Constitutional Court

 KI76/19, Applicants A. C., D. C., and F C., The request for constitutional review of Judgment Rev. no. 48/2019 of the Supreme Court, of 27 March  2019

KI76/19, Resolution on Inadmissibility of 7 November 2019, published on 19 December 2019

Keywords: Resolution on Inadmissibility, civil procedure, request for non-disclosure of Identity, manifestly ill-founded

The subject matter was the constitutional review of the challenged judgment which allegedly violated the rights and freedoms of the Applicants guaranteed by Article 31 [Right to Fair and Impartial Trial], Article 54 [Judicial Protection of Rights] of the Constitution and Article 6 (Right to a fair trial), as well as Article 41 (Just satisfaction) of the ECHR.

The Applicants also request that their identities be not disclosed to the public, saying “in the present case we are dealing with a compensation which is directly related to a tragic loss of the Applicants’ spouse and father, and therefore they consider this case to be sensitive”.

Essentially, the Applicants initiated a contested procedure before the Basic Court against the insurance company due to the death of the spouse respectively the father as a result of a traffic accident.

The Applicants considered that there existed also the liability of the other participant in the traffic accident and that, consequently, they were entitled to monetary compensation. During the proceedings, the courts concluded that there was no shared liability for causing the traffic accident and therefore, the Applicants could not realise their right to compensation.

The Applicants appeared before the Court alleging that the regular courts based their decisions upon the wrong legal provisions, and thus violated Article 31 of the Constitution in conjunction with Article 6 of the ECHR.

The Court, having analyzed the Applicants’ allegations, the case file and the court decisions, found that the Basic Court, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Courts in their Judgments have dealt with the applicants’ allegations concerning the facts, and on that occasion have concluded that the facts were correctly established by the Basic Court, and that, therefore, also the provision of Article 154 of the Law on Obligations was correctly applied.

In this respect, the Court concludes that there has been no violation of Applicants’ rights from Article 31 of the Constitution in conjunction with Article 6 of the ECHR, based on which it results that there has neither been a violation of Article 54 of the Constitution.

As regards the other allegations concerning the Article 41 of the ECHR, the Court concludes that it cannot serve as a basis for seeking “just satisfaction” or compensation for non-material damage before the Constitutional Court because this Article concerns the jurisdiction of the ECHR, and is not within the jurisdiction of the local courts as an integral part of the ECHR’s protection mechanism.

However, as for the request for protection of identity, the Court having taken into consideration the specifics of the procedure in question granted the Applicants’ request as founded.