FIRST SECTION
CASE OF MARINIĆ v. CROATIA
(Application no. 22360/15)
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
 
 
 
 
STRASBOURG
2 September 2021
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Marinić v. Croatia,
The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Krzysztof Wojtyczek, President,
 Erik Wennerström,
 Ioannis Ktistakis, judges,
and Liv Tigerstedt, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 22360/15) 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”) by two Croatian nationals, Ms Sarafina Marinić (“the first applicant”) and Mr Goran Marinić (“the second applicant”), on 4 May 2015;
the decision to give notice to the Croatian Government (“the Government”) of the complaint concerning the applicants’ inability to enforce a final judgment in their favour and to declare the remainder of the application inadmissible;
the parties’ observations;
the absence of the Government’s objection against the examination of the case by a Committee
Having deliberated in private on 6 July 2021,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
INTRODUCTION
1. The case concerns a three-year delay on the part of the Croatian authorities in enforcing a final judgment against the State in the applicants’ favour. THE FACTS
2. The first applicant was born in 1956 and lives in Šibenik. The second applicant was born in 1983 and lives in Zagreb. The applicants were represented before the Court by Mr Ž. Živković, a lawyer practising in Šibenik. 3. The Government were represented by their Agent, Ms Š. Stažnik. 4. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
background to the case
5. The late husband of the first applicant and father of the second applicant was a war veteran who was killed during the war in Croatia in 1992. 6. The administrative authorities granted the applicants a family disability benefit as family members of a fallen war veteran. Since the social benefit at issue was not being paid voluntarily, the applicants instituted civil proceedings against the State seeking payment thereof. 7. By a judgment of 17 December 2012 the Šibenik Municipal Court (Općinski sud u Šibeniku) allowed the applicants’ claim in part and ordered the State to pay to them the outstanding amount of 187,611.52[1] Croatian kunas (HRK) together with the accrued statutory default interest, as well as future monthly payments. It dismissed the remaining part of the applicants’ claim in the amount of HRK 527,595.58[2] as time-barred. That decision was upheld by the Šibenik County Court (Županijski sud u Šibeniku) on 24 March 2014 and it became enforceable on 22 April 2014. 8. On 29 April 2014 the State lodged an extraordinary appeal on points of law (izvanredna revizija) with the Supreme Court (Vrhovni sud Republike Hrvatske) against the second-instance judgment. The next day the applicants lodged a regular appeal on points of law (revizija) against the same judgment. 9. On 24 May 2017 the Supreme Court declared inadmissible the appeal on points of law lodged by the State and dismissed as unfounded the one lodged by the applicants. The State’s extraordinary appeal on points of law was declared inadmissible because the State had failed to formulate a legal question of importance for the uniform application of the law and had thereby failed to meet the procedural requirements for that remedy. Enforcement proceedings
10. On 25 April 2014 the applicants instituted proceedings before the Financial Agency (Financijska agencija) seeking enforcement of the Šibenik Municipal Court’s judgment (see paragraph 7 above) by means of seizure of funds in the enforcement debtor’s bank accounts. The judgment debt, including the accrued statutory default interest on that date, amounted to HRK 348,766.23[3]. 11. On 30 April 2014 the State asked the Šibenik Municipal Court to postpone the enforcement. In its request the State submitted that the applicants had been awarded a large amount of money and that it had lodged an appeal on points of law with the Supreme Court. The State also contended that, if the enforcement were to be carried out, it would probably suffer nearly irreparable harm because, in the event of a successful outcome of the extraordinary remedy to which it had resorted, it would not be able to recover the amount at issue from the applicants. 12. On the same day, the Šibenik Municipal Court allowed the postponement of enforcement, finding the arguments put forward by the State well-founded. That court therefore ordered the Financial Agency to postpone ordering the banks to transfer the seized amounts to the applicants until the Supreme Court had decided the parties’ appeals on points of law in the above-mentioned civil proceedings (see paragraphs 8 above and 19 below). 13. On 16 June 2014 the Šibenik County Court dismissed an appeal by the applicants and upheld the first-instance decision, endorsing the reasons given therein. The County Court’s decision was served on the applicants’ representative on 2 July 2014. 14. On 28 July 2014 the applicants lodged a constitutional complaint with the Constitutional Court (Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske), complaining, inter alia, about the inability to enforce a final judgment in their favour. 15. On 21 October 2014 the Constitutional Court declared the applicants’ constitutional complaint inadmissible on the grounds that the contested decisions were not amenable to constitutional review. It served its decision on the applicants’ representative on 4 November 2014. 16. On 9 June 2017 the Šibenik Municipal Court forwarded the Supreme Court’s judgment and decision of 24 May 2017 (see paragraph 9 above) to the Financial Agency and instructed it to proceed with the enforcement because the statutory requirements for the postponement of enforcement had ceased to exist. 17. On the same day, the Financial Agency collected the entire amount of the debt together with the statutory default interest accrued by that date (HRK 404,994.39[4] in total) and transferred it to the applicants. The enforcement was thus completed. RELEVANT LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND PRACTICE
Relevant legislationEnforcement Act

18. The relevant provisions of the Enforcement Act (Ovršni zakon, Official Gazette 112/12 with subsequent amendments), as in force at the material time, provided as follows. 19. Under subparagraph 1 of section 65(1), the court could, upon a request by the enforcement debtor, postpone the enforcement entirely or in part if
(a) the enforcement debtor demonstrated that he or she would probably sustain irreparable harm or harm that would be very difficult to repair if the enforcement were to be carried out; and
(b) a remedy had been used against the decision (the enforcement title) on the basis of which the enforcement was ordered. Civil Procedure Act
20. The relevant provision of the Civil Procedure Act (Zakon o parničnom postupku, Official Gazette, no. 53/91 with subsequent amendments), as in force at the material time, provided as follows:
Section 384
“An appeal on points of law shall not postpone the enforcement of the res judicata judgment against which it has been lodged.”
21. Other relevant provisions of the Civil Procedure Act concerning appeals on points of law are set out in Mirenić-Huzjak and Jerković v. Croatia (dec.), no. 72996/16, § 26, 24 September 2019. Relevant practice
22. In several decisions (nos. U-III-153/1996 of 24 April 1996, U‑III‑499/2003 of 25 April 2003, U-III-930/2007 of 25 April 2007, U‑III‑2559/2013 of 20 June 2013 and U-III-154/2014 of 20 February 2014), the Constitutional Court has declared constitutional complaints against the dismissal of requests for postponement of enforcement inadmissible on the grounds that such decisions were not amenable to constitutional review. THE LAW
ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 6 § 1 OF THE CONVENTION
23. The applicants complained that the unjustified delays in the enforcement of a final judgment in their favour had violated their right to a court as guaranteed by 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 within a reasonable time by [a] ... tribunal ...”
AdmissibilityThe parties’ arguments

24. The Government argued that the applicants had failed to comply with the six-month time-limit as they had lodged a constitutional complaint, which was not a remedy they had been required to use for exhaustion purposes. In 1996 the Constitutional Court had adopted the view that decisions concerning postponement of enforcement were not amenable to constitutional review, and it had never departed from that case-law (see paragraph 22 above). Therefore, the final domestic decision in the present case had been the decision of the Šibenik County Court of 16 June 2014, which had been served on the applicants’ representative on 2 July 2014 (see paragraph 13 above). However, the applicants had lodged their application with the Court on 4 May 2015, that is, more than six months later. 25. The Government further submitted that the matter had been resolved because the applicants’ claim had been paid in full, together with the accrued statutory default interest (see paragraph 17 above). For that reason, they proposed that the Court strike the case out of its list of cases. Alternatively, they proposed that the Court declare the application inadmissible on account of loss of victim status. 26. The applicants submitted that they had properly exhausted domestic remedies and had complied with the six-month time-limit. They argued that the Constitutional Court had departed from its earlier case-law regarding the admissibility of constitutional complaints against decisions concerning postponement of enforcement. In support of their argument they referred to a decision in which that court had examined a constitutional complaint concerning the length of enforcement proceedings. They further argued that the fact that their claim had been paid in full together with the accrued statutory default interest did not affect their victim status because they had not obtained any compensation for non-pecuniary damage sustained by the delayed enforcement.

Outcome for Article 6: violation