THIRD SECTION
CASE OF ŽIVANOVIĆ AND OTHERS v. SERBIA
(Applications nos. 29171/16 and 8 others - see appended list)
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
STRASBOURG
19 September 2019
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Živanović and Others v. Serbia,
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Dmitry Dedov, President,
 Alena Poláčková,
 Gilberto Felici, judges,
and Liv Tigerstedt, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,
Having deliberated in private on 29 August 2019,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
PROCEDURE
1. The case originated in applications against Serbia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on the various dates indicated in the appended table. 2. The applicants were represented by Ms R. Dugošija, a lawyer practising in Žabari. 3. Notice of the applications was given to the Serbian Government (“the Government”). THE FACTS
4. The list of applicants and the relevant details of the applications are set out in the appended table. 5. The applicants complained of the excessive length of civil proceedings. THE LAW
JOINDER OF THE APPLICATIONS
6. Having regard to the similar subject matter of the applications, the Court finds it appropriate to examine them jointly in a single judgment. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 6 § 1 OF THE CONVENTION
7. The applicants complained that the length of the civil proceedings in question had been incompatible with the “reasonable time” requirement. They relied on Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, which reads as follows:
Article 6 § 1
“In the determination of his civil rights and obligations ... everyone is entitled to a ... hearing within a reasonable time by [a] ... tribunal ...”
Admissibility
8. The Government claimed that all applications should be rejected as inadmissible for the failure of the applicants to properly complain before the Constitutional Court. 9. The applicants disagreed. 10. The Court has consistently held that the rule on the exhaustion of domestic remedies, under Article 35 § 1 of the Convention requires that the complaints intended to be made subsequently before it should have been made to the appropriate domestic body, at least in substance and in compliance with the formal requirements and time-limits laid down in domestic law (see, for example, Vučković and Others v. Serbia (preliminary objection) [GC], nos. 17153/11 and 29 others, § 72, 25 March 2014). 11. Turning to the present case, the Court has carefully examined the applicants’ constitutional appeals, from which it transpires that they expressly complained about the length of the impugned proceedings (contrast Vučković and Others, cited above, § 82, in which the applicants did not raise their discrimination complaint before the Constitutional Court, either expressly or in substance). The Government’s argument that the Constitutional Court is “bound” by the request formulated in the constitutional appeal is therefore irrelevant in the present case. Indeed, the Constitutional Court noted that the applicants raised a length-of-proceedings complaint, but considered that they had not sufficiently substantiated it. The Court observes, however, that the applicants indicated the total length of the proceedings and the number of levels of jurisdiction and underlined that the proceedings at issue were labour disputes (which were urgent according to domestic law). They also provided the Constitutional Court with the decisions rendered in the proceedings. Since the impugned proceedings had already lasted between six and eight years for two levels of jurisdiction when the Constitutional Court examined them, the Court considers that the cases were prima facie meritorious. In such circumstance, the Constitutional Court should have examined the merits of the cases. If it needed any additional information or documents, it could have invited the applicants or the relevant authorities to provide them. In this connection, the Court observes that complaints about the length of proceedings, unlike some other complaints under the Convention, normally do not require much elaboration (see Šaćirović and Others v. Serbia, no. 54001/15 and 3 others, § 12, 20 February 2018, contrast Golubović and others v. Serbia (dec.), no.10044/11 and 8 others, § 43, 17 September 2013, concerning a complaint about the inconsistent case-law of domestic courts). It follows that the applicants provided the national authorities with an opportunity which is in principle intended to be afforded to Contracting States by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention, namely of putting right the violations alleged against them (see Muršić v. Croatia [GC], no. 7334/13, § 72, 20 October 2016). 12. Since the applications are not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention nor inadmissible on any other grounds, they must be declared admissible.

Article of the Convention at issue: Article 6
Outcome: violation