Zachowanie strony jako przyczyna przewlekłości postępowania cywilnego w orzecznictwie Europejskiego Trybunału Praw Człowieka W Strasburgu w sprawach polskich
The applicant’s conduct as a cause of excessive length of proceedings in judicial decisions of the ECHR in Polish cases

Summary/Abstract: More than 20 years have elapsed since the Republic of Poland became a party to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms signed in Rome on November 4, 1950. The Polish statute of 17 June 2004 on complaints about a breach of the right to a trial within a reasonable time has been in force for over 10 years. Notwithstanding the aforementioned pieces of legislation, problems with the excessive length of proceedings remain. In the judgment of 7 July 2015 (final as of October 7, 2015 in the case Rutkowski and Others v. Poland, application nos. 72287/10, 13927/11 and 46187/11), the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 6(1) (the right to a hearing within a reasonable time) of the European Convention on Human Rights, and a violation of Article 13 (the right to an effective remedy). The Court concluded that the situation of which the applicants complained had to be qualified as a practice that was incompatible with the European Convention and decided to apply the pilot judgment procedure. The annex to the judgment includes 591 other cases in which Poland has to work out a resolution within 2 years. In its judgments the ECHR established the criteria that should have been considered in the assessment of the length of the proceedings. The reasonableness of the length of the proceedings must be assessed in light of the particular circumstances of the case and having regard to the complexity of the case, the conduct of the applicant and of the relevant authorities, and the importance of what is at stake for the applicant in the litigation. This article analyses one of the criteria, namely the conduct of the applicant in judicial decision of the ECHR, and demonstrates the types of applicant conduct that may be considered a contributing factor in prolonging the proceedings. The author points to arguments that challenge the position adopted in the judicial decisions.

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