Last Updated on January 11, 2024 by LawEuro
European Court of Human Rights (Application no. 70445/13)
The applicant complained that she had been unlawfully deprived of her property, in that after its reorganisation the plant could not have retained its title to the permanent use of the land granted to its predecessor and that this deprivation did not pursue any legitimate aim and was disproportionate.
The European Court of Human Rights noted the following:
The Government did not contest that the plot of land in question constituted a “possession” for the purposes of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and that the revocation of the applicant’s title to it thus constituted a deprivation of a possession within the meaning of that provision.
Seeing no reason to rule otherwise and referring to the general principles concerning the deprivation of possessions, the Court will now consider whether that deprivation was lawful, pursued a legitimate aim and was proportionate.
The Court is ready to accept that the deprivation of the plot of land from the applicant was lawful. The domestic courts gave a detailed analysis of the plant’s reorganisation and the succession rights, as well as references to specific legal provisions in their decisions, which do not appear manifestly unreasonable.
As regards the legitimate aim, the Government claimed that the revocation of the applicant’s title pursued the aim of protecting the public interest in that it was aimed at returning to the State the land granted for the construction of a school and a nursery. Such an aim could, in principle, be considered legitimate for the purpose of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.
In the present case however, according to documents and the information provided by the applicant, which the Government have not contested, the plant has been inoperative for many years. The Court notes further that, during the initial examination of the prosecutor’s action, the domestic courts underlined that the land at issue had never been used by the plant and that there were no constructions belonging to the plant on it. It also notes that the Government did not explain, if there was a pressing social need in having that land allocated for the construction of a school and a nursery, why that land should have remained unused for so many years, and whether that need still existed.
Such a situation raises an issue under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 in respect of the public interest requirement. That said, the Court will also look at the proportionality of the measure.
The Court reiterates that the taking of property without payment of an amount reasonably related to its value will normally fail to respect the requisite fair balance between the demands of the general interest of the community and the requirements of the protection of the individual’s fundamental rights and will constitute a disproportionate burden on the applicant. In the context of revoking property title granted in error, the “good governance” principle may impose on the authorities an obligation to act promptly in correcting their mistake, as well as necessitating the payment of adequate compensation or another type of appropriate reparation to the former good-faith holders.
In the present case, the applicant acquired the land in good faith, without suspecting that the City Council might have overstepped its powers in approving the allocation. She later obtained all the necessary documents and permits and, eventually, a title deed in respect of the house she had built on that land issued by the same authority, the City Council, that had approved the first allocation of land to the plant in 1994 as well as the second, in 2009, to the applicant. In the latter context, the Court notes that while the Government referred to the conviction of one of the members of the City Council’s land commission for abuse of power in land allocation matters, they did not claim that that had any relation to the applicant’s situation or that the applicant was somehow involved. In any case, this argument does not affect the City Council’s responsibility as a body of power.
In addition, the Court notes that the plant’s title to the permanent use of the land was invalidated by the City Council’s decision of 30 May 2012 on the ground that the plant had failed to pay the land tax. In the absence of copies of the parties’ submissions to the domestic courts, the Court cannot establish whether that decision, which is not mentioned in the domestic courts’ judgments, was made known to them so that they knowingly took the decision to invalidate the applicant’s title. This might have potentially been, however, an important factor for them in reaching their conclusions, and the City Council, being a party to the proceedings, should have informed the courts thereof.
In so far as the Government argued that no compensation was necessary in the applicant’s case since she had acquired the land free of charge, the Court reiterates that this does not rule out a finding of a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. Furthermore, while the Government claimed that despite the revocation of the title to the land the applicant still owns the house, the Court is not convinced that she would not face any problems in enjoying her possession rights over it in the future.
The above considerations are enough for the Court to find that, in the circumstances of the case, the applicant’s deprivation of title to her land, without any form of compensation or reparation, failed to strike a fair balance between the demands of the public interest, if any, on the one hand, and the applicant’s right to peaceful enjoyment of her possessions, on the other. There has accordingly been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.
CASE OF SHMAKOVA v. UKRAINE (European Court of Human Rights) 70445/13. Full text of the document.
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