CEDH · CASELAW;COMMUNICATEDCASES;ENG — 18 septembre 2024

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .s379BC09C { margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s10950C61 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-indent:14.2pt; text-align:justify } .s5E1364CA { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14pt } .s339D85E6 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:14pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s665E407E { margin-top:66pt; margin-bottom:14pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } Published on 7 October 2024   SECOND SECTION Application no. 16030/23 Vladislovas JUOZAPAVIČIUS against Lithuania lodged on 6 April 2023 communicated on 18 September 2024 SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE The application concerns restitution of property. The applicant’s grandfather owned 2.38 hectares of land near Kaunas. His grandmother owned 0.225 hectares of land in Kaunas. Those plots were nationalised by the Soviet regime in 1940. In 1992 the applicant applied for restoration of his property rights to the two plots which had belonged to his grandparents. In 1997 the authorities restored his property rights to his grandfather’s land in part, by giving him 0.20 hectares of land in Kaunas. In 2015 the authorities informed the applicant that the available documents were insufficient to establish who had owned his grandfather’s land after the latter’s death in 1938 until the nationalisation in 1940. At the applicant’s request, in 2016 the courts established a fact of legal significance that, after his grandfather’s death and until the nationalisation, the land had been owned in equal parts (that is, 0.7933   hectares each) by his three sons, including the applicant’s father. In 2017 the applicant complained to the National Land Service (hereinafter “the NLS”) that his property rights had still not been restored. On 11 June 2017 the NLS informed the applicant that the property rights to his grandparents’ land had been restored to their other heirs. The remaining land to which property rights had not yet been restored amounted to 0.1967   hectares but no vacant land was currently available. The NLS acknowledged that some of the heirs had been given more land than they had had the right to receive. However, the NLS did not have the authority to institute court proceedings seeking the annulment of administrative decisions. It had asked the prosecutor to institute such proceedings, but the prosecutor had refused on the grounds that the ten-year statute of limitations for seeking the annulment of those decisions had expired. The NLS informed the applicant that he could defend his property rights by lodging a civil claim against the State and claiming damages for the mistakes made by the authorities in the restitution process. The applicant lodged an appeal against the above-mentioned decision, asking the courts to order the NLS to examine the question of the restoration of his property rights anew. On 11 June 2019 the Regional Administrative Court dismissed his appeal, finding that the decision of the NLS had complied with the law and had been duly reasoned. On 10   February 2021 the Supreme Administrative Court endorsed that conclusion. It also noted that in the document at issue the NLS had not taken any decisions affecting the applicant’s rights but had merely informed him about the situation regarding the restitution of his property rights. In January 2021 the applicant lodged a civil claim against the State, requesting monetary compensation for the mistakes made by the public authorities in the restitution process. He claimed 261,800 euros (EUR) in respect of pecuniary damage and EUR 200,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage. However, on 20 October 2021 the Regional Administrative Court and on 7   December 2022 the Supreme Administrative Court dismissed his claim. They held that the applicant ought to have understood that his rights had been violated on 11   June 2017 at the latest, when he had received the relevant information from the NLS, and that he had missed the three-year statutory limitation period for lodging a claim for damages. The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the finding of the domestic courts that he ought to have understood already on 11   June 2017 that his rights had been violated was unfair and put him in an unequal position vis-à-vis the public authorities who had failed to act lawfully and to promptly correct their own mistakes but had not had to bear any of the consequences thereof. He also submits that, in the two sets of proceedings, the Supreme Administrative Court adopted contradictory conclusions regarding his right to claim damages from the State. Lastly, he complains under Article 1 of Protocol No.   1 to the Convention that his rights to his grandparents’ land were not restored and that he had to bear the consequences of the mistakes made by the authorities. QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES 1.     Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right of access to a court, guaranteed under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, in view of the fact that his civil claim against the State was dismissed as time-barred (see Sanofi Pasteur v. France , no. 25137/16, § 50, 13 February 2020, and Stagno v.   Belgium , no. 1062/07, §§ 26-28, 7 July 2009)? The Court refers, in particular, to the conclusion reached by the administrative courts that the statutory limitation period for the applicant to lodge such a claim started running on 11 June 2017, at the latest.   2.     Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions, within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol   No.   1 to the Convention, on account of the fact that his rights to his grandparents’ land were not restored and he was not awarded any compensation? In particular, did the applicant have to bear an individual and excessive burden of the mistakes made by the public authorities in the restitution process (see Beinarovič and Others v. Lithuania , nos. 70520/10 and 2 others, §§ 138-42, 12 June 2018, and the cases cited therein)?