CASE OF MAŠIREVIĆ v. SERBIA
Violation of Article 6 - Right to a fair trial (Article 6 - Civil proceedings;Article 6-1 - Access to court);Non-pecuniary damage - award;Respondent State to take individual measures (Article 46-2 - Individual measures)
Egidijus Kūris;Guido Raimondi;Helen Keller;Nebojša Vučinić;Paulo Pinto De Albuquerque;Peer Lorenzen
5. The applicant was born in 1940 and lives in Sombor. 6. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows. 7. On 8 July 1998 the applicant, a practising lawyer, filed a civil claim with the Municipal Court in Novi Sad, seeking payment of fees from a private insurance company (“the respondent”) for the service rendered on account of a legal fee agreement concluded in 1995. 8. On 17 September 1998 the Municipal Court ordered that payment (izdao platni nalog). The respondent objected to this order. 9. On 27 September 2001, in the course of a hearing, the respondent filed a counter-claim, requesting the Municipal Court to declare the 1995 contract null and void. 10. On 16 September 2002 the Municipal Court decided to join the proceeding initiated by the claim and the counter-claim. 11. On 24 November 2003 the Municipal Court quashed the payment order of 17 September 1998, rejected the applicant’s claim, declared a part of the contract void and decided that the other part of the contract remained in force. 12. On an unspecified date the applicant appealed against this judgment. 13. On 24 February 2005 the District Court in Novi Sad upheld this judgment on appeal. 14. On an unspecified date in April 2005, the applicant filed an appeal on points of law (revizija). 15. On 30 November 2006 the Supreme Court returned the file to the District Court, which had apparently failed to adjudicate a part of the applicant’s appeal. 16. On 25 April 2007 the District Court adopted a supplementary judgment (dopunska presuda), rejecting that part of the applicant’s appeal. 17. On 24 October 2007 the Supreme Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal on points of law (odbacio reviziju kao nedozvoljenu), stating that the applicant was not entitled to lodge it, given that Article 84 of the Civil Procedure Act 2004 prescribes that an appeal on points of law may only be submitted by an attorney at law, not the plaintiff personally. The Supreme Court specified that, according to this Act, parties to the proceedings had lost the legal capacity to file an appeal on points of law individually, even if they were themselves attorneys at law. 18. The decision of 24 October 2007 was served on the applicant on 14 January 2008. 19. On 11 February 2008 the applicant lodged an appeal with the Constitutional Court of Serbia. 20. On 13 May 2008 the Constitutional Court requested the applicant to specify his complaint. 21. On 6 June 2008 the applicant filed his amended constitutional appeal. 22. On 25 March 2009 the Constitutional Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal as incomplete.