Přehled
Rozhodnutí
SECOND SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 471/19
JURUKOSKI SEKO DOOEL
against North Macedonia
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 7 April 2026 as a Committee composed of:
Péter Paczolay, President,
Jovan Ilievski,
Juha Lavapuro, judges,
and Dorothee von Arnim, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 471/19) against the Republic of North Macedonia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 20 December 2018 by a company, Jurukoski Seko Dooel (“the applicant company”), which has its registered office in Skopje and was represented by Mr V. Donevski, a lawyer practising in Skopje;
the decision to give notice of the complaint under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention concerning the right of access to a court to the Government of North Macedonia (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms D. Djonova, and to declare the remainder of the application inadmissible;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns the applicant company’s complaint that its appeal on points of law was rejected by the Supreme Court as having been lodged out of time.
2. In July 2005 the applicant company entered into an agreement with the E. company. The applicant company undertook to transfer an apartment to the E. company in exchange for building materials. Subsequently, the applicant company and the E. company both entered into pre‑sale agreements with D. concerning that apartment. The apartment was transferred into D.’s physical possession but remained registered in the Land Register as the property of the applicant company.
3. In November 2012 D. instituted civil proceedings against the applicant company and the E. company, seeking recognition of his title to the apartment in question. The applicant company disputed the claim and contended that D. had not paid the agreed price for the apartment and had not therefore acquired any property rights to it.
4. In December 2013 insolvency proceedings were initiated in respect of the E. company. D. raised the claim of his title to the above‑mentioned apartment in the course of the insolvency proceedings, but that claim was dismissed in October 2014 by the first‑instance court, by a decision not subject to any further appeal, on the grounds that the apartment had not been registered as the property of the E. company and that the title to it could be determined in separate civil proceedings.
5. In the civil proceedings instituted by D. (see paragraph 3 above), the E. company was represented by the insolvency trustee (стечаен управник), who disputed the claim.
6. On 26 May 2017 the first‑instance court dismissed the claim against the two companies. On 6 February 2018 the second‑instance court overturned that decision. It found that the companies and D. had fulfilled their obligations under the pre‑sale agreements (see paragraph 2 above) and that D. had therefore acquired property rights to the apartment in issue.
7. On 23 March 2018 the applicant company, represented by a lawyer, lodged an appeal on points of law with the Supreme Court. However, on 17 May 2018 the Supreme Court rejected that appeal on the grounds that it had been lodged outside the 15‑day time‑limit set out in the Insolvency Act. The Supreme Court observed that the E. company was the subject of insolvency proceedings, and that the decision of the second‑instance court had upheld D.’s claim to the apartment against both companies. This meant that the outcome of the civil proceedings would inevitably affect the insolvency proceedings. Furthermore, the insolvency trustee had taken over the proceedings in the E. company’s name and had actively challenged the claim (see paragraph 5 above). This was sufficient to consider that the civil dispute related to the insolvency proceedings and that the procedural rules provided for under the Insolvency Act, as lex specialis to the Civil Proceedings Act, should be applied.
8. The applicant company complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the Supreme Court’s decision to reject its appeal on points of law as out of time had breached its right of access to a court. It argued that the Supreme Court should have applied the longer time-limit provided by the Civil Proceedings Act, namely the thirty-day time-limit, which it had complied with and which the Supreme Court had applied in another case submitted by the applicant company.
- THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT
9. The general principles on the right of access to a court, including access to the superior courts, have been summarised in Zubac v. Croatia ([GC], no. 40160/12, §§ 76-82 and 84, 5 April 2018, and the cases cited therein).
10. In particular, the Court reiterates that the right of access to a court is not absolute and may be subject to limitations; these are permitted by implication since the right of access by its very nature calls for regulation by the State, which regulation may vary in time and in place according to the needs and resources of the community and of individuals. Nonetheless, the limitations applied must not restrict the access left to the individual in such a way or to such an extent that the very essence of the right is impaired. Furthermore, a limitation will not be compatible with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention if it does not pursue a legitimate aim and if there is not a reasonable relationship of proportionality between the means employed and the aim sought to be achieved (ibid., § 78).
11. The Court has no reason to doubt that the rules on time‑limits for appeals, as applied in the present case, which led to a limitation of the applicant company’s access to the Supreme Court, were designed to ensure the proper administration of justice, compliance with the principle of legal certainty (see Tence v. Slovenia, no. 37242/14, § 31, 31 May 2016), and efficiency of the insolvency proceedings (see, mutatis mutandis, Zavodnik v. Slovenia, no. 53723/13, § 76, 21 May 2015). They therefore pursued a legitimate aim.
12. The Court further notes that the applicant company did not allege that the 15‑day time‑limit for lodging an appeal on points of law was so short that the proceedings were for that reason unfair (see, mutatis mutandis, Adorisio and Others v. the Netherlands (dec.), nos. 47315/13 and 2 others, § 101, 17 March 2015).
13. In determining whether the limitation was proportionate to the legitimate aims pursued, the Court observes that the core of the applicant company’s complaint was that the Supreme Court’s decision concerning the applicability of the time-limit in question had been inconsistent with that court’s previous case‑law and was therefore unforeseeable. To that effect, it relied on the Supreme Court’s decision of 1 February 2018 in a case which concerned a claim for recognition of title raised against a company after it had become insolvent. In that case, the appeal on points of law had been lodged within the 30‑day time‑limit provided for under the Civil Proceedings Act and the Supreme Court had not rejected the claim as out of time. Moreover, the applicant submitted that in that case the Supreme Court had found that the lower courts had correctly based their decisions on the substantive provisions of the law applicable outside the scope of insolvency proceedings. It had not, however, ruled on the applicable procedural rules.
14. By contrast, the Government relied on twenty-two decisions of the Supreme Court, twelve of which had been given before the Supreme Court’s decision in the applicant company’s case, and ten after that date. In all those cases, which concerned disputes arising in connection with insolvency proceedings, the Supreme Court had rejected as out of time appeals on points of law which had been lodged outside the 15‑day time‑limit.
15. The applicant company argued that that case-law was irrelevant because, inter alia, the Supreme Court decisions given before the decision in its case had concerned financial claims in contrast to the present case and the decision of 1 February 2018 (see paragraph 13 above) which had concerned the recognition of property rights. It further argued that the decisions delivered after the decision in the present case had also amounted to an interference with the appellants’ right of access to a court in those cases, and that the existence of such case-law did not demonstrate that the Supreme Court’s decision in the present case had been adopted in accordance with the relevant domestic provisions.
16. The Court notes that the examples of domestic case‑law relied on by the Government demonstrate that, in disputes arising in connection with insolvency proceedings, the Supreme Court has systematically rejected appeals on points of law lodged outside the 15‑day time‑limit (see paragraph 14 above). Accordingly, and having regard to the parties’ submissions and to the fact that the co‑defendant in the civil proceedings in question was the subject of insolvency proceedings (see paragraphs 3-5 above), the Court is satisfied that it was, or should have been, reasonably foreseeable to the applicant company, which was represented by a lawyer in the civil proceedings, that the procedural rules under the Insolvency Act would be applicable to its case. It considers the applicant company’s reliance on the Supreme Court’s decision of 1 February 2018 (see paragraph 13 above) to be insufficient to call this finding into question. In this connection, the Court does not find the Supreme Court’s reasoning in the present case (see paragraph 7 above) to be arbitrary or manifestly unreasonable in any way. It reiterates that it is not in principle the Court’s function to compare different decisions of national courts, even if given in apparently similar proceedings; it must respect the independence of those courts (see, with regard to the principles applicable to cases concerning conflicting court decisions, Nejdet Şahin and Perihan Şahin v. Turkey [GC], no. 13279/05, §§ 49-58, 20 October 2011, and the cases cited therein).
17. Lastly, the Court observes that the applicant company’s case was examined on the merits by domestic courts at two levels of jurisdiction. It discerns no element to suggest that in dismissing the applicant company’s appeal on points of law, the Supreme Court disproportionately restricted its right of access to a court (see, mutatis mutandis, Zelenika v. Croatia (dec.), no. 39801/23, § 55, 21 May 2024).
18. It follows that this complaint is inadmissible under Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention as manifestly ill‑founded, and that it must therefore be rejected pursuant to Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 13 May 2026.
Dorothee von Arnim Péter Paczolay
Deputy Registrar President