Background
Six applications concerned the duration of civil proceedings in Ukraine. The proceedings lasted between about five and a half years and eight and a half years, across one to four levels of jurisdiction.
The applicants complained that the proceedings exceeded the reasonable-time requirement under Article 6 § 1 and that Ukrainian law afforded no effective remedy for that delay under Article 13. In one application, the original applicant died while the Strasbourg proceedings were pending; the Court allowed her testamentary heir, Dmytro Vyacheslavovych Oliynyk, to continue the case.
The Court’s Holding
The Court joined the six applications, declared them admissible, and unanimously found violations of Articles 6 § 1 and 13. Applying its established reasonable-time criteria, it found no fact or argument that justified the overall length of the domestic proceedings.
Relying on its earlier leading judgment in Karnaushenko v. Ukraine, the Court held that the delays were excessive and that the applicants lacked an effective domestic remedy for their complaints. It awarded non-pecuniary damages ranging from €500 to €1,800 per applicant or household, plus any applicable tax.
Key Takeaways
- Civil proceedings lasting roughly five and a half to eight and a half years were found incompatible with the Article 6 § 1 reasonable-time guarantee.
- Ukraine violated Article 13 because the applicants had no effective domestic remedy for the delays.
- An heir may pursue an application after an applicant’s death where the circumstances warrant continuation.
Why It Matters
The judgment is a straightforward application of the Court’s established case-law on systemic delays in Ukrainian civil litigation. It confirms that excessive duration and the absence of a meaningful domestic avenue to challenge it can give rise to separate violations of Articles 6 § 1 and 13.
For practitioners, the decision also illustrates the Court’s willingness to permit succession in pending Strasbourg proceedings and to resolve comparable delay claims together through a single judgment.