13 of the Convention reads:
"Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in [the] Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity."
90. The Government contested this allegation, claiming that the applicant had had the possibility of bringing judicial proceedings and had availed himself of it.
A. Admissibility
91. The Court notes that this complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention. It further notes that it is not inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible.
B. Merits
1. The parties' submissions
(a) The Government
92. The Government first indicated that the authorisation procedure was different for marches and picketing and submitted that the applicant had challenged the refusal of permission in respect of both types of events in separate sets of proceedings. His claims had been examined by the courts and rejected in reasoned decisions. All judicial hearings had proceeded expeditiously and in any event within the time-limits set by law.
93. The Government also pointed out that the applicant had not always taken procedural steps as soon as he could have done. In particular, it had taken him one month and fifteen days to appeal against the judgment of 26 May 2006, following an extension granted to him by the court after the expiry of the statutory time-limit of ten days. Likewise, his appeal against the judgment of 22 August 2006 had been lodged two months and ten days after the judgment, again after the extension of the time-limit.
(b) The applicant
94. The applicant contended that the judicial proceedings of which he had availed himself to challenge the ban were not an effective remedy because the general time-limits provided for by law did not allow a final decision to be taken before the date of the disputed event. He referred to the time-limits for giving notice of a proposed event as set out in section 7 (1) of the Assemblies Act, that is, no earlier than fifteen days and no later than ten days before the date of the event. Under Article 257 § 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure and the provisions of the Code concerning the entry of judgments into force, he argued that any decision in the case - be it the first-instance judgment or the appeal decision - was bound to become final only after the planned date of the event. Therefore, the judicial reversal of the authorities' refusal of permission to hold the events would in any case have been retrospective and therefore futile.
95. He also contested the Government's allegation that he had unduly delayed appealing against the first-instance judgment. He asserted that the appeals had been lodged as soon as the full text of the judgment had been made available to him. Moreover, he contended that the appeal proceedings had in any event been bound to take place after the intended date of the event. Thus, the event intended to be held on 27 May 2006 had been banned by the first-instance court on 26 May 2006, only one day before the event. There had been no possibility of having the appeal against the first-instance judgment examined on the same day so that the event could have taken place had the final decision been favourable to the applicant. The notices he had submitted for the picketing had suffered a similar fate. The 2007 and 2008 applications had likewise been refused at final instance long after the intended dates of the events. The applicant further contended that there would have been no possibility of obtaining a final decision before the event in question even if the first-instance judgment had allowed the demonstration. A first-instance judgment, if not appealed against,
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