4.  The applicant was born in 1950 and lives in Kastav. 5.  On 1 July 1997 a certain N.K. brought a civil action against the applicant in the Rijeka Municipal Court (Općinski sud u Rijeci) seeking the division of jointly owned property. The court held six hearings, heard evidence from two witnesses and on 2 December 1999 dismissed the plaintiff’s claim against the applicant. A subsequent appeal by the plaintiff
was forwarded to the Rijeka County Court (Županijski sud u Rijeci) on 13 March 2000. 6.  In the appellate proceedings the applicant lodged a request for the case to be transferred to another court, which was dismissed by the Supreme Court on 4 June 2003; a request for the President of the Rijeka County Court to stand down, which was dismissed by the Supreme Court on 13 October 2003 and a request for the presiding judge to stand down, which was dismissed by the President of the Rijeka County Court on 9 January 2004. The Government submitted that all three requests were unsubstantiated. 7.  On 28 January 2004 the Rijeka County Court quashed the first-instance judgment and remitted the case for fresh examinations. In the resumed proceedings, the Municipal Court held hearings on 27 May and 6 July 2004 and scheduled an on-site inspection which was not carried out owing to the plaintiff’s refusal to admit the assigned expert onto his property. 8.  According to the Government, from 2004 to 2006 the applicant failed to collect mail sent to him by the Municipal Court. This caused the adjournment of hearings scheduled for 9 May, 6 September and 24 October 2006. 9.  The Government further submitted that in the period between 2004 and 2006 criminal proceedings were instituted against the applicant on charges of numerous counts of fraud, threatening behaviour and usury. About fifteen hearings had been adjourned since the applicant had failed to collect the court summons. 10.  Meanwhile, on 17 July 2004 the applicant lodged a constitutional complaint under section 63 of the Constitutional Court Act complaining about the length of the proceedings. On 17 November 2005 the Constitutional Court (Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske) dismissed his complaint as ill-founded, finding that the proceedings were relatively complex and that the applicant had contributed to the delays by failing to appear at three hearings in 1998. 11.  The case is at present pending before the Municipal Court.