Case C-773/26, Füget – a court that pays for being late
EU law requires national courts to give effective protection within a reasonable time. A Hungarian court asks what happens when the State makes the court pay for missing a deadline.
Facts
KD has brought proceedings before the Szegedi Törvényszék (Regional Court, Szeged) against the regional directorate of the National Directorate-General for Aliens Policing and the Alkotmányvédelmi Hivatal (Constitution Protection Office). The notice gives no further facts about the dispute. The single question concerns Hungarian legislation under which a court that fails to comply with a time limit imposed on it by law for taking a step in proceedings “is required to pay financial compensation”. The referring court asks whether that is consistent with the principle of effectiveness and with the requirement that the courts applying EU law be independent. (Füget is a fictitious name given by the Court.)
Question Referred
Is national legislation under which a national court that fails to comply with a time limit relating to a duty to act imposed on it by law is required to pay financial compensation consistent with the principle of the effectiveness of EU law and the requirement that the courts of the Member States applying that law be independent?
Sources
OJ notice C/2026/5479 (EUR‑Lex) · Case file on CURIA · Associação Sindical dos Juízes Portugueses, C‑64/16 (ECLI:EU:C:2018:117)
Comment
The question has two sides, and they pull in different directions. Effectiveness and Article 47 of the Charter favour decisions within a reasonable time, and a rule that compensates parties for a court’s delay serves that aim. Independence, under the second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU, protects the court itself. In Associação Sindical dos Juízes Portugueses (C‑64/16) the Court held that independence requires a court to be “protected against external interventions or pressure liable to impair the independent judgment of its members and to influence their decisions”.
The concern behind the question is that a financial penalty on the court for missing a deadline is such pressure: that a judge who needs more time to examine a complex case will be pushed to decide quickly rather than correctly. Much depends on details that the notice does not give. It does not say who ultimately bears the cost, whether the court’s budget, the State or the judges themselves, whether the deadlines are realistic, and whether a court that misses them for good reason is exempt. A compensation scheme paid by the State to a litigant for delay is a familiar remedy. A scheme that makes the court as such liable, and so ties the timing of a judgment to its cost, is not.
Most of the Court’s case law on judicial independence concerns appointments, discipline and removal. This reference concerns a less visible lever, money, and will let the Court say whether the guarantee of independence also covers financial incentives built into the procedure itself.