13 Jul Compensation claim

In the case Kamenova v. Bulgaria (application no. 62784/09, 12/07/2018) the European Court of Human Rights held that there had been no violation of Article 6 § 1 (access to court) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The applicant, is a Bulgarian national who complained on the lack of a court decision on her request for compensation for the death of her daughter. The applicant’s daughter died in a traffic accident in 1997. A lorry driver was prosecuted and convicted in 1999 but the judgment was quashed and remitted for a fresh investigation in 2000. The driver was convicted in a second set of proceedings in 2002. Ms Kamenova brought a compensation claim against the driver and his employer in 2001, during the second set of criminal proceedings. The courts awarded damages to the relatives of people who had died in the accident in 2004, but the award to Ms Kamenova was quashed in 2006 as being out of time as the appeal court found that she should have brought her claim during the first set of criminal proceedings against the driver. The courts also rejected a civil claim by Ms Kamenova, brought in 2007, as it was outside the five-year time-limit for such actions.

Relying on Article 6 § 1 (access to court) of the European Convention on Human Rights, Ms Kamenova complained that the domestic courts had never decided on her compensation claim.

The Court stated that the applicant failed to bring her claim for damages against H.H. and his employer in the context of the criminal proceedings in 1998, when the Regional Court started examining the case for the first time. She has presented no explanation for this failure, and has not in particular referred to any obstruction on her right to access to a court at that time.

The Court considered that the manner in which the national courts treated the case is also open to critique. In particular, in 2001 the Regional Court accepted to examine the applicant’s claim in the criminal proceedings, which was later on considered by the higher courts to be an error. Once the claim was accepted for examination in the criminal proceedings the applicant was prevented under the Code of Civil Procedure from bringing the same claim before the civil courts. If the Regional Court had refused to accept the claim for examination, or it had been declared inadmissible on an earlier date, or had the criminal courts transferred it to the civil courts following the procedure under Code of Civil Procedure, the applicant could have been able to bring her claim before the civil courts in due time and have it examined on merits.

Nevertheless, any mistakes on the part of the national courts cannot alter the conclusion that the applicant failed, without any justification, to make use of the clear and indisputable possibilities to have her claim duly examined and decided. Therefore, the Court concludes that there has been no violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.

References from the official website of the European Court of Human Rights