ABSTRACT
The period to be considered began on 1 July 1981, when Spain’s declaration accepting the right of individual petition took effect. However, in order to determine the reasonableness of the period which elapsed after then, regard had to be had to the stage which the proceedings had reached at that juncture. Regarding the end of the period, two phases had to be distinguished. The first had lasted until 13 September 1986, when the Barcelona Court of Appeal’s judgment was notified to the parties; the second consisted of the enforcement proceedings. The latter proceedings, which depended entirely on the initiative of the applicant company, began on 18 October 1986 and had still not been concluded. The Court concentrated on the first phase, which lasted five years, two months and 13 days. The reasonableness of the length of proceedings had to be assessed in the light of the particular circumstances of the case and having regard, inter alia, to its complexity and the conduct of the applicant and the competent authorities. The applicant was only required to show diligence in carrying out the procedural steps relevant to him, to refrain from using delaying tactics and to avail himself of the scope afforded by domestic law for shortening the proceedings. The present case was not complex and the applicant had shown diligence. There had been two periods of inactivity amounting to more than three and a half years; such delay could only be justified by very exceptional circumstances. A temporary backlog of court business did not make a State liable if appropriate remedial action was taken with requisite promptness. In such circumstances it was legitimate as a temporary expedient to decide on a particular order in which cases would be dealt with, based on urgency and importance. However, the urgency of a case increased with time. In the present case the backlog had become organisationally inbuilt and the remedial measures taken were insufficient and belated. The length of the proceedings was excessive.
