4 PANYIK v. HUNGARY JUDGMENT 17. The Government contested that argument. A. Admissibility 18. The Government submitted that the application should be rejected for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies, since the applicant had not availed himself of the possibility to lodge a petition for review with the Supreme Court, which would have been able to fully examine the merits of his case, including the issue of impartiality. They relied on the Court’s case law according to which the States must have an opportunity to redress the alleged damage by domestic means within the framework of their own legal systems. 19. The applicant contested this argument, considering that a complaint concerning the refusal to exclude a judge may only be lodged through an appeal, whereas petition for review may not be submitted in such auxiliary questions. He further argued that in any event, review by the Supreme Court would not have been an effective remedy in his case. 20. The Court points out that in the present case the disputed value was HUF 42,000 plus default interest and court fees. As a consequence, petition for review with the Supreme Court was in any case not a possibility as it was excluded by section 271(2) of the Code of Civil Procedure (see paragraph 15 above), the statutory threshold being one million Hungarian forints. It follows that the application cannot be rejected for nonexhaustion of domestic remedies. Moreover, it is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention or inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible. B. Merits 1. The parties’ submissions 21. The applicant argued that while the competent court of his residence had voluntarily excluded itself based on their work relationship, along with the first panel of the Regional Court, the second panel of the Regional Court had refused to consent to the exclusion even though its judge had acknowledged his bias in the past. The applicant further emphasised that the panel who had decided about his motion for bias against the second panel had declared itself biased earlier. 22. The Government pointed out the difference between the two grounds of disqualification laid down in the Code of Civil Procedure. On the one hand, point a) of section 13(1) describes a situation which entails an obligation to exclude the judge from the case, leaving no margin of appreciation for the court (“absolute ground of exclusion”). On the other