CASE OF GREGURIĆ v. CROATIA
Violation of Article 6 - Right to a fair trial (Article 6 - Civil proceedings;Article 6-1 - Access to court)
Kristina Pardalos;Pauliine Koskelo;Ksenija Turković
4. The applicant lives in Kutina. 5. From 1 January 2001 the applicant concluded several consecutive fixed-duration contracts of employment with the company C.N.S. Ltd. concerning the same post. The contracts were for a continuous period which in total amounted to over seven years and seven months. 6. On 5 June 2009 the applicant’s employer returned the applicant’s employment registration book to him, without any written or oral notification, showing that his employment had been terminated. 7. On 20 July 2009 the applicant brought a civil action before the Ivanić Grad Municipal Court (Općinski sud u Ivanić Gradu). He asked it to recognise that he had concluded an open-ended contract of employment, given that he had been in continuous employment with his employer for over three years, which was the time-limit for fixed-term employment contracts under the Labour Act. He also asked the Municipal Court to establish that his employment had not been terminated and to order his reinstatement. 8. On 22 January 2010 the Ivanić Grad Municipal Court dismissed the applicant’s claim as time-barred. 9. Upon an appeal by the applicant, on 16 February 2011 the Velika Gorica County Court (Županijski sud u Velikoj Gorici) quashed the firstinstance decision and remitted the case for fresh consideration. It held that the first-instance court should have declared the applicant’s claims inadmissible as time-barred, without examining it on the merits. 10. In the fresh proceedings, the Ivanić Grad Municipal Court on 6 May 2011 declared the applicant’s action inadmissible as having been lodged outside the prescribed time-limit. The first-instance court, relying on section 133 of the Labour Act, held that the applicant and his employer had concluded a fixed-term contract lasting until 31 May 2009 and that the applicant must have known that his contract would end on that day. He had not concluded a new contract of employment with his employer and he had therefore been obliged to lodge an application for the protection of his rights with his employer within the fifteen-day time-limit, starting from 1 June 2009. However, he had failed to do so and consequently his claim had been lodged out of time. Rejecting the applicant’s argument, the firstinstance court also held that the defendant company had not been obliged to adopt a formal decision on terminating his employment or to send him any other kind of notification, given that he must have known that his contract would come to an end on 31 May 2009. 11. On 12 May 2011 the applicant lodged an appeal with the Velika Gorica County Court. 12. On 26 July 2011 the Velika Gorica County Court upheld the firstinstance decision. 13. On 14 November 2011 the applicant lodged an appeal on points of law (revizija) with the Supreme Court (Vrhovni sud Republike Hrvatske), which was dismissed as ill-founded on 25 September 2012. The Supreme Court also held that the applicant had failed to seek the protection of his rights in respect of his employer within the deadlines prescribed by section 133 of the Labour Act. Accordingly, his claim had been lodged out of time. 14. On 14 March 2013 the applicant lodged a constitutional complaint with the Constitutional Court (Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske). He complained that the courts had wrongly declared his claim inadmissible because it had been of a declaratory nature and as such had not been subject to deadlines. He relied on a decision by the Velika Gorica County Court of 16 January 2013 in the case of a colleague of his, who for the same reasons as the applicant had also sought to have the court recognise that he had concluded an open-ended contract of employment. In that decision the Velika Gorica County Court, in accordance with instructions given in the Supreme Court’s decision no. Revr-1697/11 of 6 June 2012, had dismissed the defendant’s (the employer’s) objection that the claim was time-barred. Namely, the Supreme Court had held that the claim had been of a declaratory nature and as such was not subject to deadlines. 15. On 6 May 2013 the Constitutional Court dismissed the applicant’s constitutional complaint as manifestly ill-founded.