THIRD SECTION
CASE OF ÇELA v. ALBANIA
(Application no. 73274/17)
 
 
JUDGMENT
Art 6 § 1 (civil) • Dismissal of constitutional complaint due to unforeseeable application of new four-month time-limit introduced after lodging of complaint, depriving applicant of right of access to a court • Constitutional Court’s interpretation of procedural limitations not in compliance with legal certainty principle • Absence of clear legislation and judicial practice concerning starting point for calculation of new time-limit • Disproportionate burden on applicant
 
STRASBOURG
29 November 2022
 
FINAL
 
28/02/2023
 
This judgment has become final under Article 44 § 2 of the Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Çela v. Albania,
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of:
Pere Pastor Vilanova, President,
 Georgios A. Serghides,
 Jolien Schukking,
 Darian Pavli,
 Peeter Roosma,
 Ioannis Ktistakis,
 Andreas Zünd, judges,
and Milan Blaško, Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 73274/17) against the Republic of Albania lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by an Albanian national, Mr Pëllumb Çela (“the applicant”), on 9 October 2017;
the decision to give notice to the Albanian Government (“the Government”) of the complaint concerning his right of access to the Constitutional Court and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated in private on 8 November 2022,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
INTRODUCTION
1. The present case concerns the applicant’s right of access to the Constitutional Court, which declared his constitutional complaint inadmissible as having been lodged out of time. The main issue in the present case is whether the newly introduced four-month time-limit for lodging a constitutional complaint was to be applied to the applicant’s case. THE FACTS
2. The applicant was born in 1953 and lives in Tirana. He was represented by Mr S. Hazizaj, a lawyer practising in Tirana. 3. The Government were represented by their then Agent, Ms O. Bela and subsequently by Mr O. Moçka, of the State Advocate’s Office. 4. The facts of the case may be summarised as follows. 5. On an unspecified date a third party, A.A. lodged a claim with the Tirana District Court against the applicant and the Çela-X Ltd. company, of which the applicant was the sole owner, seeking that the applicant vacate certain premises; he also sought damages. During the proceedings before the first-instance court further claims were lodged against the defendants by two companies. On 6 October 2014 the first-instance court upheld the abovementioned claims. The applicant and the other defendant appealed against that judgment; on 16 October 2015 the Tirana Appeal Court upheld the first-instance judgment. The applicant and the other defendant then lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court, which dismissed it on 11 November 2016. 6. On 2 June 2017 the applicant and the other defendant lodged a constitutional complaint, which was declared inadmissible by the Constitutional Court on 29 June 2017 as being lodged outside the four-month time-limit, counting from 11 November 2016 when the Supreme Court’s decision had been adopted. RELEVANT LEGAL FRAMEWORK
LAW No. 8577 ON THe ORGANIsATION AND FUNCTIONING AND THE FUNCTIONING OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF THE REPUBLIC OF ALBANIA (The CCA)
7. Section 30 of the Constitutional Court Act of 10 February 2009 (as in force before amendments thereto enacted in November 2016) reads as follows:
Section 30
 “1. The lodging of a complaint with the Constitutional Court shall be subject to the time-limits set out in this law. 2. A complaint lodged by an individual [in respect of an alleged] violation of his constitutional rights may be lodged no later than two years from the occurrence of that [alleged] violation. If the law provides a remedy, the individual may lodge a complaint with the Constitutional Court after exhausting all legal remedies in respect of the protection of his rights. In such cases, the time-limit for the lodging of a complaint is two years from the notification of the final-instance body’s decision.”
8. Law no. 99/2016 of 6 November 2016, published in the Official Journal no. 210 on 8 November 2016, amended the CCA. Section 30 of the CCA was repealed. A newly-introduced Section 71(a) of the CCA shortened the time-limit for lodging an individual constitutional complaint from two years to four months “of obtaining knowledge of the interference [with a constitutional right or freedom]” (konstatimi i cënimit). Section 86(3) of Law no. 99/2016 provided that section 71(a) of the CCA should enter into force on 1 March 2017. Law no. 99/2016 as such entered into force fifteen days after its publication in the Official Journal (section 88), that is on 23 November 2016. THE LAW
I. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 6 § 1 OF THE CONVENTION
9. The applicant complained that his right of access to the Constitutional Court had been violated, contrary to Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the relevant part of which reads as follows:
“In the determination of his civil rights and obligations ... everyone is entitled to a fair ... hearing ... by [a] ... tribunal ...”
Admissibility
10. The Government submitted that the applicant had abused his right of application but did not provide any arguments in that respect. 11. The applicant disagreed. 12. The Court notes that the Government’s objection is unsubstantiated and must be rejected. 13. The Court notes that this complaint is neither manifestly ill-founded nor inadmissible on any other grounds listed in Article 35 of the Convention. It must therefore be declared admissible. MeritsThe parties’ submissions

(a)   The applicant
14. The applicant argued that there were no clear rules concerning the calculation of the time-limit for lodging a constitutional complaint. In particular, no provision specified that that time-limit was to be calculated from the date on which a Supreme Court’s decision was adopted. He submitted that in his case the previous two-year time-limit for lodging a constitutional complaint should have been applied because the Supreme Court’s decision had been adopted on 11 November 2016 – that is to say before 1 March 2017, when the newly introduced four-month time-limit had entered into force. Therefore, his constitutional complaint, lodged on 2 June 2017, had been lodged within the prescribed and applicable time-limit. (b)   The Government
15. The Government maintained that Law no. 99/2016 had been adopted on 6 November 2016 and published on 8 November 2016, and had provided that the new time-limit would be applicable from 1 March 2017 – thus giving ample opportunity for all interested to became acquainted with the new time-limit. 16. The new time-limit had been intended to promote legal certainty and to avoid interested parties being troubled by a protracted feeling of insecurity while awaiting the final adjudication of their cases before the Constitutional Court. 17. The time-limit for the applicant to lodge a constitutional complaint had started to run from the moment at which the alleged violation of his constitutional rights had occurred – namely, on 11 November 2016 (the date of the adoption of the Supreme Court’s judgment). Thus, the time-limit for the applicant’s constitutional complaint had expired on 11 March 2017. 18. The Government also stressed that, unlike the situation in the case of Shkalla v. Albania (no. 26866/05, 10 May 2011), the applicant in the present case did not deny that he had been informed of the Supreme Court’s decision on 11 November 2016. He merely disagreed with the interpretation of the Constitutional Court as to when the four-month time-limit had started to run. In that respect the Government argued that it was not for the applicant to interpret the provisions regarding the time-limit. 19. The applicant himself had created the situation he was complaining of, because he had not lodged his constitutional complaint within the four-month time-limit.

Outcome for Article 6: violation