CEDH · PRESS;GENERAL;ENG — 21 avril 2005

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[1]   Violation of Article 6 § 1 Basoukou v. Greece (application no. 3028/03) Violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 The applicant, Fotini Basoukou, is a Greek national who was born in 1933 and lives in Evoia (Greece).   She is the owner of land in Amarynthos which was designated for public use as a result of a change in the town’s development plan. She instituted administrative proceedings to have the plan amended. On 28 February 1996 the Supreme Administrative Court allowed her application, but despite the steps taken by the applicant, the administrative authorities did not amend the plan in question so that the charge on her property could be removed.   The applicant submitted that the authorities’ failure to comply with the judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court had infringed her right to effective judicial protection. She relied on Article   6 § 1 (right to a fair hearing) of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) to the Convention.   The European Court of Human Rights held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1 and of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. It held that, within three months of the date on which the present judgment became final, Greece was to take appropriate steps to ensure the execution of the Supreme Administrative Court’s judgment. It also awarded the applicant 15,000 euros (EUR) for pecuniary damage. (The judgment is available only in French.)     Violation of Article 6 § 1   Violation of Article 13 Kabetsis v. Greece (no. 5973/03) Kollias v. Greece (no. 5957/03) Koufogiannis v. Greece (no. 5967/03) Plastarias v. Greece (no. 5038/03) Sflomos v. Greece (no. 3257/03 Tsamou v. Greece (no. 9673/03) In the above cases the applicants complained of the length of administrative proceedings brought against the Department of Social Security to obtain compensation for an error in the calculation of their pension contributions, with the exception of the Sflomos v. Greece case, which concerned civil proceedings relating to the annulment of a contract of sale. The applicants relied on Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time) and further complained that they had not had an effective remedy in respect of the length of the proceedings in question, in breach of Article 13.   In each case the Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1 and Article 13. The Court awarded Mr Koufogiannis, Mr Sflomos and Ms Tsamou EUR 1,000 each, Mr Plastarias EUR 1,500, and Mr Kabetsis and Mr Kollias EUR 2,000   each, for non-pecuniary damage. It also awarded each of the applicants EUR 500 for costs and expenses. (The judgments are available only in French.)   Fera v. Italy (no. 45057/98)   No violation of Article 6 § 1 The applicant, Giuseppe Nicola Fera, is an Italian national who was born in 1953 and lives in Monterosso Calabro (Italy). He is a lawyer by profession.   In 1995 the applicant was prosecuted for murder. He was accused of having fatally wounded another person in a fight at his home in Rome in 1995 when they were both drunk. During the preliminary investigation, the applicant asked to be tried under the shortened form of procedure but his request was refused.   On 30 April 1996 the Rome Assize Court sentenced him to penalties including 15 years’ imprisonment, but his sentence was reduced to 11 years on appeal. Both the first-instance and appeal courts refused to grant the applicant a reduction of his sentence by one-third, to which he would have been entitled under Article 442 of the Code of Criminal Procedure if he had been tried under the shortened form of procedure.   On 4 December 1997 the Court of Cassation dismissed an appeal on points of law by the applicant. Among other things, it considered, like the appeal court, that the production during the preliminary investigation of conflicting psychiatric reports had necessitated a thorough examination of the accused’s powers of judgment, so that recourse to the shortened form of procedure had been impossible. The Italian Government subsequently acknowledged that the reports in question had not been produced during the preliminary investigation but during the trial. The applicant lodged an objection to execution and applied for a retrial but without success.   The applicant submitted that the fact that he had not been granted the reduction in sentence applicable to persons tried under the shortened form of procedure had infringed Article   6 § 1 (right to a fair trial).   The Court noted that on the date of the preliminary hearing the applicant had filed documents from which it had been apparent that further medical examinations were required. Accordingly, the courts concerned had been legitimately entitled to consider that the case file could not be closed without further investigative measures being taken; pursuant to the legislation in force at the time, such steps could only have been taken during the trial.   As to the procedural error committed by the Assize Court of Appeal and the Court of Cassation, the Court observed that it had had no impact on the proceedings. The medical documents filed at the preliminary hearing had shown that further psychiatric examinations were necessary. Subsequently, during the trial, the applicant had requested and obtained several medical opinions. In accordance with the legislation governing the case, the shortened form of procedure was not permitted where such requests were made.   In the present case, the Court considered that the fairness of the proceedings as a whole had not been adversely affected by the error in the reasoning of the appeal court and the Court of Cassation. It accordingly held by four votes to three that there had been no violation of Article 6 § 1. (The judgment is available only in French.)     Violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 Lo Tufo v. Italy (no. 64663/01)   Violation of Article 6 § 1 The applicants, Alessandra and Ilaria Lo Tufo, are Italian nationals who were born in 1968 and 1964 and live in London and Florence respectively.   They complained of their prolonged inability, through lack of police assistance, to recover possession of their flat, and of the length of the eviction proceedings. They relied on Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time) and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property).   The Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention and of Article 6 § 1. It awarded each of the applicants EUR 5,000 for non-pecuniary damage. (The judgment is available only in French.)   Mohammed Yuusuf v. the Netherlands (no. 42620/02)   Struck out The applicant, Khadra Mohammed Yuusuf, is a Somali national who was born in 1965 and lives in Sint Maartensdijk (Netherlands).   She arrived in the Netherlands with her husband and her two children in 1994. The couple had three more children born in the Netherlands. In 2000 the applicant’s husband and the couple’s children obtained residence permits, but she was refused a permit on the ground that she had been convicted and given a suspended fine for twice being involved in fights at the refugee holding centre where they were staying.   The applicant submitted that the refusal to grant her a residence permit had breached Article 8 (right to respect for family life) of the Convention.   On 4 February 2005 the Netherlands Government notified the Court that the Immigration and Naturalisation Service had decided to grant the applicant a residence permit. The applicant subsequently informed the Court that she had no objection to her application being struck out.     Observing that no special circumstances relating to respect for human rights as defined in the Convention required it to continue the examination of the application, the Court decided unanimously to strike it out of its list of cases. (The judgment is available only in English.)   ***   These summaries by the Registry do not bind the Court. The full texts of 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. More detailed information about the Court and its activities can be found on its Internet site. [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.