BUZINGER v. SLOVAKIA
Inadmissible
Branko Lubarda;Ján Šikuta;Johannes Silvis;Josep Casadevall;Kristina Pardalos;Luis López Guerra
1. The applicant, Mr Martin Buzinger, is a Slovak national, who was born in 1971 and lives in Bratislava. In addition to the present case, he was the applicant in six and represented applicants in seven other cases before the Court. 2. In the present case, he was represented before the Court by Ms M. Lukačovičová, a lawyer practising in Bratislava. 3. The Government of the Slovak Republic (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Ms M. Pirošíková. 4. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows. 5. The applicant is a practicing lawyer. He provided legal services in association with a partner, A., with whom he shared premises. 6. On 2 September 2002 he filed a criminal complaint stating that, the previous night, A. had unlawfully removed various items of office equipment from their law firm and that the criminal offence of theft might have been committed in that connection. He specified the value of the damage thus suffered and submitted a claim against A. for compensation. 7. Subsequently an investigation was opened into a suspicion of theft having been committed by one or more persons unknown. The investigation was terminated because there was no case to answer, but that decision was quashed following the applicant’s complaint. The ensuing new investigation into a suspicion of embezzlement was terminated twice, the former termination being quashed following the applicant’s appeal. The applicant’s appeal against the latter termination was rejected on 11 December 2012 for being belated. 8. On 28 October 2009 the Constitutional Court rejected a complaint in which the applicant had challenged the length of the criminal proceedings, in so far as they concerned his claim for damages. 9. From the observations of the Government on the admissibly and merits of the application, it transpired that, in parallel to claiming damages in the context of the above criminal proceedings, on 3 September 2004 the applicant had filed an action for damages against A. before the civil courts. 10. On 17 June 2010 the Bratislava I District Court partly granted and partly dismissed the action. The judgment was however quashed by the Bratislava Regional Court on 31 January 2012 following appeals by both parties. The matter was thus remitted to the first-instance for re-examination and it has been pending there since. 11. In all the above proceedings, the applicant was or has been represented by a practicing lawyer or a law firm.