Last Updated on July 7, 2019 by LawEuro
FIFTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 64540/12
Mariam METREVELI and Others
against Georgia
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 2 October 2018 as a Committee composed of:
Síofra O’Leary, President,
Lәtif Hüseynov,
Lado Chanturia, judges,
and Milan Blaško, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 5 October 2012,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
1. A list of the applicants is set out in the appendix. They are all Georgian nationals and were represented before the Court by Ms A. Kakhniauri, a lawyer practising in Tbilisi.
2. The Georgian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr B. Dzamashvili, of the Ministry of Justice.
3. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
4. On different dates in February 2012 the four applicants made donations to a political party, Georgian Dream, of either 5,000 Georgian laris (GEL) or GEL 10,000.
5. By a decision of 12 March 2012, the competent State agency found all four applicants liable for a serious breach of the relevant domestic legislation on funding of political parties. The first, second and fourth applicants were issued fines of GEL 100,000 (approximately 44,000 euros (EUR) at the material time) and the third applicant was issued a fine of GEL 50,000 (approximately EUR 22,000).
6. The applicants challenged the imposed fines, but the Tbilisi City Court, by its decision of 26 March 2012, confirmed the validity of the administrative sanctions. On 6 April 2012 the Tbilisi Court of Appeal dismissed the applicants’ appeals, finally terminating the dispute.
7. As none of the applicants paid the imposed fines, enforcement proceedings were initiated against them between August and September 2012. As part of the enforcement measures, bailiffs seized various movable and immovable assets of the applicants.
COMPLAINTS
8. The applicants complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 that the imposition of the administrative fines had constituted a disproportionate interference with their property rights.
THE LAW
9. The applicants complained about the imposition of the administrative fines varying from GEL 50,000 to GEL 100,000. The invoked Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 reads as follows:
“Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law.
The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of a State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest…”
A. The parties’ submissions
10. On 14 December 2017 notice of the application was given to the Government
11. On 12 April 2018 the Government informed the Court that the administrative fines initially imposed upon the applicants had been overturned in 2013. Notably, on 19 December 2012 an Act on the exemption from certain forms of administrative liability, including those relating to breaches of the legislation on funding of political parties, had been enacted and granted retroactive effect. That being so, the fines issued against the applicants had been formally lifted on 3 and 4 January 2013 on the basis of the Act. Consequently, the enforcement proceedings launched against the four applicants had been discontinued between 1 and 18 March 2013. None of the applicants had ever been made to make any payment to the State budget.
12. In the light of the afore-mentioned factual developments, the Government stated that they did not deem it necessary to submit observations on the admissibility and merits, as the matter giving rise to the application had been fully resolved at domestic level.
13. On 16 April 2018 the Court transmitted the Government’s letter of 12 April 2018 to the applicants’ representative. Among other issues, the applicants were invited to explain the reasons for their omission to inform the Court of the lifting of the fines and the discontinuation of the enforcement proceedings launched against them. In that respect, the applicants’ attention was brought to the Court’s well-established case-law, according to which a failure by an applicant to update the Court on major factual developments could be qualified as an abuse of the right of individual application, within the meaning of Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention (see Bekauri v. Georgia (preliminary objection), no. 14102/02, §§ 21-25, 10 April 2012). The applicants were also invited to comment on the question of whether or not the matter giving rise to their application can be considered to have been resolved at domestic level.
14. The applicants replied on 14 May 2018. They confirmed that in January and March 2013 the administrative fines had been lifted and the ensuing enforcement proceedings discontinued (see paragraph 11 above). Nevertheless, they disagreed with the Government that the matter had been resolved at domestic level since the latter had never acknowledged a violation of the relevant provisions of the Convention. As regards the question why they had omitted to update the Court of those important factual developments, the applicants stated that, in their opinion, it was the Government’s role to keep the Court informed of such developments.
B. The Court’s assessment
15. The Court considers that it is not necessary to determine whether or not the matter giving rise to the application has been resolved at domestic level within the meaning of Article 37 § 1 (b) of the Convention, as the case is in any event inadmissible for the following reasons.
16. According to Rule 47 § 7 (former Rule 47 § 6) of the Rules of Court, applicants, acting in person or through their legal representatives, are under the continuous obligation to keep the Court informed of all important circumstances regarding their pending applications (see, for example, Bekauri, cited above, § 21). Incomplete and therefore misleading information may amount to an abuse of the right of application, especially if the information concerns the very core of the case and no sufficient explanation is given for the failure to disclose that information (see, amongst many others, Hadrabova v. the Czech Republic (dec.), nos. 42165/02 and 466/03, 25 September 2007, and Pirtskhalaishvili v. Georgia (dec.), no. 44328/05, 29 April 2010). The same applies if new, important developments have occurred during the proceedings before the Court and where, despite being expressly required to do so by Rule 47 § 7 (former Rule 47 § 6) of the Rules of Court, the applicant has failed to disclose that information to the Court, thereby preventing it from ruling on the case in full knowledge of the facts (see, for instance, Gross v. Switzerland [GC], no. 67810/10, § 28, 30 September 2014, and also Kerdikoshvili v. Georgia (dec.) [Committee], no. 35868/10, § 12, 12 June 2018).
17. Turning to the circumstances of the present case, the Court notes that its subject matter was the imposition upon the applicants, in March 2012, of administrative fines. As the applicants were not willing to pay the fines voluntarily, enforcement proceedings were initiated against them between August and September 2012. The present application was lodged in October 2012 with the purpose of contesting those fines as disproportionate interferences with the applicants’ property rights. However, only a few months after the introduction of their application, in December 2012, the Act of 19 December 2012 was adopted with retroactive effect, exempting the applicants from the relevant administrative liability. Consequently, between January and March 2013 the fines were overturned on the basis of that Act and the relevant enforcement proceedings discontinued (see paragraphs 11 and 14 above). All these factual developments were of significant nature as they related to the very core of the application. Nevertheless, the applicants failed to inform the Court of these key developments, and this fact amounts to a breach of their procedural obligation under Rule 47 § 7 of the Rules of Court (see Bekauri, cited above, § 21). As a result of that omission, the Court was prevented from conducting a proper preliminary assessment of the admissibility aspect of the application on 14 December 2017 (see paragraph 10 above). Furthermore, having regard to the content of the applicants’ letter of 14 May 2018, the Court considers that they failed to give any justifiable reason for their serious omission (see paragraph 14 above).
18. Having regard to the importance for the proper determination of the present case of the information that the applicants withheld from it, the Court finds that the applicants’ conduct was contrary to the purpose of their right of individual application as provided for in Article 34 of the Convention (compare, amongst many other authorities, with Stojnić v. Bosnia and Herzegovina (dec.), no. 24652/09, § 23, 6 October 2015;Ronly Holdings LTD. v. Georgia (dec.) [Committee], no. 41444/05, §§ 16‑22, 7 November 2017, and Selina v. Lithuania (dec.) [Committee], no. 17969/10, §§ 34‑35, 5 September 2017).
19. Accordingly, the case must be rejected as abusive, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 25 October 2018.
Milan Blaško Síofra O’Leary
Deputy Registrar President
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