4.  The applicant was born in 1953 and lives in Olkusz. 5.  On 1 December 1999 a bill of indictment was filed against the applicant with the Olkusz District Court, after as it appears a short pre-trial stage. Two charges were brought against her: threatening to kill, and assaulting, a certain J. B.-D. The prosecutor requested that 12 witnesses be heard. 6.  On 12 January 2000 the applicant requested that the case be transferred to the Kraków District Court. She further requested that all the judges of the Olkusz District Court be excluded from the examination of her case. It appears that both applications were dismissed. 7.  On 4 September 2000 the applicant lodged an application requesting the hearing to be recorded on tape; this was also dismissed. 8.  The first hearing in the case took place on 5 October 2000. The Olkusz District Court heard submissions from the applicant. 9.  A hearing scheduled for 21 November 2000 was adjourned on account of the justified absence of the applicant. 10.  A subsequent hearing scheduled for 14 December 2000 was also adjourned on account of the absence of a lay judge. 11.  On 16 January 2001 the applicant again requested that all the judges of the Olkusz District Court be excluded from the examination of her case. 12.  On account of that application, hearings scheduled for 23 January and 9 February 2001 were cancelled. 13.  On 18 April 2001 the Katowice Regional Court dismissed the the applicant's application. 14.  On 3 January 2002 the court scheduled a hearing for 17 January 2002. 15.  On 7 January 2002 the applicant requested 49 certified copies from the case file. On 10 January 2002 she further requested that a lay judge be excluded. 16.  On 17 January 2002 the court heard the applicant and set the date for the next hearing for 12 March 2002. 17.  On 22 January 2002 the applicant made a request for 2 certified copies from the case file and 11 copies of other documents. 18.  On 4 March 2002 the applicant's counsel requested that the hearing be rescheduled. A new hearing was listed for 26 April 2002. 19.  On 22 April 2002 the applicant requested that the chairman of the judicial panel be excluded from the examination of her case. She further requested the exclusion of all the judges of the Olkusz District Court. On account of this application the hearing was cancelled. 20.  On 30 April 2002 the applicant again requested that the chairman of the judicial panel be excluded from the examination of her case. 21.  On 12 June 2002 the Kraków Regional Court granted the applicant's application concerning the exclusion of all the judges. It found that the applicant had slandered the judges in numerous applications she had filed with the court and for this reason it decided to transfer the case to the Miechów District Court. 22.  On 9 July 2002 the court scheduled a hearing for 30 August 2002. During the hearing it was disclosed that the applicant had been seeing a psychiatrist on a regular basis. The prosecutor filed an application to have her examined by a psychiatrist to determine whether she had been sane at the time of the alleged crime. 23.  On 18 October 2002 an expert opinion was submitted to the Miechów District Court. The psychiatrist had found that there were still doubts as to the applicant's mental health; hence it was necessary to examine her in a hospital. The Miechów District Court granted this request. 24.  On 30 October 2002 the applicant's counsel appealed against the decision ordering her hospitalization. He argued that she had not been correctly summoned for the hearing at which the decision had been taken. Consequently, the said decision was quashed by the Miechów District Court on 4 November 2002. 25.  On 14 November 2002 the applicant again requested that all the judges examining her case be excluded. Further, she requested to have her case transferred to the Kraków Regional Court. Her request was granted on 11 December 2002. The court found that the applicant had slandered the judges in numerous applications she had filed. The file was transferred to the Kraków-Nowa Huta District Court. 26.  Between 21 January and 11 March 2003 the case file was sent to the Regional Prosecutor's Office in Kraków, for the examination of a complaint the applicant had filed in the meantime of inactivity on the part of the Olkusz District Prosecutor. 27.  On 4 April 2003 the Olkusz District Court ordered an expert opinion to be drawn up on the applicant's mental health. The relevant examination was scheduled for 10 June 2003 at the psychiatric hospital in Lublin. It appears that the applicant failed to attend the examination. She also failed to attend subsequent examinations scheduled for 29 January, 7 April, 2 June, 16 July and 8 September 2004, despite a court order to have her escorted to the examination by the police. 28.  On 18 July 2003 the applicant requested again that all the judges of the Kraków-Nowa Huta District Court be excluded from the examination of her case. On 7 November 2003 her application was dismissed by the Kraków Regional Court. 29.  By applications of 30 March, 29 May and 4 September 2004 the applicant requested that the chairman of the judicial panel be excluded from the examination of her case. They were dismissed by the Kraków-Nowa Huta District Court on 4 May, 14 July and 7 October 2004 respectively. 30.  On 14 October 2004 the applicant lodged a complaint about the court's decision of 7 October 2004. It was dismissed as inadmissible on 26 October 2004 by the Kraków-Nowa Huta District Court. 31.  On 21 October 2004 the court scheduled a hearing for 17 November 2004. 32.  On 16 November 2004 the applicant requested that the case file be sent back to the District Prosecutor's Office for the preparatory proceedings to be completed. 33.  On 17 November 2004 neither the applicant nor her counsel attended the scheduled hearing. In the light of the application lodged by the applicant the previous day, the hearing was adjourned. 34.  During a hearing held on 14 April 2005 the Kraków-Nowa Huta District Court decided that the question of whether the applicant should be detained pending trial should be examined. 35.  On 15 April 2005 the court accepted the evidence from the expert opinion on the extent of the injuries sustained by the victim. On 25 April 2005 the case file was transferred to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Kraków. A final opinion was prepared on 20 May 2005. 36.  A hearing scheduled for 9 May 2005 concerning an application by the District Prosecutor to have the applicant detained pending trial was adjourned because the case file had been transferred to the experts summoned to examine the record of the victim's injuries. 37.  A hearing was held on 23 May 2005; neither the applicant nor her counsel attended. In the light of the expert opinion the prosecutor modified the legal classification of the act committed by the applicant. 38.  Eventually, on 29 June 2005 the District Prosecutor decided to withdraw the bill of indictment against the applicant. He considered the acts resulting in both the charges against her as having posed a “minimal threat to society” (znikoma społeczna szkodliwość czynu). 39.  On 28 September 2005 the Kraków District Court discontinued the criminal proceedings against the applicant in respect of the charge of threatening to kill J. B.-D. 40.  On 30 November 2005 the Kraków District Court discontinued the criminal proceedings against the applicant in respect of the charge of assaulting J. B.-D. 41.  On 21 June 2005 the applicant filed with the Kraków Regional Court a complaint under the Law of 17 June 2004 on complaints concerning breaches of the right to a trial within a reasonable time (Ustawa o skardze na naruszenie prawa strony do rozpoznania sprawy w postępowaniu sądowym bez nieuzasadnionej zwłoki – “the 2004 Act”), alleging that the criminal proceedings pending against her had been excessively long. 42.  On 28 July 2005 the Kraków Regional Court dismissed her complaint as ill-founded. The court found that the applicant had contributed to the overall length of the proceedings by obstructing the proceedings and filing numerous applications for the exclusion of judges.