CEDH · CASELAW;JUDGMENTS;CHAMBER;ENG — 7 mai 2026

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CROATIA (Application no. 51771/21)     JUDGMENT     Art 6 § 1 (civil) • Access to court • Dismissal as time-barred of the applicant’s claim for compensation for the taking of her land, recorded as an unclassified road and public property, disproportionately restricted her right of access to court • No discernible circumstances indicating the transfer of the land to the State or the basis on which the applicant could have learned that she had been deprived of her land before the domestic court’s decision to that effect • Manner in which the domestic courts calculated the statutory limitation period in the applicant’s case not foreseeable • Applicant denied the possibility to obtain compensation • Very essence of the right of access to court impaired   Prepared by the Registry. Does not bind the Court.   STRASBOURG 7 May 2026   This judgment will become final in the circumstances set out in Article 44 § 2 of the Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision.   In the case of Jurić v. Croatia, The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of:   Ivana Jelić , President ,   Erik Wennerström,   Raffaele Sabato,   Frédéric Krenc,   Davor Derenčinović,   Artūrs Kučs,   Anna Adamska-Gallant , judges , and Ilse Freiwirth, Section Registrar, Having regard to: the application (no.   51771/21) against the Republic of Croatia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by a Croatian national, Ms Vanessa Jurić (“the applicant”), on 15   October   2021; the decision to give notice to the Croatian Government (“the Government”) of the complaints concerning the right of access to a court and the right to the peaceful enjoyment of possessions, and to declare the remainder of the application inadmissible; the parties’ observations; Having deliberated in private on 31   March   2026, Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date: INTRODUCTION 1.     The application concerns the taking of the applicant’s land, on which an unclassified access road was built in the 1970s and covered with asphalt in 2000, pursuant to the 2011 Roads Act which transferred such roads into the ownership of local authorities. The applicant complains under Article   6 §   1 of the Convention and under Article   1 of Protocol   No.   1. THE FACTS 2.     The applicant was born in 1982 and lives in Rijeka. She was represented by Mr B. Čolić, a lawyer practising in Rijeka. 3.     The Government were represented by their Agent, Ms   S.   Stažnik. 4.     The facts of the case may be summarised as follows. 5.     On 28 July 2011 the Roads Act entered into force. It provided that all unclassified roads ( nerazvrstane ceste ) – roads used for vehicular traffic for any reason, accessible to a large number of users, and not classified as public roads – were to become public property ( javno dobro ) owned by local government units. They were to be recorded as such in the land register regardless of existing entries (see paragraph   20 below). 6 .     In 2013, the applicant inherited several plots of land, located in Rijeka, from her late aunt, B.J., and recorded her ownership in the land register. On one of the plots B.J. had built a house, while another had had an access road built on it in the 1970s. The access road, a cul-de-sac connecting several houses in the neighbourhood with the main road, was also used by third parties, and was covered with asphalt in 2000. 7 .     In 2014 the relevant cadastral authority ( Državna geodetska uprava, Područni ured za Katastar Rijeka ) instituted land registry proceedings before the Rijeka Municipal Court, with a view to recording the access road built over the applicant’s land as an unclassified road. By a decision of 4   July   2014, a land registry clerk of the Rijeka Municipal Court divided the applicant’s plot of land through which the access road was passing into three separate cadastral plots, merged one of them with some other plots into a newly formed single plot and recorded that new plot as an unclassified road – public property owned by the Town of Rijeka. 8 .     On 1 October 2015 the applicant instituted civil proceedings against the Town of Rijeka seeking compensation for unjust enrichment, arguing that a part of her land had been appropriated without an expropriation decision and without compensation. 9 .     By a judgment of 24 May 2019, the Rijeka Municipal Court dismissed the applicant’s claim as time-barred. In particular, the court found that a part of the land in question had indeed been appropriated, that an unclassified asphalt road had been built on it and that neither the applicant nor her predecessor, B.J., had ever received compensation. It examined the applicant’s claim under section 33 of the Property Act (see paragraph   34 below) and found that she was entitled to compensation as if the relevant part of her land had been expropriated. However, it noted that the road had been built in 1978, that construction (maintenance) works concerning the stormwater drainage system, the sewerage system and public lighting had been carried out since then. It had also been covered with asphalt several times, the last time in 2000. Once covered with asphalt and thus put into use, the relevant part of the land could have no longer been returned to the applicant’s predecessor, who had thereby lost her ownership. That was also when the five-year statutory limitation period for seeking compensation provided for in section 225 of the Obligations Act (see paragraph   35 below) had started to run. Accordingly, the limitation period had expired on 1   January   2006 at the latest. In its judgment, the Rijeka Municipal Court relied, inter alia , on the Constitutional Court’s decision of 7   February   2017 (see paragraphs 21-25 below). 10 .     Her claim having been dismissed in full, the first-instance court also ordered the applicant to reimburse the Town of Rijeka for the costs of legal representation by a lawyer totalling 27,000 Croatian kunas (3,584   euros   (EUR)). 11 .     By a judgment of 15 September 2020, the Šibenik County Court dismissed an appeal by the applicant. In particular, having established that the access road had been covered with asphalt many years ago and equipped with public lighting and a stormwater drainage system at the expense of the Town of Rijeka, it endorsed the first-instance court’s conclusion that the ownership of that part of the land had already been appropriated from the applicant’s predecessor, B.J. Since owners could claim compensation for their land which had become an unclassified road before the entry into force of the 2011 Roads Act from the moment when that land had been appropriated – regardless of when it had been recorded as an unclassified road in the land register – the applicant’s claim had become time-barred. 12.     By a decision of 10 March 2021, the Constitutional Court declared a constitutional complaint by the applicant inadmissible, holding that the case did not raise a constitutional issue. In particular, it noted that the first- and the second-instance courts gave sufficient reasons for dismissing her claim and had already addressed all the complaints that she had (again) raised in her constitutional complaint, concluding that their decisions had not been arbitrary. It then went on to examine her complaints concerning the litigation costs (see paragraph 10 above), in which context it stated that it had been foreseeable, considering the consistent practice on the matter, that her claim had been doomed to fail owing to the expiry of the statutory limitation period, also bearing in mind that nothing had prevented her from bringing her action earlier. The court notified the applicant’s representative of its decision on 16   April   2021. 13.     Meanwhile, on 7 October 2016, the applicant also requested compensation for the expropriation of a part of her land from the Office for Property Affairs of the Primorsko-Goranska County ( Ured državne uprave u Primorsko-goranskoj županiji, Služba za imovinsko-pravne poslove ). Her request was declared inadmissible by a first-instance decision on 3   January   2017, on the grounds that the formal requirements for instituting the proceedings had not been met since an expropriation order had never been adopted in her case. The applicant was instructed that she could, nevertheless, institute civil proceedings for compensation. 14.     By a decision of 11 January 2021, the Ministry of Justice and Public Administration dismissed an appeal lodged by the applicant against the first-instance decision. The applicant did not institute judicial review (administrative dispute) proceedings against the former decision, which thus became final. RELEVANT LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND PRACTICE         THE CONSTITUTION 15.     The relevant provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia ( Ustav Republike Hrvatske , Official Gazette no. 56/1990, with subsequent amendments) read as follows: Article 48 § 1 “The right of ownership shall be guaranteed.” Article 50 § 1 “Ownership may be restricted or taken in accordance with the law and in the interest of the Republic of Croatia subject to payment of compensation equal to the market value.”    Legislation on roads      The 1984 Roads Act 16 .     The Roads Act (Official Gazette no. 29/1984 with subsequent amendments), in force between 1 August 1984 and 31   December   1990, contained provisions on both public and unclassified roads. The relevant provisions read as follows: Section 2 “A road, within the meaning of this Act, shall be considered to be any public road and [any] unclassified road used for traffic.” Section 3 “No property rights shall be acquired over a public road.” Section 14(1) “An unclassified road is a surface used for traffic on any basis and which is accessible to a large number of diverse users (village, field and forest paths, paths on embankments for flood protection and the like).”      The 1990 Roads Act 17 .     The Roads Act (Official Gazette no. 42/1990 with subsequent amendments; “the 1990 Roads Act”), in force between 18   October   1990 and 28   July   1999, regulated both public and unclassified roads. The relevant provisions read as follows: Section 1 “(1) A road, within the meaning of this Act, is any public road and unclassified road used for traffic. (2) A public road is any classified road which, pursuant to its social and economic significance, shall be classified as ...” Section 3 “A public road is a property of interest to the Republic of Croatia.” Section 5 “(1) The classification of roads ... shall be carried out by the Government ... upon a proposal by the Ministry ... (2) The classification of roads into regional and local roads shall be carried out by the Ministry...” Section 6a “(1) An unclassified road is a surface used for traffic on any basis and accessible to a large number of users. (2) The use, maintenance, protection, reconstruction and construction of unclassified roads ... shall be governed by a decision of a municipality ...”      The 1996 Public Roads Act 18 .     The Public Roads Act (Official Gazette no. 100/1996 with subsequent amendments; “the 1996 Public Roads Act”), in force between 6   December   1996 and 27 December 2004, exclusively governed public roads and made no reference to unclassified roads. The relevant provisions read as follows: Section 2 “(1) A public road is a property of interest to the Republic of Croatia, and shall be in general use. (2) No ownership rights or any other rights in rem may be acquired over public roads on any basis.” Section 4 “Public roads within the meaning of this Act are roads which, depending on their social, traffic and economic significance, shall be classified into one of the following three groups: 1. ... (hereinafter ‘State roads’); 2. ... (hereinafter ‘county roads’); 3. ... (hereinafter ‘local roads’).” Section 5 “(1) Public roads referred to in section 4 of this Act shall be classified based on criteria adopted by the Government of the Republic of Croatia. (2) A decision on the classification of public roads defining the State, county and local roads shall be adopted by the minister ... and shall be published in the Official Gazette.” Section 79 “Public roads shall be recorded in the land register in accordance with the regulations governing the land register.”      The 2004 Public Roads Act 19 .     The Public Roads Act (Official Gazette nos.   180/2004 with subsequent amendments; “the 2004 Public Roads Act”), in force between 28   December 2004 and 27 July 2011, only governed public roads. Initially, public roads were designated as a property common to all ( opće   dobro ) on which no ownership rights or any other rights in rem could be acquired (thus   their status remained the same as under the 1990 Roads Act and the 1996 Public Roads Act). They were to be recorded in the land register as property common to all, in accordance with the regulations governing the land register. However, amendments introduced on 29   December   2009 (Official Gazette no.   153/2009) changed the legal status of public roads. Notably, public roads were designated as public property in general use owned by the State, and they were to be recorded in the land register as such. The relevant provisions read as follows: The legal status of public roads Section 2(1) “(1) Public roads are public property in general use owned by the Republic of Croatia.” Section 3(3) “A public road shall be recorded in the land register ... as public property in general use and as [being under the] inalienable ownership of the Republic of Croatia ...” The classification of public roads Section 4(1) “(1) Public roads within the meaning of this Act are roads which, depending on their social, traffic and economic significance, shall be classified into one of the following four categories: (a) motorways; (b) State roads; (c) county roads; (d) local roads.” The criteria for the classification of public roads Section 5 “(1) Public roads referred to in section 4 of this Act shall be classified based on criteria adopted by the Government of the Republic of Croatia. (2) A decision on the classification of the public roads defining motorways and State, county and local roads ... shall be adopted by the minister ... and published in the Official Gazette.”      The 2011 Roads Act 20 .     The relevant provisions of the Roads Act ( Zakon o cestama , Official Gazette no.   84/2011 with subsequent amendments; the “2011 Roads Act”), which has been in force since 28 July 2011, read as follows: Meaning of terms Section 2 “(1) For the purposes of this Act, certain terms shall mean the following: (a) ‘public roads’ are roads classified as public roads in accordance with this Act, which anyone can use freely in the manner and under the conditions set forth in this Act and other regulations; (b) ‘motorways’ are public roads ...; (c) ‘State roads’ are public roads ...; (d) ‘county roads’ are public roads ...; (e) ‘local roads’ are public roads ...; (f) ‘unclassified roads’ are roads used for vehicular traffic which everyone can use freely ... and which are not classified as public roads within the meaning of this Act ...” II. Public roads   Legal status of public roads Section 3(1) “(1) Public roads are public property in general use owned by the Republic of Croatia.” VIII. Unclassified roads   Definition of unclassified roads Section 98 “(1) Unclassified roads are roads used for vehicular traffic which everyone can use freely ... and which are not classified as public roads within the meaning of this Act, in particular: – roads [located] in ... towns with more than 35,000 inhabitants, and towns which are the county seats, which were classified as public roads by the Decision on classification of public roads into State roads, county roads and local roads (Official Gazette nos.   54/08, 122/08, 13/09, 104/09 and 17/10), ... – access roads to residential, commercial and other buildings; ... (2) The roads referred to in the first indent of paragraph 1 of this section shall be designated by a decision of the minister... (3) The decision referred to in paragraph 2 of this section shall be published in the Official Gazette.” Legal status of an unclassified road Section 101(1) “An unclassified road is public [property] in general use owned by the local government unit in whose territory the road is located.” Registration of unclassified roads in the land register Section 131 “(1) Roads which, on the date of entry into force of this Act, are used for vehicular traffic for any reason, which are accessible to a large number of users and which are not classified as public roads within the meaning of this Act, shall become unclassified roads. (2) The existing land-register entries concerning unclassified roads referred to in paragraph 1 of this section, owned by a local government unit, shall be replaced ex proprio motu by an entry of an unclassified road – public property in general use – as [being under the] inalienable ownership of the local government unit. (3) Unclassified roads referred to in paragraph 1 of this section which have not been recorded in the land register, or whose actual state has not been recorded in that register shall be recorded in the land register ex proprio motu on the basis of a registration form submitted to the land registry court by the cadastral authorities of their own motion after the unclassified road or its actual state is recorded in the cadastre. (4) Unclassified roads constructed before the date of the entry into force of [this Act] which have not been recorded in the cadastre, or whose actual state has not been recorded shall be recorded in the cadastre on the basis of a geodetic survey ... obtained and submitted to the relevant cadastral authority by a local government unit ... ... (6) Unclassified roads as referred to in paragraph 1 of this section shall be recorded in the land register as public [property] in general use and as [being under the] inalienable ownership of a local government unit ... regardless of existing entries in the land register. (7) Immovable property which is considered an unclassified road under this Act and which was in use as an unclassified or public road prior to 1 January 1997 shall be public [property] in general use under the inalienable ownership of the local government unit in whose territory the road is located.” Section 133(1) “Unclassified roads as referred to in sections 131(1) and 132(1) of this Act shall be recorded in the cadastre and in the land register as unclassified roads – public [property] in general use – and as under the inalienable ownership of the local government unit in whose territory they are located, regardless of the existing registration of ownership and/or other rights in rem of a third party.”      Constitutional Court’s practice    Decision of 7 February 2017 21 .     In decision no. U-I-6326/2011 of 7 February 2017, the Constitutional Court refused eight petitions to institute proceedings for a review of the constitutionality of sections 131-133 of the 2011 Roads Act. 22 .     The court first explained that under the relevant domestic law in force before 2009, public roads could not be owned, even by the State. As a result of the legislative changes in 2009, the State had become the owner of all public roads in the territory of Croatia by operation of law (see paragraph   19 above). 23 .     The Constitutional Court further held that unclassified roads within the meaning of the 2011 Roads Act had been a part of a larger group of public roads which had existed in the territory of Croatia at the moment when that Act had come into force, and which at that time had been State-owned. The   2011 Roads Act had merely reclassified the existing public roads according to their technical characteristics into (a) public roads, which were to remain under State ownership, and (b) unclassified roads, which were to be transferred from State ownership to the ownership of local government units. Thus, all public and unclassified roads within the meaning of the   2011 Roads Act were those which had passed into State ownership before the entry into force of that Act and in respect of which “expropriation proceedings were (or should have been) carried out and compensation paid”. 24 .     However, not all such roads had been recorded in the land register as being under State ownership. Sections 131 and 133 had thus merely governed the registration in the name of local government units of the unclassified roads previously owned by the State, regardless of whether the previous State ownership of such roads had been recorded in the land register. 25 .     In the Constitutional Court’s view, former owners of land with unclassified roads were not prevented from protecting their rights, as they could institute civil proceedings under the general rules of civil law and seek compensation for the land taken from them, if such compensation had not already been paid. In that regard the Constitutional Court specifically referred to section   33 of the Property Act (see paragraph 34 below).    Decision of 3 November 2020 26 .     In decision no. U-III/3062/2019 of 3   November   2020, the Constitutional Court examined a constitutional complaint lodged by complainants who had alleged that their right of access to a court had been breached in civil proceedings for unjust enrichment, in which they had maintained that a lawyer who had represented them in an earlier set of civil proceedings for compensation had withheld from them the money that they had been awarded therein. Their claim had been dismissed as time-barred on the grounds that, in the absence of the lawyer’s conviction in criminal proceedings, the statutory limitation period had expired after five years from the day when the damage had occurred, that is, from the day when the lawyer had received the payment of the compensation in question. The Constitutional Court noted that the complainants had found out about the lawyer’s alleged malpractice only after the criminal prosecution had become time-barred, and held that, in view of the relationship of trust between a lawyer and a client, they could not have been blamed for not having doubted the lawyer’s actions earlier. Therefore, it held that, in not considering the specific circumstances owing to which the complainants had not been able to institute relevant proceedings earlier, the domestic courts had unduly restricted their right of access to a court.    Decision of 24 June 2025 27.     In decision no. U-III-3726/2021 of 24 June 2025, the Constitutional Court allowed a constitutional complaint lodged by a company which complained that its right to fair proceedings and the right of ownership had been breached in civil proceedings for compensation. In particular, the complainant company sought compensation for its land on which a road had been built without any expropriation proceedings. Following the entry into force of the 2011 Roads Act, the road in question had become, by operation of law, an unclassified road, that is, public property owned by the local authority. The second-instance court had dismissed the company’s compensation claim lodged in 2015 as time-barred, holding that the five-year limitation period had started to run in 2009 when the road had been built and the land could no longer be returned. 28 .     The Constitutional Court examined the company’s constitutional complaint under Article 48 § 1 and Article 50 of the Croatian Constitution, which guarantee the right of ownership. It noted that, while the interference in question had had basis in law, namely in section 131(1) and (2) of the   2011 Roads Act (see paragraph 20 above), and had pursued a legitimate aim, the complainant company had never received compensation for what amounted to de facto expropriation. It stressed that the local authority, which had become the owner of the (unclassified) road in question by operation of law, could not have benefited from that situation without conducting expropriation proceedings, and that the second-instance court had failed to assess the impact of its interpretation on the complainant company’s rights. The Constitutional Court thus quashed the second-instance court’s judgment and remitted the case.      Supreme Court’s practice 29 .     In case no. Rev 1823/1994 of 16 February 1999, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s decision to dismiss as time-barred a plaintiff’s claim, lodged in 1993, to be paid compensation for a plot of land on which a public road had been built by a public authority in 1972 and covered with asphalt in   1978, and in respect of which expropriation proceedings had never been conducted. In particular, the Supreme Court held that the plaintiff had been unlawfully de facto dispossessed of his plot of land in 1972 but that he could no longer seek its return since it had been repurposed as a public road. In view of that, it further held that the plaintiff’s claim for payment, to be assessed as a claim for compensation, had become due in 1972. The relevant part of that judgment reads as follows:   “In this court’s view, the right of the (co)owner to be paid compensation for property which had been appropriated from him cannot be extinguished owing to the statute of limitations, as long as he is able to request its return. Given that, according to the lower courts’ findings, the plaintiff as a former owner can no longer request ... [that] the possession of the plot of land in question be returned to him for the reasons set out above – which undoubtedly already arose at the moment when the public road had been built on his plot of land, that is, already in 1972 – the plaintiff’s compensation claim in respect of the plot of land taken away from him unlawfully, as a claim for damages, became due in 1972 when the plaintiff learned of the damage and of the tortfeasor, so it was undoubtedly extinguished on account of having become time-barred before the action in this case was brought in 1989 ...” 30.     In case no. Rev 1555/2011 of 9 November 2016, the Supreme Court upheld the lower courts’ judgments dismissing as time-barred the plaintiff’s action, brought in 2003, to be paid compensation for her plots of land on which an unclassified road (within the meaning of the 2011 Roads Act) had been built in the 1980s, and covered with asphalt in 2001 by a local authority. The relevant part of that judgment reads as follows: “In this court’s opinion and in line with its long-standing practice (for example, since judgment no. Rev 1823/1994 of 16 February 1999), the statute of limitations for compensation claims concerning the unlawful taking of real estate, as well as concerning unlawful use thereof, begins to run from the date [when the injured party] learns of the damage and of the tortfeasor, which in the present case happened in the mid ‑ 1990s, and therefore the right to claim compensation on any basis ceased because it had become time-barred before the action was brought on 22 October 2003. This is because a claim for damages becomes time-barred three years after the injured party learns of the damage and of the tortfeasor, and in any case ... five years from the moment when the damage occurred. The plaintiff’s predecessors could have already become aware in mid-1990s that a road had been built and that, given its legal status, they could not have sought its return, but only compensation.” 31 .     In its Practice Direction no. Su-IV-123/2024 of 27   May   2024, the Civil Division of the Supreme Court expressed the following opinion: “A compensation claim in respect of a plot of land which has been appropriated without proceedings provided for by the law having been conducted (for the purpose of constructing a road), becomes time-bared within the general statutory limitation period provided by section 225 of the Obligations Act ... whereby it begins to run from the moment when the plaintiff, as the previous owner, objectively can no longer successfully claim the return and the handover of the immovable property in question into his or her possession, which in fact is the moment when a road is built and the works completed. Exceptionally, in the implementation of the Constitutional Court’s decision no.   U ‑ III ‑ 3062/2019 of 3 November 2020, in the circumstances where the plaintiff, as the previous owner, owing to the specific circumstances of the case learns, for justified reasons, that his or her immovable property has been repurposed only later, after the objective statutory limitation period has expired, the statutory limitation period starts to run from the moment when he or she learns that his or her real estate has been repurposed, regardless of the moment when he or she could no longer successfully request its return and the handover into his or her possession, that is, irrespective of the moment when a road was built and the works completed.” 32 .     By decision no. Revd-2148/2024 of 13   November 2024, the Supreme Court granted the plaintiff leave to lodge an appeal on points of law concerning the following question: “When does the statutory limitation period to claim compensation start to run with regard to an appropriated plot of land which, before the 2011 Roads Act entered into force, had not been classified as a public road, had not been registered in the cadastre as an unclassified road, nor had it been registered as such in the land register within the meaning of section 131(1-4) of the 2011 Roads Act, in the circumstances where: no final expropriation order had been adopted for the land in question; the contentious legal relationship between the parties had not been settled by way of a settlement; the former owner contests that the land in question had represented a road within the meaning of section   131(1) of the 2011 Roads Act before the latter was enacted; and the previous owner learned of that land’s status of an unclassified road, that is, public property in general use under the inalienable ownership of the local government unit only in the proceedings in which its status was recorded in the cadastre, or at the moment when he was served with the decision of the competent land registry court concerning the registration of the land in question as an unclassified road, that is public property in general use under the inalienable ownership of the local government unit?” The Supreme Court so decided because it held that, in view of the Constitutional Court’s decision no. U-III/3062/2019 of 3   November   2020 (see paragraphs 26 and 31 above), as well as of the Court’s judgment in the case of Carbonara and Ventura v.   Italy (no.   24638/94, ECHR   2000-VI), it   was necessary to revisit the case-law on a point on which that court had already ruled ( inter alia , in the case no. Rev 1555/2011 of 9   November   2016, see paragraph   29 above).      The doctrine 33 .     Several Croatian legal scholars and practitioners have expressed the opinion that, before the 2011 Roads Act had entered into force, the legal status of unclassified roads had been unregulated and therefore unclear (see, for example, Kontrec, Damir [Judge of the Supreme Court of Croatia since February   2011]: “Pravni status prometnica i upis u zemljišne knjige” (“The legal status of roads and their registration in the land register”), Zbornik Pravnog fakulteta Sveučilišta u Rijeci , vol. 32, no. 1, pp.   445-71   (2011), and Staničić, Frane [President of the Constitutional Court of Croatia since October   2025]: “Je li Zakonom o cestama 2011. godine (ipak) provedeno faktično izvlaštenje vlasnika nerazvrstanih cesta?” (Did the 2011 Roads Act (nevertheless) bring about a de facto expropriation of the owners of unclassified roads?), Zbornik Pravnog fakulteta Sveučilišta u Rijeci , vol.   41, no.   3, pp.   803-25 (2020)).    Legislation on property rights 34 .     The relevant provision of the Ownership and Other Rights In   Rem Act ( Zakon o vlasništvu i drugim stvarnim pravima , Official Gazette no.   91/1996 with subsequent amendments; “the Property Act”), which has been in force since 1   January 1997, provides as follows: Compensation Section 33 “(1) Ownership may, in the interest of the Republic of Croatia and in accordance with the law, be taken away (complete expropriation) or restricted by establishing a right over the owner’s property in favour of another person (partial expropriation), in which case the owner shall be entitled to compensation in accordance with the expropriation legislation.   ... (3) If the owners are, in respect of an item of their property, subject to restrictions for the protection of the interests and security of the Republic of Croatia, nature, the environment or public health, which require from them, but not from all other owners of such property, a heavier sacrifice, or otherwise place them in a position similar to the one in which they would have been had the expropriation been carried out, they shall be entitled to compensation [in the same way] as for expropriation.”    Obligations Act 35 .     The relevant provision of the Obligations Act (Official Gazette no.   35/2005, with subsequent amendments), reads as follows: General statutory limitation period Section 225 “Claims shall become time-barred after five years unless another statutory limitation period has been prescribed by law.”    Other relevant legislation 36 .     The relevant provision of the Civil Procedure Act concerning the reopening of proceedings following a final judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, namely section 428a, is cited in Lovrić v.   Croatia (no.   38458/15, § 24, 4 April 2017). 37 .     The Communal Services Act (Official Gazette no.   36/1995 with further amendments), in force between 9 June 1995 and 3   August   2018, regulated the maintenance of unclassified roads, which it defined as surfaces used for traffic for any reason, accessible to a large number of users, which had not been classified roads within the meaning of relevant legislation. 38 .     The Land Register Act (Official Gazette no.   91/1996 with further amendments), in force between 1 January 1997 and 5 July 2019, provided, for property common to all which had been recorded in the land register, that its legal status had to be indicated in the relevant part of the register. Public property in general use was to be recorded as owned by the State, unless owned by a local government unit. In the period until 20   December   2001, that Act also provided that, within five years from its entry into force, the State Attorney’s Office had to initiate relevant proceedings with a view to recording property common to all in the land register. THE LAW ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 6 § 1 OF THE CONVENTION 39.     The applicant complained that the manner in which the domestic courts had calculated the statutory limitation period in her case had been unforeseeable and had resulted in a breach of her right of access to a court. She relied on Article   6 §   1 of the Convention, the relevant part of which reads as follows: “In the determination of his civil rights and obligations ... everyone is entitled to a fair ... hearing ... by [a] ... tribunal ...” 40.     In addition, the applicant complained that the domestic courts’ decisions dismissing her compensation claim as time-barred had also been in breach of her right to an effective remedy. She relied on Article   13 of the Convention, which reads as follows: “Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in [the] Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.” 41.     The Court reiterates that the safeguards of Article 6 § 1 are stricter than those of Article 13 (see Kudła v. Poland [GC], no. 30210/96, §   146, ECHR   2000 ‑ XI) and finds that the applicant’s complaint under Article   13 should be considered to be absorbed into her complaint under Article   6 §   1.    Admissibility 42.     The Court notes that this complaint is neither manifestly ill-founded nor inadmissible on any other grounds listed in Article   35 of the Convention. It must therefore be declared admissible.    Merits      The arguments of the parties    The applicant 43 .     The applicant argued that her property had been taken in 2014, when the Rijeka Municipal Court’s decision of 4 July 2014 depriving her of her title had been adopted. Her civil action had therefore been brought in time. The domestic courts had wrongly established that it had been the local authority who had covered the road with asphalt in 2000 (see paragraph   9 and   11 above), when in fact that had been done by her predecessor, B.J. – the undisputed owner of the land at the material time – and her neighbours for the benefit of whom a servitude of passage over her land had existed. B.J.   could not have therefore already claimed compensation in   2000, especially because she had had no one to claim it from, seeing as she had covered the road with asphalt at her own expense. 44.     Furthermore, the applicant averred that the legal issue of unclassified roads was a complex one. Not only had the Roads Act been amended several times on that account, but the matter had also been examined by the Constitutional Court in its decision no. U-I-6326/11 of 7   February   2017 (see   paragraphs 21-25 above). That decision had not been available when she had lodged her compensation claim on 1 October 2015; nevertheless, the first-instance court relied on it in its judgment in her case (see paragraphs   8 ‑ 9 above). Therefore, she could not have been aware – on account of allegedly consistent domestic courts’ practice, as the Constitutional Court had argued – that her claim would be dismissed as time-barred. To the contrary, she had lodged her claim within three years from having learned that her land had been expropriated.    The Government 45 .     The Government argued that the applicant’s predecessor, B.J., had been deprived of her title to the land in question in 2000, when the unclassified road in question had been covered with asphalt and hence “put into use” – that is, when it had become available to a large number of users (vehicles). It was also at that time that the road had fulfilled the requirements under the 2011 Roads Act to be considered an unclassified road. From that moment, the five-year limitation period had started to run. 46.     Furthermore, the Government maintained that the manner in which the domestic courts had calculated the statutory limitation period in the applicant’s case had been foreseeable and in line with the domestic courts’ long-standing practice. 47 .     Namely, where an owner of an immovable property had been dispossessed thereof and could no longer recover its possession because, for example, it had become public property, he or she could claim compensation within the five-year general statutory limitation period provided under section   225 of the Obligations Act (see paragraph 35 above). That limitation period was to be counted from the moment when the owner could no longer request that the immovable property be returned into his or her possession. Generally, in the case of unclassified roads that had been built before the   2011 Roads Act had entered into force, that moment was when the unclassified road had been built. 48.     The Government also noted that the Town of Rijeka had regularly conducted maintenance works on the road in question, which neither B.J. nor the applicant had opposed. 49 .     Furthermore, the Government argued that, when the road had been built over the land in question, that part of land had become a part of public property, whereby the applicant’s, that is, B.J.’s, ownership in that regard had ceased. The mere fact that the legal status of unclassified roads had been regulated in 2011 did not mean that the applicant’s plot of land had only become an unclassified road at that moment, but that in that moment it had been transferred from the ownership of the State into the ownership of the local authority. 50 .     The Government averred that, in accordance with the Constitutional Court’s decision of 7 February 2017 (see paragraphs   21 ‑ 25 above), the proceedings in which the unclassified road had been recorded as such in the land register in 2014 (see paragraph 7 above) had no bearing on the applicant’s ownership of the land in question. Hence, the domestic courts could not have calculated the limitation period only from that moment.      The Court’s assessment 51 .     The Court reiterates that the right of access to a court is not absolute, but may be subject to limitations; these are permitted by implication since the right of access, by its very nature, calls for regulation by the State, which enjoys a certain margin of appreciation in this regard. Those limitations must not restrict or reduce a person’s access in such a way or to such an extent that the very essence of the right is impaired. In addition, such limitations will not be compatible with Article 6 § 1 if they do not pursue a legitimate aim or if there is not a reasonable relationship of proportionality between the means employed and the aim sought to be achieved (see Zubac v.   Croatia   [GC], no.   40160/12, § 78, 5 April 2018, with further references). That said, the Court would also stress that it is not its task to take the place of the domestic courts. It is primarily for the national authorities, notably the courts, to resolve problems of interpretation of domestic legislation. The Court is not a court of appeal