Untitled

E. SICHINAVA, “A REASONABLE TIME” REQUIREMENT
hold a joint trial on all the charges brought
against Mr. Piron. It was also taken into consideration
that Mr. Boddaert and Mr. Piron
accused each other of having committed the
crime of which they were both suspected. The
European Court found that in proceeding in
this manner they undoubtedly took the risk of
postponing even further Mr. Boddaert's committal
for trial. However, the gravity of the offences
in question and the interdependence
of the charges, could reasonably appear to
make it necessary for such a “parallel progression”
of the two cases. Consequently, no violation
of Article 6 (1) was found. 64
At a glance, the interest of the Court, to
unite the cases of the similar types, is nimble,
and in itself is a positive measure, as it sets
as a goal overall and objective investigation
of the case, however in case if such a measure
does not advance the situation of an
applicant, but on the contrary, causes delays
in considering his/her case, a state can not
refer to this action as a justification and the
measure may become a reason for imposing
the liability on it.
A state must always be oriented at the protection
of the right of a person to swift consideration
of his/her case so that he/she is not
left in ambiguity for long. Therefore, when the
state institutions consider their actions, the
latter shall first of all take into consideration
the interests of a person and grant them a
priority. Otherwise the actions of the state body
shall be considered contrary to the Article 6(1)
of the European Convention.
One of the key issues, always surfacing
when assessing the actions of a state body, is
overloading of courts. This is the argument,
which is used by the both sides (applicant, as
well as a respondent State) in order to ground
their position and both sides interpret this in
their own way. The European Court has on
the other hand established a number of its own
standards for considering this issue.
In the case Zimmerman and Steiner v.
Switzerland the respondent state was found
liable, as almost three and a half years were
required for the appeals procedures, in the
course of majority of which the case was put
on hold. The announced reason was that the
court was overloaded, and the cases which
were considered more important, were granted
priority. The case of the applicant did not
appear in this list. The cases were collected
at the court during years and the adequate
measures, which would have increased the
number of staff or otherwise boost the organization
of the court system, were not undertaken. 65
It is clearly shown from the case that when
a State, in order to ground its position, stipulates,
that the court is overloaded, it has to
prove the presence of the two conditions: first,
that the overloading of courts is a temporary
incident and not a permanent problem and the
increase in number of cases was unexpected;
and, second, the state undertook the adequate
measures in order to improve the situation
with the respective speed.
Observation of these two conditions is
essential, but not sufficient:
It is also required that the states undertake
measures with respect to the given applicant.
In this respect the following cases are
of interest:
In the case Buchholz v. Germany the Court
held that a State may not be held responsible,
if the violations are caused due to the
overloading of the courts, which could not
have been predicted in advance and if a state
undertakes swift and adequate measures
thereto. The Court did not found the respondent
state liable for violating Article 6(1) in this
case, as the overloading of courts was a result
of unexpected economic crisis in 1970s
and respectively, the adequate measures were
undertaken to increase a number of judges,
as soon as the problem became visible. Despite
the fact that these measures could not
contribute to advancing the applicant’s situation,
these were the measures which could
have been undertaken by the respondent state
in the given circumstances. 66
A different decision was made in the case
Ciricosta and Viola v. Italy, in which the State
indicated that the state had undertaken the
respective measures to improve the situation.
In particular, the Italian Parliament has tried
to remedy the slow workings of justice by revising
the Code of Civil Procedure. The Court
noted that it was not appropriate at that stage
to speculate about measures which had been
undertaken belatedly. 67
Also, in the case Milasi v. Italy the Court
found violation of Article 6. Despite the fact
that the authorities had endeavored to meet
the crisis of backlogging the courts by acting
methodically, by giving priority to the trials of
those defendants who were in custody and by
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