DOLNA v. UKRAINE

 
FIFTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 31039/13
Svitlana Ivanivna DOLNA
against Ukraine
 
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 31 January 2019 as a Committee composed of:
Síofra O’Leary, President,
Mārtiņš Mits,
Lado Chanturia, judges,
and Liv Tigerstedt, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 18 April 2013,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
FACTS AND PROCEDURE
The applicant’s details are set out in the appended table.
The applicant’s complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention concerning the lack of opportunity to comment on the appeal were communicated to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”).
THE LAW
Complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention
In the present application, having examined all the material before it, the Court considers that for the reasons stated below, the respondent Government cannot be held liable for the lack of the applicant’s due diligence in the defence of her interests.
In particular, the Court notes that, according to the Government, the applicant had been informed by the first-instance court about remittal of her case to the court of appeal by a letter of 22 April 2011.
In response to the Government’s observations the applicant, while she did not contest that she had received the letter, insisted that that letter could not be seen as a proper notification about the launch of the appeal proceedings, since it had only informed her that the appeal of the other party had been sent to the Court of Appeal.
Admittedly, the said letter could not in itself be seen as a proper notification about opening of the appeal proceedings since it only stated that an appeal had been lodged, not that the proceedings had actually been re-opened. At the same time, the Court has pointed out on numerous occasions that it is incumbent on the interested party to display appropriate diligence in the defence of his or her interests (see, in particular, mutatis mutandis, Liman v. Ukraine (dec.), no. 19157/04, § 31, 7 May 2013).
In the instant case it appears that for more than 1 year and 6 months (the appellate court’s decision was delivered on 22 October 2012) the applicant had not taken any steps in order to clarify whether the appeal proceedings had been launched and if so, what decision had been taken by the appellate court (see, mutatis mutandis, Trukh v. Ukraine (dec.), no. 50966/99, 14 October 2003). No explanation of such inactivity has been provided by the applicant.
In view of the above, the Court finds that these complaints are manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 21 February 2019.
Liv TigerstedtSíofra O’Leary
Acting Deputy RegistrarPresident


APPENDIX
Application raising complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention
(lack of opportunity to comment on the appeal)
Application no.
Date of introduction
Applicant’s name
Date of birth
 
Date of the First instance court decision
Date of the Court of appeal decision
31039/13
18/04/2013
Svitlana Ivanivna Dolna
28/05/1954
24/03/2011
 
Kamyanets-Podilskyy Local Court of Khmelnytskyy Region
22/10/2012
 
Vinnytsya Administrative Court of Appeal
 

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