Fundamental Rights Section Excerpt from the 23rd/24th/25th Report of the Ombudsman Board to the Styrian Parliament (2003 – 2005) 2.3.5 Determining of procrastination in a building approval procedure; infringement of convention, in the case of reference to the ECHR – Municipality of St. Johann/Saggautal (VA ST/219BT/03, Styrian Association of Towns and Municipalities L/32Dr.Wenger/La-6623 Already in its 21st/22nd Report to the Styrian Parliament, the Ombudsman Board needed to file a complaint due to failure in agreeing to an approval application and gross defects in a building approval procedure in the Municipality of St. Johann im Saggautal. Ultimately, after significant delays and repeated infringement of the obligation to comment, the Ombudsman Board received an official notification from the mayor, which had been delivered to the plaintiffs on February 24, 2003. Soon afterwards, the plaintiffs again approached the Ombudsman Board and filed a complaint that its appeal against this official notice had not been acknowledged. In fact, it took nearly another year, before a decision was available. Thus, the Municipal Council decided on the appeal of the plaintiffs dated February 27, 2003 with an official notification dated February 5, 2004. The reasons for the duration of the proceedings could not be specified. It must therefore be assumed that the municipality continued deliberately to protract the proceedings. This had been already highlighted in the 21st/22nd Report to the Styrian Parliament. Such long proceedings not only give the plaintiff the – conceivable – impression that the preservation of his rights is intended to be withheld. It also represents an infringement of Art. 6 ECHR. Thus, in the case of G.H. versus Austria (judgement dated October 3, 2000, Appl. No. 31266/96), the ECHR recognised that a matter regarding a building issue which took 5 ½ years, in which the Austrian Administrative Supreme Court (Verwaltungsgerichtshof - VwGH) was also called upon, represents an infringement of the requirement of adequate duration of proceedings. In this case, 5 years passed until the availability of a decision by the Municipal Council. If this decision is to be contested further, the ECHR – even under the assumption that the subsequent authorities decide in the quickest possible manner – would recognise an in- 42