This was an appeal against the decision of the Commercial Court in Rijeka allowing the arrest of the MV Nakida.
Held: The decision of the Commercial Court in Rijeka, R1-253/14-7, dated 24 November 2014, is revoked, and the case is returned to that Court for retrial.
The first-instance Court decided, among other things, that the ship should be detained in Marina N, by prohibiting the ship from leaving that port, in accordance with the plaintiff's claim. At the same time, the Court ordered the territorially competent Port Authority to confiscate the appropriate documents from the ship, in accordance with arts 960 and 860 of the Maritime Code.
After the adoption of this decision on security, the plaintiff informed the Court in a submission dated 24 November 2014 that the defendant had in the meantime moved its vessel to ACI Marina in P. The plaintiff accordingly requested that the jurisdiction of the Port Authority be changed. As a consequence, the first-instance Court issued its contested decision on the correction of the security decision, by which it changed the place where the vessel was detained, based on the fact that the vessel had changed its location in the meantime.
The aforementioned action of the Court is neither proper nor legal.
A judge will always correct mistakes in names and numbers, as well as other obvious errors in writing and calculation, and defects in form and inconsistency of the transcript of the decision. The correction cannot change the content of the sentence of the court decision, in such a way that something new or different is decided on the merits of the application.
The temporary measure of arresting a ship is carried out precisely on the basis of the prohibition of the ship leaving the port (art 952 of the Maritime Code). For the purpose of implementing security by detaining the ship, the territorially competent Port Authority, on the basis of a Court decision, confiscates the relevant documents from the ship (art 860 of the Maritime Code). Irrespective of whether the plaintiff failed to correctly determine the port from which it applied to the Court to prohibit the ship from leaving, or whether the ship, despite the Court decision, sailed out of the port without authorisation - there is no basis for correcting the insurance decision. The first-instance Court determined the place of detention of the ship in accordance with the information in the plaintiff's application, and the subsequent submission of the plaintiff on changing the ship's location does not constitute a basis for correcting the earlier Court decision in that regard, but for taking further actions for the purpose of implementation of security.