THE EUROPEAN Court of Human Rights has chastised Cyprus over the length of legal proceedings.
The July 16 judgment in the case of ‘Christodoulou vs Cyprus’ found that the length of legal proceedings in Cyprus’ Civil Courts were excessive.
The Court found that Cyprus had violated Article 6 paragraph 1 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which states: “In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law.”
The applicants in the case of Christodoulou vs Cyprus were the two owners of a souvenir shop in Paphos, Elsa Christodoulou and Lydia Christodoulou. They had filed an application at the Rent Control Tribunal (RCT), challenging the amount of rent they were being charged on the premises of their shop.
The legal proceedings that ensued lasted from March 2, 2001 until October 19, 2006. The case therefore lasted five years and seven months.
According to article 52 of the Court judgment, during the first set of proceedings before the RCT the case had been listed for directions several times. There had been long intervals between hearing dates set by the RCT.
Furthermore, the judge of the RCT only sat in Paphos on Thursdays. There had also been substantial delays in the appeal proceedings. In particular, the hearing of the appeal had begun more than one year and eleven months after it had been lodged.
The European court of Human Rights accused the Cyprus Government of not providing the relevant records to explain the delays in the case.
The Court assessed the length of proceedings “in the light of the circumstances of the case and with reference to the following criteria: the complexity of the case, the conduct of the applicants and the relevant authorities and what was at stake for the applicants in the dispute.”
They judged that “the questions before the RCT were relatively simple and that the “total length of proceedings at three instances, two of them at the same level, was excessive. In particular, the delay which occurred at the appeal stage contributed significantly to the prolonging of the proceedings and was unwarranted.”
The Court stated that Article 6 paragraph 1 “imposes on the Contracting States the duty to organise their judicial system in such a way that their courts can meet each of its requirements”. They ruled that Cyprus had failed in this duty.
This is not the first time that Cyprus has been reprimanded over the length of its legal processes. A law has been drafted to remedy this problem which is due to be discussed by the House of Representatives. It is likely that Cyprus will put under Council of Europe supervision should further problems occur.
Representatives of the Supreme Court were not available for comment.
