TSALIKIDIS AND OTHERS v. GREECE JUDGMENT
17
thus should have introduced their application in respect of that part of the
investigation within six months of the date on which the public prosecutor
of the Court of Appeal confirmed its archiving (see Cerf v. Turkey,
no. 12938/07, §§ 62-64, 3 May 2016, and Kadri Budak v. Turkey,
no. 44814/07, §§ 56-58, 9 December 2014).
53. The present case is, therefore, distinguishable from the Court’s
judgment in Yotova (cited above) which was relied on by the applicants. In
that case the criminal investigation conducted by the public prosecutor was
suspended four times and the case file was not archived but was sent back to
the investigator for the necessary measures to be taken to identify the
perpetrator of the crime (see Yotova, cited above, § 51). In addition, the
criminal investigation by the public prosecutor was resumed following the
successful challenge by the applicants of the decision to suspend the
criminal investigation, whereas in the present case the first applicant’s
appeal against the public prosecutor’s decision to archive the case file was
unsuccessful and a supplementary preliminary investigation was not ordered
until five years later, following the presentation of new evidence.
54. It follows from the foregoing that the applicants failed to comply
with the six-month rule in respect of their complaints alleging deficiencies
in the initial preliminary investigation conducted in 2005 and 2006 and this
aspect of the case should be rejected pursuant to Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the
Convention.
55. In view of the above conclusion, the Court does not consider it
necessary to examine the Government’s other objection concerning the
initial criminal investigation, namely that the second and third applicants
failed to exhaust the domestic legal remedies because they did not file a
criminal complaint.
(b) Application substantially the same as a matter that has already been
examined by the Court
56. In preventing the Court from dealing with any application which is
substantially the same as a matter already decided, the admissibility
criterion under the first limb of Article 35 § 2 (b) of the Convention is
intended to ensure the finality of the Court’s decisions and to prevent
applicants from seeking, through the lodging of a fresh application, to
appeal against previous judgments or decisions of the Court (see Harkins
v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 71537/14, § 41, 10 July 2017; Lowe v. the
United Kingdom (dec.), no. 12486/07, 8 September 2009 and Kafkaris
v. Cyprus (dec.), no. 9644/09, § 67, 21 June 2011).
57. An application will generally fall foul of the first limb of Article 35
§ 2 (b) where an applicant has previously brought an application which
related essentially to the same person, the same facts and raised the same
complaints (see Vojnovic v. Croatia (dec.), no. 4819/10, § 28, 26 June 2012;
Anthony Aquilina v. Malta, no. 3851/12, § 34, 11 December 2014; and