. 10.  On 12 September 1996 the Municipal Court in Sombor (“the Municipal Court”) accepted the applicant’s request and issued an enforcement order. 11.  On 26 September 1996 S.B. filed a complaint against this order, stating that it was not clear how the applicant had calculated the exact amount of the maintenance sought. 12.  On 3 February 1998 the Municipal Court instructed S.B. to institute separate civil proceedings wherein he could request that the proposed enforcement be declared “inadmissible” (nedopušteno). 13.  On 13 April 1998 S.B. filed a claim to this effect. 14.  On 27 November 1998 the Municipal Court ordered the stay of the enforcement proceedings until the conclusion of the separate civil suit. 15.  On 23 December 2002 the Municipal Court resumed the enforcement proceedings ex officio, having found, inter alia, that as of 30 June 1999 the separate civil suit had itself been suspended pending the outcome of another case. 16.  On 25 February 2003 S.B. again requested that the enforcement proceedings be stayed, given the subsequent re-opening of the separate civil suit. 17.  On 25 July 2003 the Social Care Centre appointed a temporary guardian to act on behalf of the applicant, who had in the meantime been stripped of her legal capacity. 18.  On 2 December 2003 the applicant’s guardian requested that the enforcement proceedings be continued and stated that the separate civil claim filed by S.B. had been dismissed. 19.  On 6 April 2004 the Municipal Court rejected the request for the stay of the enforcement proceedings filed on 25 February 2003. 20.  On 14 April 2004 S.B. lodged a complaint against this decision. 21.  On 25 October 2006 the Municipal Court noted, in an internal document, that the entire enforcement file had, by mistake, been placed in another case file, which was why the complaint of 14 April 2004 had not yet been considered. 22.  On 26 October 2006 the three-judge panel of the Municipal Court rejected this complaint and upheld the decision of 6 April 2004. 23.  On 1 March 2007 the bailiffs attempted to enter S.B.’s home in order seize his movable assets. They were, however, apparently unable to do so as the “premises were locked”. 24.  On 27 April 2007 S.B. informed the bailiffs that he had, in the meantime, fully covered his debt to the applicant. 25.  On 17 May 2007 the applicant withdrew her enforcement request filed with the Municipal Court, stating that S.B. had paid his debt with costs and interest. 26.  On the same date the applicant signed a separate statement to the same effect. 27.  On 23 May 2007 the President of the Municipal Court sent a letter to the applicant’s lawyer which read as follows:
“As regards ... [your client’s] ... enforcement case[,] ... we would like to apologise for ... [its] ... long duration, ... for which there are several reasons such as ... [her] ... failure to appear at scheduled hearings, the lawful stay of these proceedings which had lasted for five years, the ... [time needed to appoint] ... a guardian ... and the unjustifiably long time which the court took to decide in respect of the complaint ... [filed by S.B.] ... against the ... [court’s] ... decision of 6 April 2004.”