CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 22 août 2006

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Only the friendly-settlement judgments are final [1] .   Repetitive cases [2] and length-of-proceedings cases, with the Court’s main finding indicated, can be found at the end of the press release.     Violation of Article 6 § 1 (fairness)   Violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 Beshiri and Others v. Albania (application no 7352/03) The applicants, Njazi Beshiri, Liri Kaba, Xhilda Koka and Sair Preza, are Albanian nationals who were born in 1931, 1948, 1954 and 1944 respectively and live in Tirana (Albania) and Varese (Italy) respectively.   The applicants’ father owned a villa and two adjacent plots of land. The villa fell into disrepair and the State granted the applicants’ father a compulsory loan for its renovation. As he failed to repay the debt, the villa was nationalised.   In 1996, under the Property Restitution and Compensation Act, the applicants lodged a claim with the Tirana Commission on Property Restitution and Compensation. The Commission held that the nationalisation of the applicants’ father’s villa had been illegal and awarded the applicants the villa and one of the plots of land.   On 11 April 2001 Tirana Court of Appeal declared the Commission’s decision null and void. It held that the nationalisation of the applicants’ father’s villa had not been unlawful and, consequently, the applicants could not benefit from the process of restitution of property. It upheld the applicants’ property rights over the two adjacent plots of land, however, and decided that they had a right to receive compensation.   The applicants maintained that they did not receive any compensation.   The applicants complained in particular about the authorities’ failure to comply with the Tirana Court of Appeal’s judgment. They relied on Articles 6 § 1 (right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time), 13 (right to an effective remedy), Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) and Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the European Convention on Human Rights.   The Court considered that the problem raised by the applicants had to be considered in the context of the process of transition in Albania from a communist regime to one compatible with the rule of law and a market economy. Such a process was naturally fraught with difficulties. The Court had already held in that connection that the Convention could not be interpreted as imposing any general obligation on the State concerned to restore property which was transferred to them before they had ratified the Convention. Nor was there any general obligation under the Convention to establish legal procedures in which restitution of property might be sought. However, once a State had decided to establish legal procedures of such a kind, it could not be exempted from the obligation to honour all relevant guarantees provided for by the Convention, in particular concerning Article 6 § 1.   The Court noted that the judgment in question was not enforced for over five years, a situation for which the Albanian Government had not provided any plausible justification. Citing a lack of State funds, as the Government had done, did not justify the situation. The European Court of Human Rights therefore held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article   6 §   1 and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.   The Court considered that it was not necessary to examine the complaint separately under Article 13 and declared the remainder of the application inadmissible. The applicants were awarded, jointly, 120,000   euros (EUR) in respect of pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage and EUR 6,000 for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in English.)     Repetitive cases   No violation of Article 14 No violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 Barrow v. United Kingdom (no. 42735/02) Pearson v. United Kingdom (no. 8374/03) Walker v. United Kingdom (no. 37212/02) Joyce Barrow, was born in 1943 and lives in Wrexham. Sydney George Pearson was born in 1942 and lives in Birmingham. Timothy Walker was born in 1942 and lives in Shipston Stour in Warwickshire. They are all British nationals.   Mrs Barrow complained that her invalidity benefit stopped when she reached 60 years of age whereas a man in the same position would have received that benefit until he was 65. While women could claim their State pension at 60 and were exempt from national insurance contributions if they continued to work, Mr Pearson complained the he could not collect his State pension until the age of 65 and Mr Walker complained that he was obliged to pay national insurance contributions after reaching the age of 60. The applicants all relied on Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No.   1 (protection of property). The Court reiterated that the alleged discrimination resulted from a difference in the age when men and women were entitled to a State pension in the United Kingdom. In the light of the original justification for the difference (to correct financial inequality between the sexes), the slowly evolving nature of the change in women’s working lives, and in the absence of a common standard among European States, the Court found that the United Kingdom could not be criticised for not having started earlier on the road towards a single pensionable age or for introducing the reforms slowly and in stages, especially given the extremely far reaching implications for women and the economy in general. It therefore held that there had been no violation of Article 14 or Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 in any of the three cases. (The judgments are available only in English.)   Length-of-proceedings cases   In the following cases the applicants complained in particular of the excessive length of civil proceedings, relying on Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time). The applicant in Chyb v. Poland also relied on Article 13 (right to an effective remedy).     Violation of Article 6 § 1 (length) Chyb v. Poland (no. 20838/02)   Violation of Article 13     Violation of Article 6 § 1 (length) Majchrzak v. Poland (no. 1524/02) Nierojewska v. Poland (no. 77835/01) Nowak and Zajączkowksi v. Poland (no.12174/02) Rišková v. Slovakia (no. 58174/00)     ***   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 ).   Press Contacts   Emma Hellyer (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15) Stéphanie Klein (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54) Beverley Jacobs (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 54 21)   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. [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] In which the Court has reached the same findings as in similar cases raising the same issues under the European Convention on Human Rights.