issued by the Registrar of the Court  
ECHR 398 (2019)  
21.11.2019  
Adjournment by Supreme Administrative Court of proceedings  
on legal challenge to marina berthing fees was properly justified  
In today’s Chamber judgment1 in the case of Sailing Club of Halkidiki ‘I Kelyfos’ v. Greece  
(applications nos. 6978/18 and 8547/18) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously,  
that there had been:  
no violation of Article 6 § 1 (right of access to a court) of the European Convention on Human  
Rights.  
The case concerned legal proceedings brought by the applicants, boat owners using a marina,  
against an increase in the mooring and berthing fees that they were charged by the limited company  
responsible for its management, the Porto Carras Marina company.  
The Court observed that the undeniably lengthy proceedings could be explained by the repeated  
adjournments of hearings. While a number of them had been adjourned by the Supreme  
Administrative Court of its own motion, some hearings had been affected by a lawyers’ strike.  
However, the Court acknowledged that there had been valid reasons for the Supreme Administrative  
Court to adjourn its examination of the cases until the end of 2014, on account of a complete change  
in the legislative framework during that year, following the previous review in 2013, as regards the  
fixing of mooring and berthing fees in marinas, which are owned by the Greek State.  
Principal facts  
The first applicant, the “I Kelyfos” Sailing Club of Halkidiki, is a group of boat owners who rent  
moorings in Porto Carras marina in Sithonia (Halkidiki). The second applicant, Mr Dimitrios  
Papafilippou, is a boat owner, member of the sailing club and the chairman of its board of directors,  
as well as being its legal representative.  
In 2010 the marina’s management company raised the mooring and berthing fees charged to boat  
owners by a large amount. According to the applicants, only the State, as owner of all the country’s  
ports, was entitled to run marinas or entrust their management to third parties through a statutory  
procedure.  
Over time the Porto Carras Marina company submitted a number of successive pricelists, all  
approved by ministerial decision, each time increasing the fees.  
On 27 October 2012 and on 3 July 2012 the sailing club brought proceedings in the Supreme  
Administrative Court for the annulment of the ministerial decisions which had approved the price  
rises.  
On 8 August 2013 a law abolished the obligation for pricelists to be approved by ministerial decision  
and required that they simply be notified to the Ministry of Tourism. In 2014 Law no. 4254/2014  
abolished any obligation of notification and of approval by the Ministry.  
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.  
In two judgments the Supreme Administrative Court decided that there was no case to answer in the  
proceedings brought by the sailing club, noting that the law had abolished the obligation to have  
pricelists approved by the Ministry of Tourism and that the validity of the previous approval  
decisions had expired.  
For its part, the Porto Carras Marina company brought civil proceedings against members of the  
sailing club for payment of unpaid mooring and berthing fees.  
Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court  
The applicants complained of a violation of Article 6 § 1 (right of access to a court) of the European  
Convention on Human Rights. They argued that the Supreme Administrative Court had delayed its  
decision on their appeals and had discontinued the proceedings six years after they had been  
brought on the grounds that new legislation had rendered those proceedings without object.  
The applications were lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 31 January 2018 and  
12 February 2018.  
Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:  
Ksenija Turković (Croatia), President,  
Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (Greece),  
Aleš Pejchal (the Czech Republic),  
Armen Harutyunyan (Armenia),  
Pere Pastor Vilanova (Andorra),  
Tim Eicke (the United Kingdom),  
Raffaele Sabato (Italy),  
and also Renata Degener, Deputy Section Registrar.  
Decision of the Court  
Article 6 § 1  
The Court noted that the proceedings on the two appeals lodged by the sailing club had been  
undeniably lengthy on account of the repeated adjournments of hearings. While a number of them  
had been adjourned by the Supreme Administrative Court of its own motion, some hearings had  
been affected by a lawyers’ strike. But the Court also observed that the year 2014 had been decisive  
for the case, as the plenary formation of the Supreme Administrative Court had delivered judgments  
which for the first time addressed questions that were similar to those of the applicants. It was also  
in 2014 that Law no. 4254/2014 had entered into force. The Court thus found that there had been  
valid reasons for the Supreme Administrative Court to adjourn its examination of the cases until the  
end of 2014.  
The Court observed that the Supreme Administrative Court had dismissed the applicants’ claims with  
detailed reasoning based on well-established case-law. In its first judgment it had taken the view  
that there was no need to continue its examination of the appeal against the Ministry’s decision to  
approve the increase in mooring and berthing fees on the ground that the sailing club had not relied  
on an individual legal interest.  
In its second judgment the Supreme Administrative Court had taken the view that the sailing club  
could not rely on a legal interest in support of continuing the proceedings because, on the one hand,  
the subject matter of its complaints did not concern the administrative consequences of the  
ministerial decisions it was challenging, and on the other, the questions raised, being of an economic  
nature, could be referred to the civil courts. Lastly, the Supreme Administrative Court had found that  
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it was no longer necessary to pursue the matter, as the validity of the decision challenged by the  
club had expired in 2014 and Law no. 4254/2014 had come into force.  
The Court reiterated that it was not a court of fourth instance and that it would not call into  
question, under Article 6 § 1, the assessment of the domestic courts, unless their findings were  
arbitrary or manifestly unreasonable. In the present case the Court observed that the grounds on  
which the Supreme Administrative Court had dismissed the applicants’ requests could not be  
regarded as arbitrary or unreasonable.  
There had thus been no violation of Article 6 § 1.  
The judgment is available only in French.  
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The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member  
States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.  
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