THIRD SECTION
CASE OF ZUVIĆ v. SERBIA
(Application no. 3592/17)
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
Art 6 § 1 (civil) • Applicant’s inability to obtain a judicial determination of the dispute over his discharge from professional military service once the disciplinary proceedings against him commenced • Obstacles preventing the applicant’s case from being heard arose within the judicial system itself and were beyond his control • Overly restrictive interpretation of the requirement to revoke the applicant’s discharge order • Applicant’s case transferred to the Montenegrin authorities despite the Respondent State still having jurisdiction over it after the dissolution of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro • Very essence of right of access to court impaired
 
Prepared by the Registry. Does not bind the Court. STRASBOURG
3 June 2025
 
FINAL
 
03/09/2025
 
This judgment has become final under Article 44 § 2 of the Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Zuvić v. Serbia,
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of:
 Ioannis Ktistakis, President,
 Peeter Roosma,
 Lətif Hüseynov,
 Oddný Mjöll Arnardóttir,
 Diana Kovatcheva,
 Mateja Đurović,
 Canòlic Mingorance Cairat, judges,
and Milan Blaško, Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 3592/17) against Serbia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by a Serbian national, Mr Boban Zuvić (“the applicant”), on 19 December 2016;
the decision to give notice to the Serbian Government (“the Government”) of the complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention concerning the applicant’s access to a court and the length of the civil proceedings;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated in private on 13 May 2025,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
INTRODUCTION
1. The application primarily concerns the applicant’s right of access to a court. Relying on Article 6 of the Convention, the applicant complained that the Serbian judicial authorities had refused to adjudicate his disciplinary case. He also complained of excessive length of the proceedings in question. THE FACTS
2. The applicant was born in 1972 and lives in Jagodina. He was represented by Mr A. Katanić, a lawyer practising in Novi Sad. 3. The Government were represented by their Agent, Ms Z. Jadrijević Mladar. 4. The facts of the case may be summarised as follows. 5. In 2002 the applicant was serving as a lieutenant in the Army of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Vojska Jugoslavije), stationed in Podgorica, Montenegro. 6. On 8 April 2002 the Military Prosecutor (Vojni tužilac) brought criminal proceedings against the applicant for abuse of office. 7. On 9 July 2002 the Military Disciplinary Prosecutor (Vojni disciplinski tužilac pri Generalštabu Vojske Jugoslavije) brought disciplinary proceedings against the applicant in respect of the same offence. 8. On 26 December 2002 the Military Disciplinary Court (Vojni disciplinski sud pri Generalštabu Vojske Jugoslavije) sentenced the applicant to the disciplinary penalty of “loss of rank”. 9. On 4 February 2003 the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was renamed the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. 10. On 20 March 2003 the High Military Disciplinary Court (Viši vojni disciplinski sud pri Generalštabu Vojske Srbije i Crne Gore) quashed the judgment and ordered a retrial. 11. On 11 June 2003 the Military Disciplinary Court (Vojni disciplinski sud pri Genralštabu Vojske Srbije i Crne Gore) again sentenced the applicant to the same disciplinary penalty of “loss of rank”. 12. On 3 November 2003 the High Military Disciplinary Court upheld the judgment. 13. On 24 December 2003 the applicant lodged an appeal with the Supreme Military Court (Vrhovni Vojni sud u Beogradu), challenging the judgment of the High Military Disciplinary Court of 3 November 2003. 14. On 24 March 2004 the Chairperson of the Supreme Defence Council of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro ordered the enforcement of the disciplinary penalty. 15. On 20 April 2004 pursuant to the above-mentioned order, the applicant was discharged from professional military service. 16. On 29 June 2004 the Supreme Military Court ruled in favour of the applicant. It annulled (poništio) the judgment of the High Military Disciplinary Court, quashed (ukinuo) the judgment of the Military Disciplinary Court and ordered a retrial before the Military Disciplinary Court. 17. As a result of organisational changes in the judiciary, which had taken place in the meantime, the Military Disciplinary Court ceased to exist. The applicant’s case was therefore assigned to the Military Disciplinary Court in Podgorica (Vojni disciplinski sud pri Komandi Vojnog okruga Podgorica). The competence of that court to deal with the case was determined on the basis of the location of the military unit where the accused had been serving at the time of the alleged disciplinary offence. 18. On 26 January 2006 the President of the Military Disciplinary Court in Podgorica informed the High Military Disciplinary Court that the judges of the Military Disciplinary Court in Podgorica had already been involved in the criminal proceedings which had been brought against the applicant regarding the same facts (see paragraph 6 above). Consequently, he requested that the applicant’s disciplinary case be transferred to another court. 19. On 9 March 2006 the High Military Disciplinary Court designated the Military Disciplinary Court in Belgrade (Vojni disciplinski sud pri Komandi Vojnog okruga Beograd) as the competent court of first instance. 20. The Military Disciplinary Court in Belgrade subsequently forwarded the applicant’s case file to the Supreme Defence Council of Serbia and Montenegro. The court stated that it could not proceed with the disciplinary proceedings, as the applicant was no longer a member of the military. It further noted that conducting such proceedings required the revocation of the order discharging the applicant from military service – a decision that could only be made by the Chairperson of the Supreme Defence Council of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. 21. Following a referendum on 3 June 2006, Montenegro declared its independence from the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, whereupon that entity ceased to exist, together with all of its public bodies including the Supreme Defence Council of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro (see Bijelić v. Montenegro and Serbia, no. 11890/05, §§ 53-56, 28 April 2009). 22. On 5 June 2006 the President of Serbia informed the Secretary General of the Council of Europe that Serbia was the sole successor to the former State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. 23. On 17 July 2006 the Office of the President of Serbia, which was in possession of the applicant’s case file at the time, forwarded it to the Office of the President of Montenegro for further consideration and decision. 24. On 25 May 2009 the applicant requested that the Military Disciplinary Court in Belgrade either resume or discontinue the disciplinary proceedings against him. 25. On 3 June 2009 the Military Disciplinary Court informed the applicant that it lacked jurisdiction over his case. It further stated that his case file had been forwarded to the Office of the President of Montenegro for further action. 26. On 26 October 2009 the applicant repeated his request to the Military Disciplinary Court. 27. On 12 November 2009 the High Military Disciplinary Court notified the Serbian Ministry of Defence that, in its view, the applicant’s case fell under the jurisdiction of the Montenegrin military judiciary. It explained that the Serbian military judiciary had no authority over the matter on account of the ongoing parallel criminal proceedings against the applicant in Montenegro. Furthermore, it stated that to reopen the disciplinary proceedings would require the annulment of the decision to discharge the applicant from the armed forces, a matter it considered to be within the exclusive competence of the President of Montenegro. 28. On 24 September 2010 the High Court in Podgorica (Viši sud u Podgorici) acquitted the applicant of abuse of office in the criminal proceedings. 29. On 25 February 2012 the applicant requested that the Military Disciplinary Court discontinue the disciplinary proceedings against him on the grounds that the statutory limitation period had expired. 30. On 2 November 2012 the Military Disciplinary Court ruled that it lacked both subject-matter and territorial jurisdiction to adjudicate the case. 31. On 28 November 2012 the High Military Disciplinary Court upheld that decision. 32. On 11 April 2014 the Ministry of Defence of Montenegro returned the applicant’s case file, which the Office of the President of Serbia had transferred to them on 17 July 2006 (see paragraph 23 above), to the Serbian authorities, stating that it could not conduct disciplinary proceedings against the applicant, as he was not a member of the Montenegrin military. 33. On 1 October 2015, when ruling on an appeal by the applicant challenging those decisions (see paragraphs 30-31 above), the Administrative Court (Upravni sud) found that the respondent authorities had acted appropriately and dismissed the applicant’s claim as unfounded. 34. The applicant lodged two constitutional appeals to the Constitutional Court – on 27 March 2013 and 16 November 2015 – alleging, inter alia, violations of his right of access to a court and his right to a trial within a reasonable time. The Constitutional Court consolidated the proceedings and, on 21 April 2016, partly ruled in his favour. It awarded the applicant 900 euros in compensation for the non-pecuniary damage suffered as a consequence of a violation of his right to a trial within a reasonable time, while rejecting the remainder of his appeal. The decision of the Constitutional Court was delivered to the applicant on 27 June 2016. RELEVANT LEGAL FRAMEWORK
35. Article 161 of the Yugoslav Army Act (Zakon o Vojsci Jugoslavije; published in the Official Gazette of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, nos. 43/94, 28/96, 44/99 and 74/99), as in force at the material time, defined a violation of military discipline as any off-duty conduct deemed incompatible with military duties. This included, in particular, the commission of a criminal offence carrying an unconditional prison sentence of at least six months, as well as any other act that might damage the Army’s reputation. 36. Article 164 provided that the disciplinary sanction of “loss of rank” entailed dismissal from service as a professional soldier. THE LAW
ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 6 § 1 OF THE CONVENTION
37. Relying on Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the applicant complained that the domestic courts’ refusal to adjudicate his case had violated his right of access to a court, and that the overall length of the disciplinary proceedings had violated his right to hearing within a reasonable time. Article 6 § 1, in so far as relevant, reads as follows:
“1. In the determination of his civil rights and obligations ..., everyone is entitled to a fair ... hearing within a reasonable time by [a] tribunal ...”
As regards access to a courtAdmissibility

(a)   Compatibility ratione materiae
38. The Court observes that the Government did not raise any plea of inadmissibility before it regarding the complaint’s compatibility ratione materiae with the Convention and the Protocols thereto. However, the Court considers that this question concerns a matter which goes to its jurisdiction and that, as such, it is not prevented from examining it of its own motion (see, for example, Ramiz Jafarov v. Azerbaijan, no. 40424/12, § 34, 16 June 2022). The Court has further established that the question of the applicability of a particular provision of the Convention or its Protocols is an issue of the Court’s jurisdiction ratione materiae, and that the relevant analysis should therefore be carried out at the admissibility stage unless there is a particular reason to join this question to the merits (see Denisov v. Ukraine [GC], no. 76639/11, § 93, 25 September 2018). No such reason exists in the present case. 39. The Court, furthermore, reiterates that it has consistently held that disciplinary proceedings in which the right to continue with the exercise of one’s profession is at stake, including in the context of the armed services, do in fact give rise to disputes over a civil right within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see Vasilchenko v. Russia, no. 34784/02, §§ 34-36, 23 September 2010; see also Grace Gatt v. Malta, no. 46466/16, § 59, 8 October 2019, and the authorities cited therein). 40. In view of the foregoing, it is evident that the applicant’s right to continue with his professional military career gave rise to a dispute within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. Moreover, the national law at the material time also provided the applicant with access to a court in order to challenge his discharge. It follows, in the Court’s view, that the civil limb of Article 6 § 1 was applicable to the impugned disciplinary proceedings (see Grace Gatt, cited above, §§ 60-63). (b)   Compatibility ratione personae
41. The Government argued that the disciplinary proceedings had been largely conducted under the authority of the former State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, which had had exclusive jurisdiction over the matter. Given that the unit in which the applicant had been serving at the time of the alleged disciplinary offence had been based in Montenegro, the applicant’s complaint against Serbia was incompatible ratione personae with the Convention and therefore had to be dismissed by the Court. 42. The applicant disagreed and maintained that Serbia had had exclusive jurisdiction to adjudicate his disciplinary case. 43. The Court considers that this objection goes to the very heart of the question whether the applicant had been denied the right of access to a court in the determination of his civil rights and obligations in breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. It should thus be more appropriately examined at the merits stage. (c)   Conclusion
44. The Court notes that the applicant’s complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention. It further notes that it is not inadmissible on any other ground. It must therefore be declared admissible.

Outcome for Article 6: violation