te length of the proceedings within the Court's jurisdiction ratione temporis amounts to four years and eleven months, when the domestic courts examined the applicant's claims twice at two levels of jurisdiction.
A. Admissibility
34. The Government submitted that the complaint was manifestly ill-founded and requested to reject it in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
35. 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
36. The Government disagreed with the complaint. In particular, they submitted that the applicant's case had been complex as evidenced by the fact that the domestic courts had had to consider it twice. They argued that a certain delay was attributable to the applicant herself because she had appealed the judgments, amended her claims and requested to adjourn the proceedings or failed to appear in hearings. In addition, the delays had been caused by the repeated transfer of the case to different judges, their vacation, training and sick leaves, as well as by the conduct of the respondent. According to the Government, the authorities had made an effort to speed up the proceedings, in particular, by issuing the reprimanding statement of 26 June 1998.
37. The applicant maintained her complaint. In particular, she pointed out that after the remittal of the case to the first instance no hearings were held in 1998, and between 1999 and 2001 the court held only one hearing each year.
38. The Court reiterates that the reasonableness of the length of proceedings must be assessed in the light of the circumstances of the case and with reference to the following criteria: the complexity of the case, the conduct of the applicant and the relevant authorities and what was at stake for the applicant in the dispute (see, among many other authorities, Frydlender v. France [GC], No. 30979/96, § 43, ECHR 2000-VII). In addition, only delays attributable to the State may justify a finding of a failure to comply with the "reasonable time" requirement (see, among other authorities, Zimmermann and Steiner v. Switzerland, 13 July 1983, p. 11, § 24, Series A No. 66; see also {Pelissier} and Sassi v. France [GC], No. 25444/94, § 67, ECHR 1999-II).
39. The Court considers that the applicant's case was not complex, even though it did require accurate arithmetical calculations.
40. Insofar as the applicant's behaviour is concerned, the Court accepts that at the applicant's request or following her failure to appear the court adjourned its hearings on five occasions (see paras. 14, 21, 24 above). As to the applicant's alleged delaying of the proceedings by lodging complaints to the higher courts and amending her claims, it reiterates that an applicant cannot be blamed for taking full advantage of the resources afforded by the national law in defence of his interests (see, mutatis mutandis, {Yagci} and {Sargin} v. Turkey, 8 June 1995, § 66, Series A No. 319-A). In any event, the delays caused by such actions on the part of the applicant appear to be insignificant.
41. Turning to the conduct of the authorities, the Court recalls that in the course of the proceedings four hearings were cancelled or adjourned due to the responsible judge's unavailability for various reasons and that the case was transferred three times to a different judge, which further inhibited progress. It is also mindful of the gap in the proceedings that occurred between 31 July and 10 December 2001 when no hearings were scheduled due to the judge's illness and vacation. In this respect, the Court reiterates that it is the States' duty to organise their judicial systems in su
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