CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 22 février 2005

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s40F41F73 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s33165EBA { font-family:Arial; font-size:8pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s6B505E72 { margin:0pt; padding-left:0pt } .sD711EC90 { margin-left:31.52pt; padding-left:7.48pt; font-family:serif } .sA88F4219 { margin-top:0pt; margin-left:21pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .s9793A85B { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-indent:14.2pt } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .s63B28A23 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left; font-size:9pt } .s9F8EB0C0 { width:18.63pt; display:inline-block } .s9E97F54A { width:85.05pt; display:inline-block } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   081 22.2.2005   Press release issued by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENT HUTTEN-CZAPSKA v. POLAND   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing a judgment [1] in the case of Hutten-Czapska v. Poland (application no. 35014/97), in which it identified a systemic problem underlying the violation of the European Convention of Human Rights in the applicant’s case, concerning the system of rent control in Poland.   In today’s judgment the Court held, unanimously, that:   there had been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) to the European Convention on Human Rights; the violation originated in a systemic problem linked to the malfunctioning of Polish domestic legislation, which restricted and still restricts rent increases, making it impossible for private landlords even to cover the costs of property maintenance; through appropriate legal or other measures, Poland was to secure a reasonable level of rent to the applicant and those similarly affected (estimated at some 100,000 landlords) or provide them with a mechanism mitigating the consequences of State control over rent increases on their right of property.   The Court held, by six votes to one, that the question of the application of Article 41 (just satisfaction), concerning pecuniary or non-pecuniary damage, was not ready for decision. The Court awarded the applicant 13,000 euros (EUR) for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in English.)     1.     Principal facts   The applicant, Maria Hutten-Czapska, is a French national of Polish origin, born in 1931 and living in Andresy, France. She owns a house and a plot of land in Gdynia, Poland.   The applicant is one of around 100,000 landlords in Poland affected by a restrictive system of rent control [2] (from which some 600,000 to 900,000 tenants benefit), which originated in laws adopted under the former communist regime. The system imposes a number of restrictions on landlords’ rights, in particular, setting a ceiling on rent levels which is so low that landlords cannot even recoup their maintenance costs, let alone make a profit.   During the Second World War the applicant’s property was used by the German Army and then, in May 1945, by the Red Army.   On 19 May 1945 part of the house was assigned to A.Z. In June 1945 Gdynia Town Court ( Sąd Grodzki ) ordered that the house be returned to the applicant’s parents. They started renovating the house but, shortly afterwards, were ordered to leave. In October   1945 A.Z. moved into the house. The house was taken under state management after the entering into force, on 13 February 1946, of a decree giving the Polish authorities power to assign flats in privately-owned buildings to particular tenants. The applicant’s parents tried unsuccessfully to regain possession of their property.   On 1 August 1974 a new regime on the state management of housing entered into force, the so-called “special lease scheme” ( szczególny tryb najmu ). On 8 July 1975 the Gdynia Mayor issued a decision allowing W.P. to exchange the flat he leased under this scheme for the ground-floor flat in the applicant’s house. The decision was signed by a civil servant who was subordinate to W.P.   In the 1990s the applicant tried to have that decision declared null and void but only succeeded in obtaining a decision declaring that it had been issued contrary to the law.   On 18 September 1990 the court declared that the applicant had inherited her parents’ property and, in July 1991, she took over the management of the house.   The applicant subsequently brought several unsuccessful sets of proceedings – civil and administrative – to regain possession of her property and to relocate the tenants.   In 1994 a rent control scheme was applied to private property in Poland, under which landlords were both obliged to carry out costly maintenance work and prevented from charging rents which covered those costs. According to one calculation [3] , rents covered only about 60% of the maintenance costs. Severe restrictions on the termination of leases were also in place.   The 1994 Act was replaced by a new act in 2001, designed to improve the situation, which maintained all restrictions on the termination of leases and obligations in respect of maintenance of property and also introduced a new procedure for controlling rent increases. For instance, it was not possible to charge rent at a level exceeding 3% of the reconstruction value of the property in question. In the applicant’s case this amounted to 1,285 Polish zlotys (PLN) in 2004 (equivalent to 316 euros).   The Polish Constitutional Court, in its judgments of 12 January 2000, 10 October 2000 and 2   October 2002, found that the rent-control scheme under both the   1994   Act and the 2001 Act was unconstitutional and that it had placed a disproportionate and excessive burden on landlords. The provisions in question were repealed.   From 10 October 2000 until 31 December 2004 the applicant was able to increase the rent she charged by about 10% to PLN 5.15 a square metre (approximately 1.27 euros). On 1 January 2005, new provisions (the “December 2004 amendments”) entered into force which allowed, for the first time, rents exceeding 3% of the reconstruction value of the property being rented to increase by not more than 10% a year.     2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the European Commission of Human Rights on 6 December 1994 and transmitted to the Court on 1 November 1998. It was declared partly admissible on 16 September 2003. A hearing on the merits of the case took place in public in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 27 January 2004.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Nicolas Bratza (British), President , Matti Pellonpää (Finnish), Viera Strážnická (Slovakian), appointed to sit in respect of Poland, Josep Casadevall (Andorran), Rait Maruste (Estonian), Stanislav Pavlovschi (Moldovan), Javier Borrego Borrego (Spanish), judges , and also Michael O’Boyle , Section Registrar .     3.     Summary of the judgment   Complaint   The applicant complained that she had neither been able to regain possession of or use her property or charge adequate rent for its lease. She relied on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.   Decision of the Court   Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 The Court recalled that it could only consider the possible effect on the applicant’s property rights of decisions taken, or laws applicable, from 10   October 1994, the date Poland ratified Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights.   The rent-control scheme in Poland originated in the continued shortage of dwellings, the low supply of flats for rent and the high costs of acquiring a flat. It was implemented to secure the social protection of tenants – especially tenants in a poor financial situation – and to ensure the gradual transition from State-controlled rent to a fully negotiated contractual rent during the fundamental reform of the country following the collapse of the communist regime. The Court accepted that, in the social and economic circumstances of the case, the legislation in question had a legitimate aim in the general interest.   The assessment of the impact which the contested rent-control scheme had on the applicant’s right of property from 10   October 1994 to the present day, involved three different laws: the 1994 Act, the 2001 Act and the December   2004 Amendments. Concerning the 1994 Act, the Court accepted that, given the exceptionally difficult housing situation in Poland and the inevitably serious social consequences involved in the reform of the lease market, the decision to introduce laws restricting levels of rent in privately-owned flats to protect tenants was justified, especially as it put a statutory time-limit on this measure. However, no procedures enabling landlords to recover maintenance costs were available under the 1994   Act and Polish legislation did not secure any mechanism for balancing the costs of maintaining the property and the income from the controlled rent, which covered only 60% of maintenance costs. Against that background and having regard to the consequences that the various restrictive provisions had on the applicant, the Court found that the combination of restrictions under the 1994 Act impaired the very essence of the applicant’s right of property.   In addition, the provisions of the 2001 Act, which had been intended to ameliorate the situation by introducing a new procedure for controlling rent increases, unduly restricted the applicant’s property rights and placed a disproportionate burden on her, which could not be justified in terms of the legitimate aim pursued by the authorities in implementing the relevant remedial housing legislation.   Concerning the period between 10 October 2002 and 31 December 2004, the Court did not see how the possibility of increasing rent up to the statutory ceiling could ameliorate the situation of the applicant or the other landlords. Nor did the Court consider that it provided them with any relief for the past state of affairs.   Neither did the December 2004 Amendments provide the applicant with any kind of relief that could compensate for the violation that had already occurred, because being able to raise the rent charged by 10% of the current rent did not amount to a significant increase.   The Court acknowledged that the difficult housing situation in Poland, in particular an acute shortage of dwellings and the high cost of acquiring flats on the market, and the need to transform the extremely rigid system of distribution of dwellings inherited from the communist regime, justified not only the introduction of remedial legislation to protect tenants during the reform of the country’s political, economic and legal system but also the setting of a low rent, at a level below the market rate. Yet it found no justification for Poland’s continued failure to secure to the applicant and other landlords throughout the entire period under consideration the sums necessary to cover maintenance costs, not to mention even a minimum profit from the lease of flats.   Some five years ago the Polish Constitutional Court had found that the reform in question had been effected mainly at the expense of landlords. In the circumstances, it was incumbent on the Polish authorities to eliminate or at least to find a prompt remedy for the problem. Furthermore, the principle of lawfulness in Article 1 of Protocol   No.   1 and of the foreseeability of the law ensuing from that rule required the State to repeal the rent-control scheme, which by no means excluded the adoption of procedures protecting the rights of tenants in a different manner.   Having regard to all the foregoing circumstances and, more particularly, to the consequences which the operation of the rent-control scheme entailed for the exercise of the applicant’s right to the peaceful enjoyment of her possessions, the Court held that the authorities imposed a disproportionate and excessive burden on her and that there had, therefore, been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. Article 46 The applicants’ case, which – like the case Broniowski v. Poland   – had been chosen by the Court as a pilot case for determining the compatibility with the Convention of the relevant domestic scheme that affected large numbers of people, revealed an underlying systemic problem, in that Polish housing legislation imposed, and continues to impose, on individual landlords, restrictions on increases in rent for their dwellings, making it impossible for them to receive rent reasonably commensurate with the general costs of property maintenance.   The Court considered that Poland had to, above all, through appropriate legal and/or other measures, secure a reasonable level of rent to the applicant and those similarly affected, or provide them with a mechanism mitigating the consequences of State control over rent increases on their right of property.   It was not for the Court to indicate what would be the “reasonable” level of rent in the present case or in Poland in general, or in what way the mitigating procedures should be set up; under Article 46 Poland remained free to choose the means by which it would discharge its obligations arising from the execution of the Court’s judgments.     Judge Pavlovschi expressed a partly concurring and partly dissenting opinion, which is annexed to the judgment.   ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Registry of the European Court of Human Rights F – 67075 Strasbourg Cedex Press contacts:   Roderick Liddell (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 24 92)   Emma Hellyer (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15)   Stéphanie Klein (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54) Fax: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 27 91   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. Since 1 November 1998 it has sat as a full-time Court composed of an equal number of judges to that of the States party to the Convention. The Court examines the admissibility and merits of applications submitted to it. It sits in Chambers of 7 judges or, in exceptional cases, as a Grand Chamber of 17 judges. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe supervises the execution of the Court’s judgments. [1] Under Article 43 of the European Convention on Human Rights, within three months from the date of a Chamber judgment, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the 17 ‑ member Grand Chamber of the Court. In that event, a panel of five judges considers whether the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or its protocols, or a serious issue of general importance, in which case the Grand Chamber will deliver a final judgment. If no such question or issue arises, the panel will reject the request, at which point the judgment becomes final. Otherwise Chamber judgments become final on the expiry of the three-month period or earlier if the parties declare that they do not intend to make a request to refer. [2] According to information supplied by the Polish Government. [3] Prepared by the Office for Housing and Town Development.