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The Court has accepted such exceptional circumstances in cases where proceedings concerned exclusively legal or highly technical questions (see Schuler-Zgraggen v. Switzerland, judgment of 24 June 1993, Series A no. 263, pp. 19-20, § 58; Varela Assalino v. Portugal (dec.), no. 64336/01, 25 April 2002; and Speil v. Austria (dec.) no. 42057/98, 5 September 2002).

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However, the relevant period for the purposes of Article 6 § 1 started only on 20 September 2000, when the applicant filed an appeal against the refusal to grant him an exemption permit since it was at that moment that a serious and genuine dispute about the existence and scope in domestic law of a right asserted by the applicant first arose (see, mutatis mutandis, Wiesinger v. Austria, judgment of 30 October 1991, Series A no. 213, p. 20, § 51, and Kolb and Others v. Austria, nos. 35021/97 and 45774/99, § 49, 17 April 2003).

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The Court notes that, as the Austrian reservation in respect of Article 6 § 1 concerning the requirement that hearings be public, has been found to be invalid (see Eisenstecken v. Austria, no. 29477/95, § 29, ECHR 2000-X), the applicant was in principle entitled to a public oral hearing before a tribunal examining his case, unless there were exceptional circumstances which justified dispensing with such a hearing (see, for instance, Fredin v. Sweden (no. 2), judgment of 23 February 1994, Series A, no. 283 A, pp.