CASE OF CULI v. CROATIA
Violation of Article 6 - Right to a fair trial (Article 6 - Civil proceedings;Article 6-1 - Reasonable time)
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska;Paulo Pinto De Albuquerque;Ksenija Turković
4. The applicant was born in 1960 and lives in Jarmina. 5. On 14 November 2008 the applicant applied to the Vinkovci Municipal Court (Općinski sud u Vinkovcima) for enforcement of a final judgement by which D.C., the applicant’s former husband, was ordered to pay her alimony. 6. On 18 November 2008 the first-instance court issued a writ of execution ordering D.C. to pay the applicant amounts of 700 Croatian kunas (HRK) together with the statutory default interest for the period starting from 12 July 2007 until the payment, and also the amount of HRK 2,440 together with the statutory default interest starting from 10 June 2008 until the payment on account of costs and expenses. 7. The writ of execution was served on the Vukovar Regional Office of the Croatian Pension Fund (Hrvatski zavod za mirovinsko osiguranje, Područna služba Vukovar) for enforcement. 8. On 29 December 2008 D.C. appealed against the writ of execution and on 20 January 2009 the applicant responded to his appeal. 9. On 12 February 2009 the first-instance court held a hearing at which both parties gave their statements. 10. On 24 February 2009 the first-instance court instructed D.C. to institute separate civil proceedings with a view to declaring the enforcement inadmissible. 11. On 9 March 2009 the applicant appealed against the decision of 24 February 2009. 12. On 24 April 2009 the case-file was forwarded to the Vukovar County Court (Županijski sud u Vukovaru) to decide upon the parties’ appeals. 13. On 19 August 2009 the Vukovar County Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal and returned the case-file to the first-instance court. 14. However, since the Vukovar County Court failed to decide upon the appeal lodged by D.C., the case file was again returned to it and on 7 January 2010 it dismissed D.C.’s appeal. 15. On 26 January 2010 the first-instance court informed the Vukovar Regional Office of the Croatian Pension Fund, that the writ of execution became final and that it should be executed. 16. On 19 February 2010 the first-instance court again asked the Vukovar Regional Office of the Croatian Pension Fund to execute the final writ of execution. 17. On 24 March 2010 the Vukovar Regional Office of the Croatian Pension Fund transferred HRK 15,600 to the applicant’s account; on 15 April 2010 it transferred the amount of HRK 1,200; and on 14 May 2010 the amount of HRK 881.50. 18. Meanwhile, on 7 December 2009 and 14 January 2010 the applicant lodged a request for the protection of the right to a hearing within a reasonable time (zahtjev za zaštitu prava na suđenje u razumnom roku) with the Supreme Court (Vrhovni sud Republike Hrvatske) complaining about the length of the above enforcement proceedings. In these proceedings the State was represented by the State Attorney’s Office of the Republic of Croatia (Državno odvjetništvo Republike Hrvatske). 19. On 14 September 2010 the Supreme Court examined the case file of the Vinkovci Municipal Court and a submission of the Vukovar County Court, and found that the enforcement proceedings had started on 14 November 2008 and that they were still pending. It considered that the proceedings had not been excessively long and dismissed the applicant’s request. 20. On 6 September 2012 the applicant’s appeal was dismissed by a three-judge panel of the Supreme Court. 21. On 12 December 2012 the applicant’s subsequent constitutional complaint was declared inadmissible by the Constitutional Court (Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske).