4.  The applicant was born in 1953 and lives in Dunaharaszti. 5.  On 20 December 1993 criminal proceedings were instituted against the applicant on charges of fraud. 6.  The investigation was suspended between 14 May 1997 and 4 June 2003, because international legal assistance needed to be sought from several foreign States. 7.  A bill of indictment was preferred on 27 June 2003 on charges of fraudulent bankruptcy, embezzlement and forgery of public documents. 8. After ten hearings between 20 June 2006 and 28 September 2009, on 2 November 2009 the Pest Central District Court convicted the applicant of fraudulent bankruptcy and forgery of public documents and sentenced him to a fine. The applicant waived the right to appeal; and the judgment became final on the same day. It contained only a short reasoning which was confined to the facts of the case and the applicable law. The reasoning did not appreciate the length of the proceedings as a mitigating factor. 9.  In the course of these criminal proceedings, on 27 February 1995 the applicant’s passport was withdrawn under section 2(1a) of Act no. XXVIII of 1989 on Travelling Abroad and Passports, because criminal proceedings involving serious charges were pending against him. 10.  From 1 September 1998 onwards, the travel ban was maintained under a new provision, namely, section 16(1a) of Act no. XII of 1998 on Travelling Abroad. As of 1 July 2003, the travel ban was annulled under this latter legislation. The Government submitted that, in principle, the applicant had therefore become able to travel with his identity card to Switzerland and Croatia and after 1 May 2004, to the Member States of the European Economic Area. The applicant submitted that, in reality, he could not do so, because the court in charge had not duly notified the passport authority of the abolition of the travel ban, which thus remained a formal legal obstacle to travelling abroad as such, in accordance with sections 146(3) and 146(5) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, as in force in the relevant period.