CASE OF BUJKOVIĆ v. MONTENEGRO
Violation of Article 6 - Right to a fair trial (Article 6 - Civil proceedings;Article 6-1 - Reasonable time)
András Sajó;Egidijus Kūris;Jon Fridrik Kjølbro;Nebojša Vučinić;Paul Lemmens;Robert Spano
5. The applicant was born in 1972 and lives in Sutomore. 6. On 24 April 2000 the applicant instituted civil proceedings against the Municipality of Bar concerning a plot of land. 7. Following a remittal, on 23 January 2003 the Court of First Instance (Osnovni sud) in Bar ruled partly in favour of the applicant. 8. On 27 April 2004 the High Court (Viši sud) in Podgorica upheld a part of this judgment but quashed the remainder. 9. On 16 September 2004 the applicant filed at the same time a request for reopening of the proceedings with the Court of First Instance and an appeal on points of law (revizija) with the Supreme Court (Vrhovni sud), both in respect of the part of the judgment which had been upheld. 10. On 2 February 2005 the case-file was transmitted to the Supreme Court, which court returned the case-file to the Court of First Instance on 20 December 2005. 11. On 20 October 2006 the Court of First Instance dismissed the applicant’s request for reopening of the proceedings, which decision was upheld by the High Court on 9 May 2008. 12. On 13 June 2008 the Supreme Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal on points of law. 13. On 9 October 2008 the Court of First Instance joined the examination of the remainder of the applicant’s claim with other two claims previously lodged by the applicant. 14. On 27 October 2008 the applicant filed another submission to the court, in view of the joined proceedings. 15. On 5 May 2009 the applicant specified his claim, in substance repeating his earlier submissions. 16. On 18 June 2009 the hearing started anew given that the case had been assigned to a new judge. The applicant notified the court that he was withdrawing his submission of 27 October 2008. The court invited the applicant to specify his claim, which the applicant did the next day. 17. On 9 September 2009 the hearing started anew given that the case had been assigned to a new judge. 18. On 2 November 2009 the Court of First Instance declared it lacked competence to deal with the case (sud se oglašava nenadležnim) and rejected the claim. On an unspecified date thereafter this decision was quashed by the High Court and in March 2010 the proceedings were again pending before the Court of First Instance. 19. Between April and August 2010 the parties attempted to reach a friendly settlement but to no avail. 20. On 14 February 2011 the hearing started afresh given that the case had been assigned to another judge. 21. On 17 February 2011 the Court of First Instance ruled against the applicant, which decision was quashed by the High Court on 20 September 2011. 22. On 10 May 2012 the Court of First Instance again ruled against the applicant. This judgment was upheld by the High Court and the Supreme Court on 19 October 2012 and 7 February 2013 respectively. 23. In 2003 and 2004 the applicant proposed that another set of civil proceedings be suspended (prekid postupka) until the proceedings initiated upon the claim lodged in 2000 were concluded. On 6 November 2006 the applicant proposed that this other set of proceedings be continued. 24. On 20 March 2013 the applicant instituted another set of civil proceedings, which are currently pending before the High Court.