Effectiveness of complaints against the excessive length of proceedings before the Supreme Administrative Court (in the light of case law)

Abstract

The article analyses the practical functioning of a complaint against excessive length of proceedings before the Polish Supreme Administrative Court. The author analysed the case law of the Supreme Administrative Court in this regard in 2015–2019 as well as statistics relating to complaints and the duration of proceedings before the Court. This analysis leads to the conclusion that such complaints are an ineffective means of protecting the infringed right to be heard within a reasonable time, which is provided for in Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The problem of long-lasting proceedings before the Supreme Administrative Court is of a systemic and structural nature, and is primarily related to the insufficient number of judges and clerks at the Supreme Administrative Court. The argumentation presented in the stabilized jurisprudence of the Supreme Administrative Court – which dismisses complaints and refers both to the fact that a given case is awaiting examination in the order of the receipt of cases by the Supreme Administrative Court and to the large number of cassation complaints submitted to this court – is not justified in the light of the standards resulting from the jurisprudence of the ECtHR. This is because such arguments lead to the consequences of the organizational and financial shortcomings of the judiciary being transferred to the individual.