CEDH · CASELAW;JUDGMENTS;GRANDCHAMBER;ENG — 30 août 2007

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text-align:justify; font-size:10pt } .s3133A7C8 { font-family:Arial; color:#0069d6 }       GRAND CHAMBER           CASE OF J.A. PYE (OXFORD) LTD AND J.A. PYE (OXFORD) LAND LTD v. THE UNITED KINGDOM   (Application no. 44302/02)                     JUDGMENT       STRASBOURG   30 August 2007       In the case of J.A. Pye (Oxford) Ltd and J.A. Pye (Oxford) Land Ltd v. the United Kingdom, The European Court of Human Rights, sitting as a Grand Chamber composed of:   Jean-Paul Costa, President ,   Christos Rozakis,   Nicolas Bratza,   Boštjan M. Zupančič,   Peer Lorenzen,   Loukis Loucaides,   Ireneu Cabral Barreto,   Volodymyr Butkevych,   Margarita Tsatsa-Nikolovska,   András Baka,   Anatoly Kovler,   Vladimiro Zagrebelsky,   Antonella Mularoni,   Alvina Gyulumyan,   Renate Jaeger,   Ján Šikuta,   Ineta Ziemele, judges , and Michael O’Boyle, Registrar , Having deliberated in private on 8 November 2006 and on 20 June 2007, Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on the last-mentioned date: PROCEDURE 1.     The case originated in an application (no. 44302/02) against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by J.A. Pye (Oxford)   Ltd and J.A. Pye (Oxford) Land Ltd, companies incorporated in the United Kingdom (“the applicant companies”), on 17 December 2002. 2.     The applicant companies were represented by Mr P. Lowe, a lawyer practising in Oxford with Darbys Solicitors. The United Kingdom Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Ms   K.   Jones, of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. 3.     The applicant companies alleged that the United Kingdom law on adverse possession, by which they lost land with development potential to a neighbouring landowner, operated in violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 in their case. 4.     The application was allocated to the Fourth Section of the Court (Rule   52 § 1 of the Rules of Court). Within that Section, the Chamber that would consider the case (Article 27 § 1 of the Convention) was constituted as provided in Rule 26 § 1. 5.     By a decision of 8 June 2004 the Chamber, following a hearing on admissibility and the merits (Rule 54 § 3), declared the application admissible. On 15 November 2005 a Chamber of that Section composed of Matti P ellonpää, President, Nicolas Bratza, Viera Strážnická, Rait Maruste, Stanislav Pavlovschi, Lech Garlicki and Javier Borrego Borrego, judges, and Michael O’Boyle, Section Registrar, delivered a judgment in which it held by four votes to three that there had been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and, unanimously, that the question of the application of Article 41 was not ready for decision. A joint dissenting opinion of Judges   Maruste, Garlicki and Borrego Borrego was appended to the judgment. 6.     On 2 February 2006 the Government requested the referral of the case to the Grand Chamber in accordance with Article 43 of the Convention. A panel of the Grand Chamber granted that request on 12 April 2006. 7.     The composition of the Grand Chamber was determined according to the provisions of Article 27 §§ 2 and 3 of the Convention and Rule 24. On 19 January 2007 Luzius Wildhaber’s term as President of the Court came to an end. Jean-Paul Costa succeeded him in that capacity and took over the presidency of the Grand Chamber in the present case (Rule 9 § 2). 8.     The Irish Government submitted comments on the case, leave having been granted by the President of the Grand Chamber pursuant to Rule 44 §   2. 9.     The applicant companies and the Government each filed observations on the merits (Rule 59 § 1). A hearing took place in public in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 8 November 2006 (Rule 59 § 3). Erik Fribergh, the Registrar of the Court, took part in the hearing on 8 November 2006. Thereafter Michael O’Boyle, Deputy Registrar, took over as registrar in the case.   There appeared before the Court: (a)     for the Government Ms   K. Jones ,   Agent , Mr   J. Crow QC ,   Counsel , Mr   J. Hodges , Department for Constitutional Affairs, Mr   P. Hughes , Her Majesty’s Courts Services, DCA,   Advisers ; (b)     for the applicant companies Mr   D. Pannick QC ,   Counsel , Mr   P. Lowe ,   Solicitor , Ms   V. Wright ,   Trainee Solicitor , Mr and Mrs G. Pye ,   Applicants .   The Court heard addresses by Mr Pannick and Mr Crow and their answers to questions put by the judges. THE FACTS I.     THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE 10.     The second applicant company is the registered owner of a plot of 23   ha of agricultural land in Berkshire. The first applicant company acquired the land by a series of transactions between 1975 and 1977 and owned it until April 1986, when it transferred the land to the second applicant company subject to an option to repurchase. The owners of a property adjacent to the land, Mr and Mrs Graham (“the Grahams”) occupied the land under a grazing agreement until 31 December 1983. On 30 December 1983 a chartered surveyor acting for the applicant companies wrote to the Grahams noting that the grazing agreement was about to expire and requiring them to vacate the land. In January 1984 the applicant companies refused a request for a further grazing agreement for 1984 because they anticipated seeking planning permission for the development of all or part of the land and considered that continued grazing might damage the prospects of obtaining such permission. 11.     Notwithstanding the requirement to vacate the land at the expiry of the 1983 agreement, the Grahams remained in occupation at all times, continuing to use it for grazing. No request to vacate the land or to pay for the grazing which was taking place was made. If it had been, the evidence was that the Grahams would happily have paid. 12.     In June 1984 an agreement was reached whereby the applicant companies agreed to sell to the Grahams the standing crop of grass on the land for 1,100 pounds sterling (GBP). The cut was completed by 31 August 1984. In December 1984 an inquiry was made of the applicant companies as to whether the Grahams could take another cut of hay or be granted a further grazing agreement. No reply to this letter or to subsequent letters sent in May 1985 was received from the applicant companies and thereafter the Grahams made no further attempt to contact the applicant companies. From September 1984 onwards until 1999 the Grahams continued to use the whole of the disputed land for farming without the permission of the applicant companies. 13.     In 1997 Mr Graham registered cautions at the Land Registry against the applicant companies’ title on the ground that he had obtained title by adverse possession. 14.     On 30 April 1998 the applicant companies issued an originating summons in the High Court seeking cancellation of the cautions. On 20   January 1999 the applicant companies issued further proceedings seeking possession of the disputed land. 15.     The Grahams challenged the applicant companies’ claims under the Limitation Act 1980 (“the 1980 Act”), which provides that a person cannot bring an action to recover any land after the expiration of twelve years of adverse possession by another. They also relied on the Land Registration Act 1925, which applied at the relevant time and which provided that, after the expiry of the twelve-year period, the registered proprietor was deemed to hold the land in trust for the squatter. 16.     Judgment was given in favour of the Grahams on 4 February 2000 ([2000] Ch 676). Mr Justice Neuberger held that since the Grahams had enjoyed factual possession of the land from January 1984, and adverse possession took effect from September 1984, the applicant companies’ title was extinguished pursuant to the 1980 Act, and the Grahams were entitled to be registered as proprietors of the land. At the conclusion of his thirty-page judgment, Neuberger J remarked that the result he had reached did not accord with justice and could not be justified by practical considerations: the justification advanced for the right to acquire title to land by adverse possession – namely the avoidance of uncertainty – had in his view little relevance to the use of registered land where the owner was readily identifiable by inspecting the register of the relevant title at the Land Registry. The fact that an owner who had sat on his rights for twelve years should be deprived of the land was in his view “illogical and disproportionate”. 17.     The applicant companies appealed and on 6 February 2001 the Court of Appeal reversed the High Court decision on the ground that the Grahams did not have the necessary intention to possess the land, and the applicant companies were therefore not “dispossessed” of it within the meaning of the 1980 Act ([2001] EWCA Civ 117, [2001] Ch 804). Although this conclusion was sufficient to dispose of the appeal, two members of the Court of Appeal went on to address the question whether the applicant companies’ loss of title to the land could also have given rise to a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 as applied in domestic law by the Human Rights Act 1998. 18.     Lord Justice Mummery, giving the judgment of the court, held that Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 did not impinge on the relevant provisions of the Limitation Act 1980, which did not deprive a person of his possessions or interfere with his peaceful enjoyment of them but only deprived a person of his right of access to the courts for the purpose of recovering property if he had delayed the institution of his legal proceedings for twelve years or more after being dispossessed by another. The extinction of the applicant companies’ title was not, in his view, a deprivation of possessions nor a confiscatory measure for which payment of compensation would be appropriate, but simply a logical and pragmatic consequence of the barring of the right to bring an action after the expiration of the limitation period. In the alternative, Mummery LJ found that any deprivation was justified in the public interest, the conditions laid down in the 1980 Act being reasonably required to avoid the risk of injustice in the adjudication of stale claims and as ensuring certainty of title: those conditions were not disproportionate, the period of twelve years being reasonable and not imposing an excessively difficult burden on the landowner. 19.     Lord Justice Keene took as his starting-point that limitation periods were in principle not incompatible with the Convention and that the process whereby a person would be barred from enforcing rights by the passage of time was clearly acknowledged by the Convention. This position obtained, in his view, even though limitation periods both limited the right of access to the courts and in some circumstances had the effect of depriving persons of property rights, whether real or personal, or of damages: there was thus nothing inherently incompatible as between the 1980 Act and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. 20.     The Grahams appealed to the House of Lords, which, on 4   July   2002, allowed their appeal and restored the order of the High Court ([2002] UKHL 30, [2002] 3 All ER 865). Lord Browne-Wilkinson, with whom Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Lord Hutton agreed, held that the Grahams did have “possession” of the land in the ordinary sense of the word, and therefore the applicant companies had been “dispossessed” of it within the meaning of the 1980 Act. There was no inconsistency between a squatter being willing to pay the paper owner if asked and his being in possession in the meantime. Concluding, Lord Browne-Wilkinson held as follows: “... Despite Pye’s notification to quit the land in December 1983, its peremptory refusal of a further grazing licence in 1984 and the totally ignored later requests for a grazing licence, after 31 December 1983 the Grahams stayed in occupation of the disputed land using it for what purposes they thought fit. Some of those purposes (i.e., the grazing) would have fallen within a hypothetical grazing agreement. But the rest are only consistent with an intention, verified by Mr Michael Graham, to use the land as they thought best. That approach was adopted from the outset. In my judgment, when the Grahams remained in factual possession of the fully enclosed land after the expiry of the mowing licence they manifestly intended to assert their possession against Pye. ... Before your Lordships’ House, it was conceded that the Human Rights Act [incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights] did not have a retrospective effect. But Pye submitted that, even under the common-law principles of construction applicable before the Human Rights Act came into effect, the court should seek to apply the law so as to make it consistent with the [Convention]. Any such old principle of construction only applied where there was an ambiguity in the language of a statute. No such ambiguity in the Act of 1980 was demonstrated to your Lordships.” 21.     Lord Bingham of Cornhill, agreeing with Lord Browne-Wilkinson, made the following statement in the course of his judgment: “The Grahams have acted honourably throughout. They sought rights to graze or cut grass on the land after the summer of 1984, and were quite prepared to pay. When Pye failed to respond they did what any other farmer in their position would have done: they continued to farm the land. They were not at fault. But the result of Pye’s inaction was that they enjoyed the full use of the land without payment for 12 years. As if that were not gain enough, they are then rewarded by obtaining title to this considerable area of valuable land without any obligation to compensate the former owner in any way at all. In the case of unregistered land, and in the days before registration became the norm, such a result could no doubt be justified as avoiding protracted uncertainty where the title to land lay. But where land is registered it is difficult to see any justification for a legal rule which compels such an apparently unjust result, and even harder to see why the party gaining title should not be required to pay some compensation at least to the party losing it. It is reassuring to learn that the Land Registration Act 2002 has addressed the risk that a registered owner may lose his title through inadvertence. But the main provisions of that Act have not yet been brought into effect, and even if they had it would not assist Pye, whose title had been lost before the passing of the Act. While I am satisfied that the appeal must be allowed for the reasons given by my noble and learned friend, this is a conclusion which I (like the judge [Neuberger J] ...) ‘arrive at with no enthusiasm’.” ( JA Pye (Oxford) Ltd and Others v. Graham and Another [2002] 3 All ER 865, at 867) 22.     As noted above, the question whether the result was incompatible with the applicant companies’ rights under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 was not pursued before the House of Lords. However, in his judgment Lord   Hope of Craighead, who also agreed with Lord Browne-Wilkinson on the reasons for dismissing the appeal, observed that the question under the Convention “... is not an easy one, as one might have expected the law – in the context of a statutory regime where compensation is not available – to lean in favour of the protection of a registered proprietor against the actions of persons who cannot show a competing title on the register. Fortunately ... a much more rigorous regime has now been enacted in Schedule 6 to the Land Registration Act 2002. Its effect will be to make it much harder for a squatter who is in possession of registered land to obtain a title to it against the wishes of the proprietor. The unfairness in the old regime which this case has demonstrated lies not in the absence of compensation, although that is an important factor, but in the lack of safeguards against oversight or inadvertence on the part of the registered proprietor.” 23.     The value of the land in issue is disputed between the parties. The applicant companies put their pecuniary loss at over GBP 10 million. The Government put the value of the land in 1996 (when the twelve-year limitation period expired) at GBP 785,000, and in July 2002 (when the House of Lords judgment was delivered) at GBP 2.5 million. II.     RELEVANT DOMESTIC LAW AND PRACTICE 24.     At the relevant time, section 15 of the Limitation Act 1980, a consolidating Act, provided: “(1)     No action shall be brought by any person to recover any land after the expiration of twelve years from the date on which the right of action accrued to him or, if it first accrued to some person through whom he claims, to that person. ... (6)     Part I of Schedule 1 to this Act contains provisions for determining the date of accrual of rights of action to recover land in the cases there mentioned.” 25.     Paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 provided: “Where the person bringing an action to recover land, or some person through whom he claims, has been in possession of the land, and has while entitled to the land been dispossessed or discontinued his possession, the right of action shall be treated as having accrued on the date of the dispossession or discontinuance.” 26.     The same limitation provisions therefore applied to both registered and unregistered land. In the case of unregistered land, section 17 of the 1980 Act provided that, on the expiration of the limitation period regulating the recovery of land, the title of the paper owner was extinguished. In the case of registered land, section 75(1) of the Land Registration Act 1925 provided that on the expiry of the limitation period the title was not extinguished but the registered proprietor was deemed to hold the land thereafter in trust for the squatter. 27.     Halsbury’s Laws of England (Fourth Edition, Reissue 1998) sets out the law in the following terms: “258.     When the owner of land has been out of possession, and a stranger has been in possession, for a period sufficient to bar the owner’s right to re-enter or to recover possession by action, the owner’s title is extinguished, and the stranger acquires a title which is good against all the world, including the former owner. The Limitation Act 1980 operates negatively to bar the right and extinguish the title of the true owner, and does not effect a transfer of his estate to the stranger; the new title depends on the principle that possession gives title, coupled with the extinction of the rights of the former owner, and is subject to any easements [etc.] which remain unextinguished.” 28.     The Law Reform Committee considered the law on limitation periods in its report of 1977 (Cmnd 6923). It commented negatively on the courts’ practice of granting an implied licence to the would-be adverse possessor, which had the effect of stopping time running against the owner, and proposed no change to the existing limitation periods, and agreed that the expiration of the limitation period should serve to extinguish the claimant’s title. 29.     A Law Commission Consultation Paper on Limitation of Actions of 1998 (Consultation Paper No. 151) gave a number of general policy aims of the law on limitations. The Consultation Paper noted that defendants have a legitimate interest in having cases brought to court reasonably promptly as evidence may not be available indefinitely and because defendants should be able to rely on their assumed entitlement to enjoy an unchallenged right. The State, too, has an interest in ensuring that claims are made and determined within a reasonable time in order to deliver a fair trial, and as guarantor of legal certainty. Finally, limitation periods were seen to have a salutary effect on plaintiffs in encouraging them to bring claims reasonably promptly. 30.     A separate Law Commission Consultative Document on land registration in 1998 (prepared with the Land Registry; Law Com No. 254) noted that, although the original intention of the system of land registration was to apply the principles of unregistered land to a registered format, there were certain areas where this was not wholly true. One example given was the position of the rights of adverse possessors (section 75(1) of the Land Registration Act 1925 was referred to). The Consultative Document set out and commented on four particularly cogent reasons often given for the law on adverse possession: (i)     Because it is part of the law on limitation of actions. It noted: “... because adverse possession is an aspect of the law of limitation, it is of course customary to account for it, in part at least, in terms of the policy of limitation statutes generally, namely to protect defendants from stale claims and to encourage plaintiffs not to sleep on their rights. However, adverse possession does not merely bar claims. Its effect is positive: ‘a squatter does in the end get a title by his possession and the indirect operation of the [Limitation Act] ...’ This can only be justified by factors over and above those which explain the law on limitation. In this context it should be noted that a landowner may be barred even where he or she is quite blameless. As we have explained above, adverse possession can take place without it being readily detectable. In any event, this particular justification has much greater force in relation to unregistered land than it does for land with registered title. Unregistered title ultimately depends upon possession. It therefore behoves a landowner to be vigilant to protect that possession and not to sleep on his or her rights. ... [w]here title is registered, ... the basis of title is primarily the fact of registration rather than possession. Registration confers title because the registration of a person as proprietor of land of itself vests in him or her the relevant legal estate ...” (ii)     Because if land and its ownership are out of kilter, the land may become unmarketable. Where the registered owner has disappeared, and cannot be traced, and a squatter takes possession, the doctrine of adverse possession “does at least ensure that in such cases land remains in commerce and is not rendered sterile”. Where there have been dealings “off the register”, such as where a farmer agrees to a land swap with a neighbour under a “gentleman’s agreement” but does not register the change, “adverse possession fulfils a useful function”. (iii)     Because in case of mistake the innocent but mistaken squatter of land may have incurred expenditure. In such circumstances adverse possession can be justified on grounds of hardship, and there are parallels with the principles of proprietary estoppel. (iv)     Because it facilitates and cheapens investigation of title to land. The Law Commission accepted this last reason as being very strong for unregistered land, but considered that for registered land, where title depends on the contents of the register rather than possession, it was not applicable. 31.     The Law Commission proposed, provisionally, that the system of adverse possession as it applied to registered land should be recast to reflect the principles of title registration, and that it should be limited to very few, exceptional cases. 32.     A Report on Limitation of Actions (Law Com No. 270) and one on registered land (Law Com No. 271) followed the Consultation Papers, and were published in July 2001. 33.     The Law Commission Report on Limitation of Actions recommended that the general limitation period for actions in respect of land should be ten years. It added that if the proposals made on registered land in Law Com No. 254 were accepted, the proposal would relate only to interests in unregistered land (and unregistrable interests in registered land [1] ). 34.     As a result of the various criticisms, including those made by a number of the judges in the present case and the Report on registered land (Law Com No. 271), the Land Registration Act 2002 made a number of changes to the law as it related to registered land. It provided that adverse possession, for however long, would not of itself bar the owner’s title to a registered estate. A squatter was entitled to apply to be registered as proprietor after ten years, and would be so registered if application was not opposed. If the application was opposed, it would be refused. If the application was refused but no steps were taken to evict the squatter or otherwise regulate the position, he was entitled to apply again to be registered as proprietor, and would be so registered whether or not the application was opposed. The 2002 Act came into force on 13 October 2002. 35.     On 23 March 2005, Deputy Judge Strauss in the Chancery Division gave judgment in the case of Beaulane Properties Ltd v. Palmer (Times Law Reports, 13 April 2005). The case concerned a licensee who had remained in possession of registered land for over twelve years after the expiry of his licence. Applying the judgment of the House of Lords in the present case, the judge found that under English law as it stood up to the entry into force of the Human Rights Act 1998 the registered owner of the land lost all claim to it. However, on analysing the facts on a Convention basis, he found that there was no real public or general interest in the law on adverse possession in the case of registered land, and that the adverse consequences for the landowner were disproportionate. By reinterpreting the relevant legislation in accordance with section 3 of the Human Rights Act, the judge found that the claim by the former licensee to have acquired the disputed land failed. THE LAW ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 1 OF PROTOCOL No. 1 36.     The applicant companies submitted that the taking away of ownership of their land because of twelve years’ adverse possession upset the fair balance required by Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and was a disproportionate interference with their property rights in violation of that Article. Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 provides as follows: “Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law. The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of a State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties.” A.     The Chamber judgment 37.     The Chamber considered that, as the applicant companies had lost beneficial title to the land by the operation of the Land Registration Act 1925 (“the 1925 Act”) and the Limitation Act 1980 (“the 1980 Act”), Article   1 of Protocol No. 1 was applicable. In particular, the pre-existing rules on adverse possession could not be said to be an incident of the applicant companies’ property right at the time of its acquisition such that Article 1 ceased to be engaged when the relevant provisions took effect and the property right was lost after twelve years’ adverse possession. Further, the mere fact that limitation periods were generally considered under Article   6 of the Convention did not prevent the Court from considering a case from the angle of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. The Chamber found that Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 was engaged and that the operation of the relevant provisions of the 1925 and 1980 Acts gave rise to an interference by the State with the applicant companies’ rights under the Article. 38.     Noting the Court’s judgment in James and Others v. the United Kingdom (21 February 1986, Series A no. 98), the Chamber was of the view that the applicant companies had been deprived of their possessions by the contested legislation, and that the case fell to be examined under the second sentence of Article 1. Whilst accepting that in the case of unregistered land the law of adverse possession served two important public interests – namely the prevention of uncertainty and injustice arising from stale claims, and ensuring that the reality of unopposed occupation of land and its legal ownership coincided – the Chamber considered that the importance of these aims was more questionable in the case of registered land where the ownership of the land was readily identifiable by inspecting the proprietorship register of the relevant title at the Land Registry. However, the Chamber noted that, despite the major changes to the law of adverse possession made by the Land Registration Act 2002 (“the 2002 Act”), in the case of registered land the law itself had not been abolished, and it rejected the applicant companies’ argument that it served no continuing public interest so far as registered land was concerned. The Government had also referred to the law and practice in other jurisdictions. 39.     As to the proportionality of the provisions in issue, the Chamber accepted that the limitation period of twelve years was relatively long, that the law of adverse possession was well established and had not changed during the applicant companies’ period of ownership, and that limited steps taken by the applicant companies would have avoided the loss of title. The Chamber noted criticism of the state of the law by the domestic courts and the Law Commission, and further noted that the result for the applicant companies was one of exceptional severity in that not only were they deprived of their property but they received no compensation for their loss. The lack of compensation had to be viewed in the light of the lack of procedural protection for the right of property within the legal system in force at the relevant time. In this respect the Chamber attached weight to the fact that since the present case the law had been amended to provide for notice to be given to a paper owner before title is transferred, thereby giving the paper owner an opportunity to stop the running of the limitation period. The Chamber saw the changes in the law as an indication that Parliament had recognised the deficiencies in the procedural position of registered landowners before the 2002 Act. The Chamber concluded that the fair balance between the public interest and the applicant companies’ right to the peaceful enjoyment of their possessions had been upset, such that there had been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. B.     The parties’ submissions 1.     The applicant companies 40.     The applicant companies agreed with the Chamber’s judgment. They saw three related reasons why the taking of their land, which was then held on trust by them for the squatters, breached the fair-balance principle and thus violated Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. Firstly, they saw no justification for the applicant companies, as owners of the land, to lose their right to ownership of the registered land. Secondly, they saw no justification for depriving them of the land without having to pay any compensation. The result was disproportionate to any legitimate aim as it imposed an excessive burden on the applicant companies and constituted a substantial windfall for the squatters. There were no exceptional circumstances which justified the taking of property without compensation. Thirdly, there was no justification for depriving them of their land when there was no procedural protection providing that the person in adverse possession only acquired title if he or she first stated a claim to which the formal title owner had an opportunity to respond. 41.     The applicant companies noted the extensive criticism of the law as it then stood from the first-instance judge in the case, two members of the House of Lords in the case, the recommendations of the Law Commission and the Land Registry and Parliament’s amendment of the law, and the criticism of the High Court judge in the case of Beaulane Properties Ltd v. Palmer (see paragraph 35 above). They saw no justification for a transfer of registered land at the end of the limitation period without compensation and without proper procedural protection. 42.     The applicant companies submitted a summary of the law on adverse possession or equivalent doctrines in various jurisdictions. The summary showed that in most of the countries covered, title was acquired by adverse possession only after substantially more than twelve years, and that in most countries where title could be acquired by adverse possession this could only occur where the occupier was acting in good faith, that is, where he or she honestly believed that a good title to the land had been acquired, for example after the transfer of the defective title. 2.     The Government 43.     The Government took issue with the Chamber’s judgment. They considered, in the first place, that the matter should be determined by reference to Article 6 of the Convention and not Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. Unlike in previous cases, the Government in this case had not appropriated property to its own use, and had not introduced legislation for the involuntary transfer of private property from one person to another in pursuit of a social-policy objective. The only interference with the applicant companies’ land came about through the actions of private individuals, the squatters, who obtained adverse possession in 1983-84. The outcome of the proceedings was dictated by the applicant companies’ own inaction. They contended that the application to the present facts of the conventional case-law as to the necessity, in principle, for compensation to be paid in respect of deprivations of property confirmed the logic of analysing the case by reference to Article 6: the purpose of a limitation period is to deprive a claimant, at the end of the relevant time period, of any opportunity of enforcing his rights through the courts. That objective would be frustrated if a limitation provision could only be compatible with the Convention if the claimant was provided with compensation against the very person against whom his claim was barred. 44.     For the Government, the Chamber’s reference to the need for procedural safeguards was also in error. When a limitation provision was applied in private-interest litigation between private parties, there were no “responsible authorities” to whom a claimant could sensibly make representations “challenging the measures interfering with [his] rights” (see Jokela v. Finland , no. 28856/95, § 45, ECHR 2002 ‑ IV) because there were no public authorities seeking to acquire his property. 45.     Under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, the Government considered that the provision was not engaged, because the applicant companies had acquired the disputed land subject to the risk of losing it pursuant to the provisions of the 1925 and 1980 Acts. That risk had to be viewed as an incident of their property. They pointed out that the second applicant company had acquired the land from the first applicant company in April 1986, at which time the Grahams had been in adverse possession for some one and a half years. The second applicant company therefore took the land subject to an existing risk of losing it to the Grahams. 46.     The Government suggested that the Chamber had failed to deal with their argument that the State’s obligations under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 were not engaged. There was no reason to impose a positive obligation on the Government to protect the applicant companies against the consequences of their own inattention. 47.     To the objectives of the legislation accepted by the Chamber as legitimate, the Government added a third objective. Land was a limited resource, and it was in the public interest that it should be used, maintained and improved. A finite time-limit for recovery of possession encouraged landowners to make use of their land. 48.     In connection with proportionality, the Government were of the view that the Chamber had wrongly taken into account the absence of compensation and questions of procedural protection, and that it had taken insufficient account of many factors which demonstrated that any interference was proportionate: the length of the limitation period, the fact that the applicant companies were entirely free to bring an action for repossession at any time within the twelve-year period, the availability of a court remedy to determine whether the action was statute-barred, and the degree of fault on the part of the applicant companies. 49.     As to the position in other countries, the Government referred to the research in the Law Commission’s 1998 Consultation Paper No. 151, and also to further research which they had commissioned. The results of the study indicated substantial differences between the structure of the various legal regimes, particularly between common-law and civil-law jurisdictions, and also between the lengths of the different limitation periods. They concluded that there was no European “norm”: limitation periods varied considerably, good faith was irrelevant in some jurisdictions, and other factors, such as place of residence, were sometimes taken into account. 3.     The third party 50.     The Irish Government gave a description of the law on adverse possession as it applied in Ireland, and saw five areas of public interest which are served by the institution: in quieting titles, that is, the desirability of clarifying title where land, whether registered or unregistered, had remained abandoned and was occupied by another person; in cases of failure to administer estates on intestacy; in pursuance of a policy of using land to advance economic development; in perfecting title in cases of unregistered title; and in dealing with boundary disputes. 51.     The Irish Government submitted that ownership of land brings duties as well as rights, and the duty to take some action to maintain possession was not unreasonable. The Court should not be influenced by post hoc legislative changes which provided a higher standard of human rights protection. They also referred to the wide margin of appreciation allowed to States in regulating land use and ownership in accordance with social policy, to the antiquity of the doctrine and the familiarity of purchasers and owners of land with it, and concluded that the doctrine did not upset the fair balance between the public interest and the right to the peaceful enjoyment of possessions. C.     The Court’s assessment 1.     General considerations 52.     Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, which guarantees the right to the protection of property, contains three distinct rules: “the first rule, set out in the first sentence of the first paragraph, is of a general nature and enunciates the principle of the peaceful enjoyment of property; the second rule, contained in the second sentence of the first paragraph, covers deprivation of possessions and subjects it to certain conditions; the third rule, stated in the second paragraph, recognises that the Contracting States are entitled, amongst other things, to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest ... The three rules are not, however, ‘distinct’ in the sense of being unconnected. The second and third rules are concerned with particular instances of interference with the right to peaceful enjoyment of property and should therefore be construed in the light of the general principle enunciated in the first rule” (see, as a recent authority with further references, Anheuser-Busch Inc. v. Portugal [GC], no. 73049/01, § 62, ECHR 2007 ‑ I). 53.     In order to be compatible with the general rule set forth in the first sentence of the first paragraph of Article 1, an interference with the right to the peaceful enjoyment of possessions must strike a “fair balance” between the demands of the general interest of the community and the requirements of the protection of the individual’s fundamental rights (see Beyeler v. Italy [GC], no. 33202/96, § 107, ECHR 2000 ‑ I). 54.     The taking of property under the second sentence of the first paragraph of Article 1 without payment of an amount reasonably related to its value will normally constitute a disproportionate interference that cannot be justified under Article 1. The provision does not, however, guarantee a right to full compensation in all circumstances, since legitimate objectives of “public interest” may call for less than reimbursement of the full market value (see Papachelas v. Greece [GC], no. 31423/96, § 48, ECHR 1999 ‑ II, again with further references). 55.     In respect of interferences which fall under the second paragraph of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, with its specific reference to “the right of a State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest ...”, there must also exist a reasonable relationship of proportionality between the means employed and the aim sought to be realised. In this respect, States enjoy a wide margin of appreciation with regard both to choosing the means of enforcement and to ascertaining whether the consequences of enforcement are justified in the general interest for the purpose of achieving the object of the law in question (see AGOSI v. the United Kingdom , 24 October 1986, § 52, Series   A no. 108). 56.     The applicant companies’ complaint is directed in essence against the terms of the relevant legislation on limitation of actions and land registration. Whilst the court decisions in the case exemplify the way in which that legislation is applied, the complaint does not relate to the manner of execution of the law by the courts. The Court will therefore direct its attention primarily to the contested legislation itself, although the consequences of the application of the legislation must also be taken into account (see James and Others , cited above, § 36 ). 57.     The responsibility of the Government in the present case is therefore not direct responsibility for an executive or legislative act aimed at the applicant companies, but rather their responsibility for legislation which is activated as a result of the interactions of private individuals: in the same way as the law in James and Others was applied (and the Government were responsible for it) because private individuals had requested enfranchisement, in the present case the law was applied to the applicant companies only when the pre-existing conditions for the acquisition of title by adverse possession had been met. 2.     Applicability of Article 1 of Protocol