6.  The applicant was born in 1944 and lives in Tampere. He was a principal partner in a construction company, Toprakenne Ky Toive Lehtinen, which was wound-up in 1991.
Original proceedings 7.  On 6 July 1992 the Tampere District Court (raastuvanoikeus, rådstuvurätten; later käräjäoikeus, tingsrätten) issued a judgment in bankruptcy proceedings involving the applicant's company. Some creditors' claims were reserved for final determination in civil proceedings which had been initiated before the District Court by companies A.N.K., A.H.K. and A.K. On 2 September 1992 the applicant was summoned. On an unspecified date the applicant submitted that he also had monetary claims against the plaintiffs. 8.  The first hearing was held on 12 October 1992. Having held ten hearings, the District Court issued three judgments on 25 November 1994. It ordered the wound-up estate of the applicant's company to pay some 400,000 Finnish marks (FIM, about 67,275 euros (EUR)) to company A.H.K. and some FIM 180,000 (about EUR 30,274) to company A.K. It dismissed A.N.K.'s claim as unfounded. It also declared the applicant's claims inadmissible. 9.  On 23 December 1994 the applicant appealed to the Turku Court of Appeal (hovioikeus, hovrätten), requesting that the cases be remitted to the District Court for re-examination together with the applicant's counter-claims, which had been remitted to it on 15 December 1994 by the Court of Appeal (see paragraph 20 below). Alternatively, he requested an oral hearing. In his later submission of 20 May 1996 he also challenged the impartiality of one of the District Court judges. 10.  The Court of Appeal issued three judgments on 28 November 1996. It declined to return the cases to the District Court, noting that the claims against the estate of the applicant's wound-up company had been examined by the District Court prior to the Court of Appeal's decision to remit his and the estate's counter-claims with a view to joining them to the original proceedings. The Court of Appeal also rejected the applicant's request for an oral hearing and his complaint about alleged bias as being manifestly ill-founded. 11.  On 3 October 1997 the Supreme Court refused the applicant leave to appeal. 12.  On 2 April 1998 the applicant lodged an application for annulment of those decisions, challenging the impartiality of Justice J.T. of the Supreme Court. 13.  Having obtained submissions from Justice J.T. and the applicant, the Supreme Court accepted that Justice J.T. had not been impartial and annulled its previous decisions on 9 September 1999. It also declared the requests for leave to appeal admissible for reconsideration. 14.  On 23 November 1999 the Supreme Court, sitting in a new composition, refused the applicant leave to appeal. 15.  On 11 June 2001, in reply to the applicant's request, the Supreme Court refused to reopen the proceedings. On 27 May 2003 the Supreme Court rejected the applicant's further complaints in the extraordinary proceedings.
Counter-claim proceedings 16.  In the context of the examination of the creditors' assets, the applicant filed counter-claims on 26 August 1993 against companies A.N.K., A.H.K. and A.K. before the Tampere District Court. The counter-claims concerned debt and damages claims relating to construction contracts. 17.  At the fifth hearing of the original proceedings held on 20 September 1993 the District Court declined to examine the counter-claims. It agreed with the three companies that these suits could not be joined to the original proceedings as they had been filed with the wrong district court. 18.  In October 1993 the applicant appealed to the Turku Court of Appeal. 19.  The applicant filed two submissions with the Court of Appeal after the expiry of the time-limit for appealing. He also asked it to speed up the proceedings, referring to the ongoing original proceedings before the District Court, where judgment was expected in October 1994. 20.  On 15 December 1994 the Court of Appeal quashed the District Court's decisions of 20 September 1993 concerning the forum and referred the counter-claims back to the Tampere District Court. 21.  On 15 March 1995 the applicant requested the District Court not to examine his counter-claims before the original proceedings had acquired legal force. 22.  On 27 January 2000 the applicant requested the District Court to resume the proceedings. 23.  On 17 April 2000 the District Court requested the applicant to specify his claims and the grounds relied on in order to expedite the proceedings. 24.  Meanwhile, according to the Government, the parties had initiated negotiations for a friendly settlement. The District Court fixed 31 May 2000 as the deadline for reaching a friendly settlement. 25.  On that date, a preparatory hearing was held as the parties had not reached a settlement. The applicant requested, inter alia, that the presiding judge be replaced. 26.  On 9 June 2000 the District Court decided that the presiding judge should be replaced. 27.  On 5 December 2001 the District Court, presided over by another judge, held a preparatory hearing. The preparatory hearing continued on 7 January 2002. 28.  On 22 February 2002 the District Court rejected the applicant's counter-claims as being time-barred. 29.  The applicant appealed to the Court of Appeal. It held an oral hearing on 26 August 2003. 30.  On 17 October 2003 the Court of Appeal upheld the decisions, except for that concerning A.H.K., which was remitted to the first-instance court for fresh consideration. 31.  The Supreme Court refused the applicant and A.H.K. leave to appeal on 26 August 2004. 32.  Subsequently, the applicant requested the District Court to continue its consideration of his counter-claims against A.H.K. According to the information provided by the applicant on 2 November 2006, these proceedings were still pending.