FIFTH SECTION
 
 
 
 
CASE OF SCHRADE v. GEORGIA
 
(Application no. 15016/07)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
STRASBOURG
 
11 March 2021
 
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Schrade v. Georgia,
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Mārtiņš Mits, President,
 Lɘtif Hüseynov,
 Mattias Guyomar, judges,
and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having deliberated in private on 11 February 2021,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
INTRODUCTION
1. The case concerns, in particular, the alleged delay in the examination of two sets of civil proceedings initiated by the applicant and, in that context, the alleged absence of an effective domestic remedy. The applicant complained under Articles 6 § 1 and 13 of the Convention, and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. THE FACTS
2. The applicant was born in 1934 and lives in Berlin-Mahlow. He was represented before the Court by Mr I. Kandashvili, Mr H. von Sachsen‑Altenburg, and Ms N. Andronikashvili, lawyers practising in Tbilisi. 3. The Georgian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr B. Dzamashvili of the Ministry of Justice. 4. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASEProceedings against Global Access of Georgia

5. In 2005 Global Access Georgia Ltd (hereinafter “Global Access Georgia”) published an English-language booklet for foreign tourists and visitors in Georgia under the title of “Your personal Connection for Doing Better Business in Georgia and the Caucasus Region”. The booklet featured the applicant’s photograph, entitled “Gurjaani Church”, which had been copied from the 1986 German publication – “Georgien Wehrbauten und Kirchen”. 6. On 7 September 2005 the applicant lodged a claim with the Tbilisi City Court seeking damages from Global Access Georgia over the violation of his intellectual property rights for purported unauthorised use of his photograph. On 9 September 2005 the Tbilisi City Court rejected the claim as inadmissible. The court held that the applicant did not have a standing to assert the rights argued. 7. On 22 November 2005 the applicant appealed against the decision of the first-instance court. On 15 December 2005 the Tbilisi Court of Appeal refused to entertain the applicant’s appeal on account of the non-payment of court fees. 8. On 12 January 2006 the applicant reapplied to the Tbilisi Court of Appeal, indicating that court fees did not apply to the disputes related to intellectual property under the law applicable at the material time. 9. On 22 March 2006 the Tbilisi Court of Appeal allowed the applicant’s appeal, finding that he had standing to bring the proceedings. By the same decision, the court remitted the case to the first-instance court for examination on merits. The applicant alleged that his case had been pending before the Tbilisi City Court since then. The Government, on their part, provided a copy of a decision dated 18 April 2006, according to which the Tbilisi City Court had rejected the applicant’s claim for being lodged by an unauthorised representative. Proceedings against Artanuji
10. In late 2004 the applicant discovered that a Georgian company, Artanuji Publishing House (hereinafter “Artanuji”), had unlawfully reproduced his copyrighted fifty-seven photographs in its various publications of history textbooks for Georgian secondary schools. 11. On 24 January 2005 the applicant lodged a claim with the Tbilisi Regional Court against Artanuji and its chief-executive officer, B.K. The applicant sought 171,680 Georgian laris (GEL) (approximately 85,000 euros (EUR) at the time) in pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages for the copyright violations. On 24 February 2005 Artanuji lodged a preliminary objection with the court arguing that the applicant did not have standing to pursue the claim. According to the respondent, the applicant did not own the impugned intellectual-property rights. It was a German publishing house that was the actual owner. Court hearings were held on 25 March, 4 and 19 May, and 2, 23, and 29 June 2005. At the latter date the court ordered an expert examination of the photographs at issue at the National Forensic Bureau (“the NFB”). 12. On 15 July 2005 the applicant was informed that his case had been transferred to the Tbilisi City Court due to the change of jurisdiction of the courts following the amendments to the Code of Civil Procedure. 13. On 5 December 2005 the applicant’s representatives enquired with the NFB about the progress of the expert examination ordered within the scope of the pending proceedings. In the absence of a reply, by a letter of 21 February 2006 they requested updated information about the proceedings from the Tbilisi City Court. While complaining about the eight-month staying of the proceedings, the applicant’s representatives asked the court to indicate a possible date for the next hearing. Their letter was left unanswered. On 1 March 2006 they sent another letter this time to the chair of the Tbilisi Court of Appeal. In reply, on 9 March 2006 the applicant’s representatives were told that the case file of the applicant was still with the NFB. 14. On 14 March 2006 the applicant wrote again to the NFB. No reply followed. 15. The case file before the Court contains a letter dated 18 August 2005 according to which there was no art expert working at the NFB who could have conducted the expert examination ordered by the appellate court and for lack of financial means the NFB could not have outsourced the examination. Accordingly, the NFB informed the Tbilisi City Court of its inability to conduct the requested expert examination and sent the case file back to the court. According to a note made on the letter, the relevant case file was received back by the Tbilisi City Court on 14 March 2007. 16. On 14 June 2007 the Tbilisi City Court resumed the proceedings in the case. After conducting two hearings, on 31 July 2007 the Tbilisi City Court rejected the applicant’s claim as unsubstantiated. 17. On 14 September 2007 the applicant appealed against the decision of the Tbilisi City Court. According to the applicant, at least five hearings were held in 2008, another five hearings in 2009, and ten hearings in 2010. The applicant failed to submit minutes of the relevant hearings, however, as is apparent from the case file the hearings before the Tbilisi Court of Appeal were adjourned on several grounds. Thus, on 5 June 2008 the Tbilisi Court of Appeal ordered an expert technical examination of the photographs. In view of the results of the examination, on 29 December 2008 the applicant’s representatives lodged an application with the Tbilisi Court of Appeal, asking for a two-month adjournment in order to organise an additional technical examination in Germany. At the hearing of 22 January 2009, they reiterated their application. The appellate court postponed the hearing until 30 January 2009 and invited the parties to settle the case. On 13 February 2009 the Tbilisi Court of Appeal, acting following an application by the applicant’s representative, stayed the proceedings and granted the applicant two months in order to arrange for an expert examination in Germany. More adjournment applications were granted by the appellate court in 2010. Notably, the hearing of 21 January 2010 was adjourned following an application by the applicant until 25 February 2010; the hearings of 10 and 22 June 2010 were adjourned following applications by the responding party with the consent of the applicant’s representatives until 22 June and 8 July 2010 accordingly. 18. On 26 July 2010 the Tbilisi Court of Appeal, following an appeal by the applicant, overturned the judgment and allowed the applicant’s claim in part. The court found a violation of the applicant’s intellectual property rights in 152 instances in respect of fifty-seven photographs for which the applicant was awarded GEL 3,090 (approximately EUR 1,500) in pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages and GEL 500 (approximately EUR 250) and EUR 24 in legal costs and expenses. 19. Both parties lodged appeals on points of law with the Supreme Court of Georgia. The applicant argued that the damages awarded had been disproportionately small. 20. By a decision of 10 February 2011, the Supreme Court rejected both appeals on points of law as inadmissible. RELEVANT LEGAL FRAMEWORK
21. Section 2(2)(e) of the Disciplinary Liability of Judges Act of 23 February 2000 (“the Disciplinary Liability of Judges Act”), as in force at the material time, provided, inter alia, for the following type of disciplinary offence – “unreasonable delay in the examination of a case, failure by a judge to perform or inappropriate performance of judicial duties, and/or other breach of judicial discipline.”
22. Section 4(1) of the above-mentioned Act provided a list of the various available disciplinary penalties in order of severity: admonishment, reprimand, rebuke and dismissal from the judicial post. 23. Under section 6(1) of the Act, any interested party could request the initiation of disciplinary proceedings against a judge. It was then at the discretion of judicial officials to initiate proceedings, in accordance with section 7(1) of the Act, in the following order:
“1. Disciplinary proceedings against a judge ... may be initiated by:
a) the President (or the acting President) of the Supreme Court of Georgia – against judges of the Supreme Court of Georgia, the courts of appeal and district (city) courts;
b) the President (or the acting President) of a court of appeal – against judges of the respective court of appeal, as well as against judges of the district (city) courts within the jurisdiction of the above court of appeal;
2. The High Council of Justice of Georgia ... against all judges of the common courts of Georgia.”
24. The Act further provided that the relevant judicial officer had two months at his or her disposal to conduct a preliminary examination of the grounds of the request. It was possible to extend the above time-limit by two weeks, after which they could either leave the request unexamined (for an inability to examine it), terminate the disciplinary proceedings, or summon the respective judge for an interview. No appeal lay against the decision of the relevant judicial official to terminate disciplinary proceedings. If proceedings were initiated, the subsequent two-tier procedure provided for an adversarial hearing before the disciplinary board of courts of common jurisdiction and at the appeal instance before the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court. THE LAW
Scope of the present case
25. In his observations submitted in reply to those of the Government the applicant complained under Article 3 of the Convention of the continuous suffering and discrimination he had allegedly endured on account of excessive bureaucracy and inadequate administration of justice in Georgia. The Court notes that the applicant introduced the above complaint only in his observations following the communication of the application. It cannot be considered as an elaboration of the applicant’s original complaints. Consequently, it falls outside the scope of the current application (compare, for instance, Saghinadze and Others v. Georgia, no. 18768/05, §§ 71 and 72, 27 May 2010 with further references therein). ADMISSIBILITY OF THE COMPLAINtS
26. The applicant complained that the overall duration of both sets of civil proceedings had been incompatible with the “reasonable time” requirement laid down in Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. He further complained, under Article 13, in connection with the Article 6 complaint, that there had been no effective remedy in the domestic system. In connection with the civil proceedings conducted against Global Access Georgia he in addition relied on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention. The relevant parts of the Articles read 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 ...”
Article 13
“Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in [the] Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.”
Article 1 of Protocol no. 1
“Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law. The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of a State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties.”
Proceedings against Global Access GeorgiaThe parties’ arguments

27. The Government argued in the first place that the present application, as far as the proceedings against Global Access Georgia were concerned, had to be dismissed as an abuse of the right of application because the applicant had knowingly failed to provide all the facts relevant for the examination of the case. In particular, they provided the Court with a copy of a decision dated 18 April 2006, according to which the Tbilisi City Court had rejected the applicant’s claim for being lodged by an unauthorised representative. The Government claimed that by failing to inform the Court for more than eleven years of the above decision of the Tbilisi City Court, the applicant and his representatives had aimed at misleading the Court. The applicant’s failure to act diligently vis-à-vis the Court under Article 47 § 7 of the Rules of the Court (former Rule 47 § 6) had been tantamount, in the Government’s view, to an abuse of the right of individual application under Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention. 28. In addition, as far as the complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 was concerned, the Government submitted that it was in any event manifestly ill-founded, as the applicant had failed to appeal against the court decision of 18 April 2006; thus, there had been no domestic decision which could have given rise to the applicant’s legitimate expectations over property rights. 29. The applicant disagreed, noting that he had never been informed of the domestic court’s decision of 18 April 2006. He alleged that that decision had never been delivered to him or, in the alternative, that it had been retroactively fabricated.

Outcome for Article 13: violation