# أحكام المحاكم الأجنبية Decisions of Foreign Courts > أحكام المحكمة الأوروبية لحقوق الإنسان > Decisions of The European Court of Human Rights >  X. v. NORWAY - 2385/64 [1967] ECHR 17 (10 February 1967)

## هيثم الفقى

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X. v. NORWAY - 2385/64 [1967] ECHR 17 (10 February 1967) 
THE FACTSWhereas the facts as presented by the Applicant may be summarised asfollows:The Applicant, a Norwegian citizen living in Oslo, was previously theowner of a fish-canning factory.He states that in August, 1948 he was informed by the Central Officeof the Sardine Canning Industry (Hermetikkfabrikkenes Brislingcentral)in Stavanger that Office had decided to forbid any sale or exports ofthe Applicant's products from 1948 pending certain investigationsregarding their quality. This decision was taken on the basis of theNorwegian Act of 19th May, 1933 concerning the supervision of foodproducts (lov om tilsyn med naeringsmidler) and the reason was that theLaboratory of the Canning Industry (Hermetikkindustriens Laboratorium),after examining some cans produced by the Applicant's factory, hadfound these cans to be of bad quality in various respects.The Applicant did not agree with the result of the laboratoryexamination and therefore wished to have access to the samples examinedby the laboratory and to the laboratory records. However, he was toldthat the samples had been thrown away and that there were no recordsother than the official notification which the Applicant had received.In the Applicant's opinion, this was unsatisfactory, since the officialnotification did not give him sufficient information about the methodsused by the laboratory and the result of the tests.The Applicant requested a new examination by the laboratory and inFebruary, 1949 such an examination took place. The test result wassimilar, but the Applicant states that the laboratory still refused togive him such information as would permit to control the correctnessof the laboratory's findings.The Applicant then lodged a complaint with the Director of Fisheries(Fiskeridirekt&Acirc;°ren) and this complaint was subsequently submitted tothe Ministry of Fisheries which upheld the decision by which theproducts of the Applicant's factory had been seized.The Applicant subsequently instituted civil proceedings against theCentral Office and the laboratory. In these proceedings, he claimedcompensation and his claim was first rejected, on .. March, 1961, bythe Stavanger Town Court, as being unfounded. On .. December, 1963, hisclaim was also rejected, on appeal, by the Gulating Court of Appeal.The Applicant apparently failed to lodge a further appeal from thatdecision although, in the decision itself, it was indicated that hecould appeal to the Supreme Court.On the other hand, the Applicant asked the Court of Appeal for areopening of the proceedings. His first application in this regard wasrejected on .. February, 1964. A similar application was dismissed on.. May, 1964 by the Court of Appeal on the ground that the Applicanthad failed to pay certain costs in connection with the proceedings. TheApplicant's appeal from that decision was rejected on .. June, 1964 bythe Appeals Committee of the Supreme Court (H&Acirc;°yesterettsKjaerem&Atilde;¥lsutvalg).The Applicant maintains that the seizure of his property was a penalmeasure in respect of which, under Article 6, paragraph (1), of theConvention, he was entitled to a fair and public hearing before acourt. In reality, however, this penal measure had, without any courthearings, been imposed upon him on the basis of a laboratoryexamination of which he was not allowed to know any details. Heconsiders that the administrative authorities were obliged, underArticle 6, paragraph (1), to refer the matter to a court, but this wasnot done. Moreover, Article 6, paragraphs (2) and (3) (a) and (b), hadbeen violated, since he had been held guilty without being properlyconvicted and he had not been adequately informed of the accusationagainst him, nor had he had facilities for the preparation of hisdefence.As he was not heard ex officio by a court, he was obliged to institutecivil proceedings himself before the courts but, even in theseproceedings, different provisions of Article 6 of the Convention wereviolated. He complains, in particular, of the proceedings before theCourt of Appeal in the years 1961 - 63 and submits that the Courtrefused to admit certain important evidence; that, on the other hand,it accepted as evidence the result of certain investigations whosereliability could not be checked by him; that, instead of appointingexpert witnesses, the Court co-opted two expert judges; that the Courtfailed to give him the opportunity to prepare his "defence". Moreover,he criticises at great length the findings of the Court of Appeal onvarious points. The Applicant also objects to the requirement that he should paycertain court costs, and he considers that, in the circumstances, thisrequirement was contrary to Article 6, paragraphs (1) and (3) (c) ofthe Convention as indirectly the case concerned the determination ofa criminal charge and he therefore had an unconditional right to acourt hearing.He has submitted a number of documents in order to show that in othercountries, such as the USA, Canada, Great Britain and the FederalRepublic of Germany, there are specific provisions which subject theexaminations made by the authorities in charge of supervision of foodproducts to effective control and generally give the courts competenceto deal with complaints concerning the acts of the administrativeauthorities.THE LAWWhereas certain of the facts alleged, namely, the seizure of theApplicant's products in 1948 and the laboratory examinations regardingthese products, relate to a period prior to 3rd September 1953, thedate of the entry into force of the Convention with respect to Norway;and whereas, in accordance with the generally recognised rules ofinternational law, the Convention only governs, for each ContractingParty, facts subsequent to its entry into force with respect to thatParty; whereas it follows that the examination of the Application, inso far as it relates to these alleged facts, is outside the competenceof the Commission ratione temporis;Whereas, in so far as the Application concerns the subsequentproceedings before the courts, it is to be observed that, under Article26 (Art. 26) of the Convention, the Commission may only deal with amatter after all domestic remedies have been exhausted according to thegenerally recognised rules of international law; and whereas theApplicant apparently failed to appeal to the Supreme Court from thedecision of the Court of Appeal dated .. December, 1963; whereas,therefore, he has not exhausted the remedies available to him inNorwegian law;Whereas the Applicant's subsequent petitions for a reopening of theproceedings were not, having regard to the special preliminaryconditions to be satisfied, effective and sufficient remedies, and donot, therefore, constitute domestic remedies under the generallyrecognised rules of international law; whereas, consequently, the factthat in the proceedings relating to these petitions he appealed to theAppeals Committee of the Supreme Court could not affect the abovefinding that the domestic remedies had not been exhausted within themeaning of Article 26 (Art. 26);Whereas, moreover, an examination of the case as it has been submitteddoes not disclose the existence of any special circumstances whichmight have absolved the Applicant from lodging an appeal from thedecision of .. December, 1963;Whereas, therefore, the condition as to the exhaustion of domesticremedies laid down in Articles 26 and 27, paragraph (3)(Art. 26, 27-3), of the Convention has not been complied with by theApplicant.Now therefore the Commission declares this Application INADMISSIBLE.[/align]

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