9. Reasonable time

A very large number of cases that are submitted to the European Court concern the right guaranteed by Article 6 to a hearing within a reasonable time. This single issue accounts for more judgments of the Court than any other.

The guarantee underlines the importance of rendering justice without delays.

The time to be taken into consideration starts running with the institution of proceedings in civil cases, and in criminal cases with the charge (the date of arrest, search, or questioning, even as a witness, could be taken as a start date). Time stops when the proceedings have been concluded at the highest possible instance, when the determination becomes final and the judgment has been executed.

Article 6 is fully autonomous from the way the domestic procedure determines the length of procedural actions, with the result that a breach of the domestic time-limit will not necessarily show a breach of Article 6. Unlike in many national systems, under the Court’s case-law there is no fixed time-limit for any particular type of the proceedings, and all situations are examined on a case-by-case basis.

What time is “reasonable” is assessed by a cumulative test involving four main criteria:

1) complexity of the case (the complexity of a case allows more leeway to the authorities in justifying a longer delay; complexity denotes primarily numerous factual elements to be determined, such as in cases involving a large number of defendants in a case);

2) what is at stake for the applicant (for example, criminal proceedings will generally be expected to be hold more quickly than civil, particularly where an accused person is held in pre-trial detention);

3) conduct of the authorities (The Court takes into account only delays attributable to the authorities);

4) conduct of the applicant (delays attributable to the applicant are not taken into account in assessing “reasonable time”).

10. Reasoned judgment

Article 6 requires that the domestic courts give reasons for its judgment in both civil and criminal proceedings.

The right to a reasoned decision is rooted in a more general principle embodied in the Convention, which protects an individual from arbitrariness. The domestic decision should contain reasons that are sufficient to reply to the essential aspects of the party’s factual and legal – substantive or procedural – argument.

Courts are not obliged to give detailed answers to every question, but if a submission is fundamental to the outcome of the case the court must then deal with it in its judgment.

Example

The case of Pronina v. Ukraine, 18 July 2006

Ms. Pronina lodged a claim with the Yalta City Court against the local social welfare department. In her claim, the applicant maintained that, under Article 46 of the Constitution, her pension should not be lower than the minimum living standard. Therefore, she claimed a corresponding increase in her pension.

The court decided against the applicant. The court did not consider the applicant’s argument about the contradiction of the amount of her pension with the minimum living standard guaranteed by Article 46 of the Constitution.

The European Court stated that the applicant referred, in particular, to the provision of Article 46 of the Constitution, stating that her pension should not be lower than the minimum living standard. However, the domestic courts made no attempt to analyse the applicant’s claim from this standpoint. It was not the task of the European Court to decide what would be the most appropriate way for the domestic courts to deal with this argument. However, in the Court’s opinion, the domestic courts, by ignoring the argument, even though it was specific, relevant and important, violated Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.