SECOND SECTION
CASE OF CETINJA v. CROATIA
(Application no. 6959/17)
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
 
 
 
 
STRASBOURG
9 May 2023
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Cetinja v. Croatia,
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Pauliine Koskelo, President,
 Lorraine Schembri Orland,
 Davor Derenčinović, judges,
and Dorothee von Arnim, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 6959/17) against the Republic of Croatia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 17 January 2017 by a Croatian national, Mr Aleksandar Cetinja, born in 1988 and living in Rijeka (“the applicant”), who was represented by Mr E. Bradamante, a lawyer practising in Rijeka;
the decision to give notice of the complaints concerning property, fairness of the proceedings and the principle of nullum crimen sine lege to the Croatian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms Š. Stažnik, and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application;
the parties’ observations;
 
Having deliberated in private on 11 April 2023,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns the applicant’s conviction for a minor offence which had become time-barred. 2. On 28 August 2011, after an incident involving a physical altercation with another individual, the applicant, who was under the influence of alcohol, was brought to the local police station at 4 a.m. to sober up. He was kept there until at 9 a.m. when he was released. 3. By a judgment of 12 October 2011, the Delnice Minor Offences Court found the applicant guilty of a minor offence of breach of public peace and imposed a fine of 728 Croatian kunas (HRK), that is, some 97 euros (EUR) at the time. However, the five hours the applicant spent in police custody were calculated as one day of imprisonment, which corresponded to HRK 300 and had to be deducted from the total amount of the fine. The applicant was therefore eventually ordered to pay a fine in the amount of HRK 428, that is, some EUR 57. He was also ordered to pay HRK 150 for the costs of the proceedings, that is, some EUR 20. The applicant paid that fine and the costs on 11 January 2017, together with HRK 75 as a fee charged by the domestic payment agency FINA for compulsory execution, that is, a total of HRK 645.63. 4. Meanwhile, on 31 October 2011 the applicant lodged an appeal against that judgment. His appeal was examined and dismissed by the judgment of the High Minor Offences Court on 27 May 2015, that is, more than three and a half years later. Furthermore, that judgment was served on him on 8 March 2016, that is, more than nine months from its adoption and more than four and a half years after the commission of the offence. 5. The applicant then lodged a constitutional complaint in which he argued that the Minor Offences Act applicable at the relevant time provided for a two-year relative prescription period and a four-year absolute prescription period, both running from the moment of the commission of the offence. The relative prescription period could have been interrupted only by an action of the relevant authority in relation to the minor offence at issue. In case of such an interruption, the relative prescription period started to run anew. The applicant contended that the failure of the High Minor Offences Court to take any action within a period of three and a half years had resulted in the minor offence against him becoming time-barred pursuant to the cited relative prescription rule. In this regard he also relied on the relevant case‑law of the Supreme Court and a decision of the Constitutional Court (see paragraphs 11-12 below). The applicant also argued that the inordinate delay in the service of the High Minor Offences Court’s judgment suggested that the judgment had been backdated to comply with the four-year absolute prescription period. 6. By a decision of 13 July 2016, the Constitutional Court, without addressing any of the applicant’s arguments, declared his constitutional complaint inadmissible holding that the case did not raise a constitutional issue. The decision was served on the applicant’s representative on 18 July 2016. 7. For the reasons stated in paragraph 5 above, the applicant complained, under Articles 6 and 7 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 thereto, that he had been convicted of a minor offence and ordered to pay a fine although the offence at issue had become time-barred.

Article of the Convention at issue: Article 7
Outcome: violation