CASE OF RAMLJAK v. CROATIA
Violation of Article 6 - Right to a fair trial (Article 6 - Civil proceedings;Article 6-1 - Impartial tribunal);Non-pecuniary damage - award (Article 41 - Non-pecuniary damage;Just satisfaction)
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro;Julia Laffranque;Nebojša Vučinić;Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström;Ksenija Turković
5. The applicant was born in 1962 and lives in Sinj. 6. On 29 December 2005 M.R. brought a civil action against the applicant before the Sinj Municipal Court (Općinski sud u Sinju), seeking that a will be declared null and void. M.R. was represented by lawyers, V.Lj. and Ž.V. 7. On 8 December 2006 the Sinj Municipal Court adopted a judgment in the applicant’s favour. 8. The plaintiff lodged an appeal with the Split County Court (Županijski sud u Splitu). The Civil Division of that Court has over forty judges. On 27 August 2009 a panel of three judges presided over by Judge D.P., sitting in a closed meeting, reversed the first-instance judgment and upheld the appeal. It held that the first-instance court had correctly established the facts but had wrongly applied the relevant law. 9. The applicant lodged an appeal on points of law with the Supreme Court (Vrhovni sud Republike Hrvatske) alleging, inter alia, that she had not had a fair hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal because Judge D.P. was the father of a trainee lawyer working at the law office of V.Lj. and Ž.V., who had both represented the plaintiff in the proceedings. 10. On 14 September 2011 the Supreme Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal on points of law as unfounded and upheld the second-instance judgment. It held in particular: “The case file shows that N.P., Judge D.P.’s son, did not participate in any manner in the proceedings at issue. This court therefore considers that there are no circumstances which put the impartiality of Judge D.P. in such doubt as to exclude his participation in the adoption of the appeal judgment.” 11. In a constitutional complaint of 29 June 2012 the applicant argued that even though N.P. had not participated at the hearings held in the proceedings at issue, there were no indications that he had not been otherwise involved in the case. He had been in a relationship of subordination (employer-employee) to the opposing party’s legal representative and the law office concerned had employed only a very small number of people. The applicant noted that the first-instance judgment in her favour had also later been reversed on appeal. The constitutional complaint was declared inadmissible on 3 October 2012 by the Constitutional Court.