7.  The first applicant, Mr J. Maxian, was born in 1949. The second applicant, Ms I. Maxianová, was born in 1965. They are spouses and live in Vienna, Austria.
8.  The applicants have lodged thirteen applications with this Court already, most of which concerned their involvement in a convoluted cluster of litigation relating to a suite of real properties. A number of those sets of proceedings were interrelated and were often stayed pending the outcome of another set of proceedings concerning related matters.
9.  The present application concerns an action brought by the applicants before the Dunajská Streda District Court on 11 April 2005, which was registered under the file no. 4C 65/2005 (“the main proceedings”). The applicants believed that they had had ownership rights in respect of a property which they had rented out to individuals for payment.
10.  During the main proceedings, the applicants were involved in two other separate sets of auxiliary proceedings held before the same court (see paragraphs 18 to 21). Owing to a dispute over the aforesaid real property in the context of these two sets of auxiliary proceedings, the main proceedings were stayed on two occasions. The details are described below.
11.  On 16 May 2005 the District Court issued a payment order which was challenged by the defendants. Following this, the District Court held several hearings, dealt with the applicants’ application to modify the claim and tried to serve the court documents on one of the defendants, whose address was unknown.
12.  On 28 September 2006 the District Court stayed the proceedings pending the outcome of the first set of auxiliary proceedings (see paragraph 18) and this decision was upheld on appeal with final effect on 27 September 2007. Subsequently, the applicants lodged an appeal on points of law to no avail.
13.  Between 9 September and 1 December 2008 the District Court monitored the first set of auxiliary proceedings and once those were finalised it resumed the main proceedings on 20 March 2009. The District Court then dealt with the applicants’ applications to modify the claim, it ordered the taking of expert evidence, scheduled a number of hearings, and traced the defendants’ whereabouts in order to serve the court documents on them since they were continually changing address.
14.  On 17 September 2012 the District Court stayed the proceedings for the second time pending the outcome of the second set of auxiliary proceedings (see paragraph 21). The applicants appealed this decision unsuccessfully and the decision on staying the main proceedings became final on 16 January 2014. The main proceedings have not been resumed since their interruption. However, the District Court has regularly monitored their state.
15.  The applicants complained before the Constitutional Court about the length of the main proceedings on two occasions. In their second constitutional complaint, they also challenged the alleged unfairness of the domestic courts’ decisions to stay those proceedings.
16.  On 7 September 2010 the Constitutional Court (file no. I. ÚS 291/2010) rejected their first complaint as manifestly ill-founded on the grounds that the proceedings had been stayed between 2006 and 2009 pending the outcome of the first set of auxiliary proceedings. It examined the periods before the main proceedings had been stayed in September 2006 and after they had been resumed in March 2009 and found no inactivity at the material times. It also found that the applicants had contributed to the delays by making five applications to modify the particulars of their claim.
17.  On 4 June 2014 the Constitutional Court (file no. I. ÚS 267/2014) rejected the applicants’ second complaint as manifestly ill-founded. It examined the procedural steps taken by the District Court following the applicants’ first constitutional complaint until 17 September 2012, when the District Court had stayed the main proceedings for the second time. It noted that the District Court had been obliged to find the defendants’ address. It found only a short period of inactivity in the District Court’s procedure amounting to four months, which in itself did not breach the applicants’ right to a hearing within a reasonable time. The Constitutional Court further stated that the applicants’ arguments about the unfairness of the domestic courts’ decisions on the staying of the proceedings were manifestly ill-founded. It also noted that they had failed to raise some of their arguments about the alleged unfairness and the lack of reasoning before the lower courts, in particular before the appellate court.
18.  The first set of auxiliary proceedings was brought in 1996 against the applicants (file no. 4 C 204/96) and concerned a dispute over the validity of the purchase agreement concerning a contested real property, which they had purportedly been renting to other persons. The judgment dismissing that claim became final on 10 November 2008.
19.  In April 2003, the applicants jointly received a domestic award from the Constitutional Court amounting to the equivalent of 2,656 euros (EUR) in damages for the breach of their right to a hearing within a reasonable time in the context of those proceedings (file no. II. ÚS 197/02).
20.  They also introduced an application in respect of the length of proceedings with this Court (no. 50780/11), which was declared inadmissible by a Single Judge on 28 June 2012 (see for example Maxian and Maxianová v. Slovakia, (dec.), no. 44482/09, 24 July 2012).
21.  The second set of auxiliary proceedings commenced on 14 March 2011 and once again related to a dispute over the validity of the purchase agreement concerning the aforesaid real property (file no. 10C 62/2011). These proceedings are still pending.
22.  Within the context of another of the applicants’ cases pending before this Court (application no. 10816/12), the Court established of its own motion that on 7 May 2015 the applicants had challenged the length of the second set of auxiliary proceedings (file no. 10C 62/2011) by way of a constitutional complaint, relying on Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 48 § 1 of the Constitution.
23.  The Constitutional Court declared their complaint admissible on 11 February 2016. The Court has received no further information about the outcome of these constitutional proceedings.