issued by the Registrar of the Court

ECHR 237 (2015)

07.07.2015

Pilot judgment: Poland has to take further steps to tackle problem

of lengthy court proceedings and adequately compensate victims

The case of Rutkowski and Others v. Poland (application nos. 72287/10, 13927/11 and 46187/11)

concerned the applicants’ complaints that the length of the proceedings before the Polish courts in

their respective cases had been excessive and that the operation of the remedy at national level for

the excessive length of court proceedings was defective.

In today’s Chamber judgment¹in the case the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously,

that there had been:

a violation of Article 6 § 1 (right to a hearing within a reasonable time) of the European Convention

on Human Rights, and

a violation of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy).

The Court concluded that the situation of which the applicants complained had to be qualified as a

practice which was incompatible with the European Convention and decided to apply the pilot-

judgment procedure.²

The Polish Government had argued that a 2013 resolution by the Polish Supreme Court,

acknowledging that the previous practice as regards compensation for unreasonable length of

proceedings had been defective, had put an end to that practice. However, an increased inflow of

repetitive cases before the Court in 2013 and 2014 involving length of proceedings and insufficient

compensation at national level showed that further measures were needed. The Council of Europe’s

Committee of Ministers, in the course of the execution of the Court’s judgments, was to monitor

such measures to be taken by Poland.

There are about 650 similar cases pending before the Court at different stages of the procedure.

The Court decided to communicate to the Polish Government all new applications, giving it a two-

year time limit for processing those cases and affording redress to all victims.

Principal facts

The applicants, Wiesław Rutkowski, Mariusz Orlikowski, and Aleksandra Grabowska, are Polish

nationals who live in Warsaw, Łódź, and Poznań respectively.

In Mr Rutkowski’s case, the complaint concerns criminal proceedings against him on suspicion of

participating in an organised criminal group. He was charged with those offences in September 2002

and was eventually acquitted in July 2010.

Mr Orlikowski’s and Ms Grabowska’s complaints concern two different sets of civil proceedings. Mr

Orlikowski lodged a claim for damages against his landlord in March 1999 and in November 2010 an

appeal court eventually granted his claim in part. Ms Grabowska joined the proceedings in a civil

1. Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, this Chamber judgment is not final. During the three-month period following its delivery,

any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Court. If such a request is made, a panel of five judges

considers whether the case deserves further examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a final

judgment. If the referral request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day.

Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for supervision of its execution.

Further information about the execution process can be found here: www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution.

See here for further information on the pilot-judgment procedure.

case in April 2000 which concerned the rights to property she had inherited. In June 2013 an appeal

court eventually upheld a decision rejecting her claim.

While their respective proceedings were pending, all three applicants lodged complaints about the

length of the proceedings under a law enacted in 2004 providing for remedies for breaches of the

right to have a case examined in judicial proceedings without undue delay (“the 2004 Act”).

Mr Rutkowski was awarded the equivalent of 500 euros (EUR) in compensation. Mr Orlikowski’s and

Ms Grabowska’s complaints were dismissed. As regards the assessment of the length of the

proceedings, in both Mr Rutkowski’s and Ms Grabowska’s case, the courts took into account only the

period starting from the date on which the 2004 Act had entered into force. In Mr Orlikowski’s case,

they took into account only the period after the appeal court had quashed the judgment of the first

instance court.

Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court

Relying on Article 6 § 1 (right to a hearing within a reasonable time), all applicants complained that

the length of the proceedings in their respective cases had been unreasonable. They further

complained, under Article 13 (right to an effective remedy), that the national courts had defectively

applied the 2004 Act in that they had refused to acknowledge the excessive length of the

proceedings and in consequence to grant them appropriate and sufficient just satisfaction.

The case originated in three applications which were lodged with the European Court of Human

Rights on 30 November 2010, 21 February 2011 and 21 July 2011 respectively.

The case was communicated to the Polish Government for observations on 2 October 2012.

The parties were also invited to express their views on whether the case revealed a systemic

problem of excessive length of proceedings in Poland as well as ineffective operation of a domestic

remedy in that respect and whether the case would be suitable for the Court’s pilot-judgment

procedure.

Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:

Guido Raimondi (Italy), President,

Päivi Hirvelä (Finland),

Ledi Bianku (Albania),

Nona Tsotsoria (Georgia),

Paul Mahoney (the United Kingdom),

Krzysztof Wojtyczek (Poland),

Faris Vehabović (Bosnia and Herzegovina),

and also Françoise Elens-Passos, Section Registrar.

Decision of the Court

Article 6 § 1

The Court found violations of Article 6 § 1 in respect of all three applicants on account of the

unreasonable length of the proceedings in their respective cases before the Polish courts. While Mr

Rutkowski’s case had been of more than average complexity – involving a large number of accused –

this did not justify the entire length of proceedings of seven years and ten months at one level of

jurisdiction. As regards the other two applicants, the Court accepted both Mr Orlikowski’s and Ms

Grabowska’s submission that their respective cases had not been particularly complex. The Court

found no justification for the delays that had led to an overall length of proceedings of 11 years and

more than eight months in Mr Orlikowski’s case and 13 years and two months in Ms Grabowska’s

case.

Article 13

Shortly after the introduction of the 2004 Act the Court had examined the remedies introduced by it

and had found them to be “effective” within the meaning of Article 13. However, having regard to

subsequent developments in the Polish judicial practice the Court saw good reason for reconsidering

its previous position.

As shown by the fact in the applicants’ case, considerable delays which had occurred in their

respective proceedings had not been taken into account by the courts dealing with their complaints.

Contrary to the Court’s established case-law on the assessment of the reasonableness of the

proceedings, those courts had not examined the overall length of the proceedings but only selected

parts of them. In two of the applicants’ cases, the courts had disregarded the periods before the

entry into force of the 2004 Act; in the case of one applicant the appeal court had limited its

assessment to the court instance at which the main proceedings were pending. The approach taken

by the courts in the applicants’ cases reflected the principle of “fragmentation of proceedings”

established by the Polish Supreme Court in numerous rulings between 2005 and 2012. Following

that principle assessment of a length complaint was to be limited to the period after the 2004 Act’s

entry into force and to the court instance at which the case was currently pending.

The “fragmentation” of the proceedings had decisive consequences for the outcome of the

applicants’ claims for compensation, which were either entirely rejected or only partly granted. The

amount of compensation granted to Mr Rutkowski corresponded to only 5.5% of what the Court

would have awarded him had there been no remedy at national level. The domestic award thus had

to be considered manifestly unreasonable in the light of the standards set by the Court. In

conclusion the Court found that their complaints under the 2004 Act had failed to provide the

applicants with appropriate and sufficient redress.

There had accordingly been a violation of Article 13.

Article 46

The Court considered that it was justified to apply the pilot-judgment procedure, since the facts of

the applicants’ case revealed the existence of a systemic problem giving rise to many similar

applications. Having regard to the considerable scale of the problem of excessive length of

proceedings in Poland accompanied by the lack of sufficient redress for a breach of the reasonable-

time requirement, the Court found that the situation of which the applicants complained had to be

qualified as practice incompatible with the Convention.

Since the introduction of the remedy under the 2004 Act in Poland, the Court had delivered 280

judgments finding a breach of the reasonable-time requirement in cases where the applicants had

unsuccessfully attempted to obtain a ruling acknowledging that breach and to be granted

compensation before the Polish courts. In addition, in 358 similar cases such a breach had been

acknowledged by the Government and they had paid compensation under the terms of a friendly

settlement or a unilateral declaration. There were currently about 650 similar cases pending before

the Court and over 300 Polish cases involving the excessive length of judicial proceedings were

pending at the execution stage before the Committee of Ministers.

The Court considered that the systemic problem leading to a practice incompatible with Article 6 § 1

and Article 13 of the Convention required Poland to implement comprehensive large-scale legislative

and administrative actions. However, as regards Article 6 § 1, the Court abstained from indicating

any specific measures to be taken, noting that the Committee of Ministers, in the course of the

execution of judgments, was better placed to monitor such measures that needed to be taken by

Poland.

As shown by the general measures adopted by the Polish Government in execution of a previous

Grand Chamber judgment concerning the length of proceedings³those measures had three principal

aims: the simplification and acceleration of the proceedings; the transfer of some responsibilities

from judges to non-judicial officers; where appropriate the transfer of some cases traditionally

examined by the courts to other legal professions, for instance public notaries. While the Court

welcomed those developments it noted that the scale and complexity of the problem of excessive

length of proceedings required the State to make further consistent long-term efforts to achieve

compliance with Article 6 § 1.

As regards the practice incompatible with Article 13, the Court noted that in a March 2013

resolution the Polish Supreme Court had decided that in the light of Convention standards the

principle of “fragmentation” of proceedings no longer had any basis. However, the Court was not

persuaded by the Polish Government’s argument that the resolution had put an end to the previous

defective practice as regards compensation for unreasonable length of proceedings. The Court noted

in particular that it had not been established that the lower courts in Poland had put the resolution

in practice. Indeed in 2013 and 2014 there had been an increased inflow of repetitive cases before

the Court involving length of proceedings and insufficient compensation at national level.

As regards the procedure to be followed in similar cases, the Court decided that those applications

which were pending before the Court were to be communicated to the Polish Government. It was

necessary to allow the Government a two-year time limit for processing those communicated

applications and affording redress to all victims – by way of, for example, friendly settlements – who

had lodged their applications with the Court before the delivery of today’s judgment. Pending the

adoption of such measures, the Court decided to adjourn adversarial proceedings in all those cases

for two years from the date on which today’s judgment becomes final.

As regards future cases which might be lodged after the delivery of today’s judgment, the Court

decided to adjourn adversarial proceedings for one year following the delivery of the judgment.

After the expiry of that term the Court will decide on a further procedure, in the light of subsequent

developments and, in particular, any measures that may be taken by Poland in execution of the

present judgment.

Just satisfaction (Article 41)

The Court held that Poland was to pay Mr Rutkowski 9,200 euros (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary

damage and EUR 750 in respect of costs and expenses; it was to pay Mr Orlikowski EUR 8,800 in

respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 750 in respect of costs and expenses; and it was to pay

Ms Grabowska EUR 10,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 180 in respect of costs and

expenses.

The judgment is available only in English.

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³Kudła v. Poland Grand Chamber judgment of 26 October 2000