CASE OF KARDOŠ v. CROATIA
Violation of Article 6 - Right to a fair trial (Article 6 - Administrative proceedings;Article 6-1 - Access to court)
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro;Julia Laffranque;Paul Lemmens;Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström;Ksenija Turković
5. The applicant was born in 1951 and lives in Zagreb. 6. The applicant was a co-owner of a block of flats on the island of Vir. 7. On 2 and 23 March 2006 building inspectors of the Inspectorate of the Ministry of the Environment, Spatial Development and Construction (Ministarstvo zaštite okoliša, prostornog uređenja i graditeljstva, Uprava za inspekcijske poslove) carried out an on-site inspection of the block of flats in question. 8. On 31 March 2006 one of the building inspectors ordered that the block of flats be demolished within three days from the date of service of the decision. 9. The applicant lodged an appeal against the demolition order, submitting that the time-limit for compliance was too short and that the block of flats was not within the protected coastal area. 10. On 15 May 2006 the appeal section of the Legal Department at the Inspectorate (Odsjek za postupak u drugom stupnju – “the second-instance body”) dismissed the appeal, finding that the block of flats had been built without a building permit. 11. Meanwhile, on 4 May 2006 the building inspector issued an administrative enforcement order (zaključak o dozvoli izvršenja), stating that the demolition order of 31 March 2006 had become enforceable on 6 April 2006 and that the co-owners had not complied with it within the given time-limit. He therefore ordered that the demolition be carried out by a third party after 11 May 2006, at the expense of the co-owners. 12. The applicant lodged an appeal against the administrative enforcement order, submitting that it was not sufficiently reasoned and that the construction of the block of flats could be retrospectively approved. 13. On 23 May 2006 the second-instance body dismissed the appeal as ill-founded. 14. On 27 June 2006 the co-owners had the block of flats demolished. 15. Meanwhile, on 26 June 2006 the applicant lodged an administrative complaint with the Administrative Court, repeating the arguments made in her appeal and seeking damages for the demolition. Since it was not clear whether the applicant was complaining about the second-instance decision concerning the demolition order or the administrative enforcement, on 11 July 2006 the Administrative Court requested her to specify which she wished to contest. 16. On 30 August 2006 the applicant replied that she was seeking annulment of the second-instance decision of 15 May 2006 concerning the demolition order. 17. On 22 April 2010 the Administrative Court dismissed her complaint as ill-founded, but addressed it as if it had been about the second-instance decision of 23 May 2006 concerning the administrative enforcement. 18. On 13 July 2010 the applicant lodged a constitutional complaint, alleging, inter alia, a violation of her right of access to court, on the ground that the Administrative Court had erroneously decided a matter which had not been the subject of her administrative complaint. 19. On 13 December 2010 the Constitutional Court declared the constitutional complaint inadmissible, on the grounds that the contested decision had not concerned the merits of the case and as such was not amenable to constitutional review. This decision was served on the applicant’s representative on 7 January 2011.