CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 12 mai 2009

.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 } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; 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 } .s3DC36BA9 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sC7EAD8B { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt }   387 12.05.09   Press release issued by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENT KORELC v. SLOVENIA   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment [1] in the case of Korelc v. Slovenia (application no. 28456/03). The case concerned Mr Korelc’s complaint that he was denied the right to take over the tenancy of a flat after the death of the tenancy owner, A.Z., a friend with whom he had lived for about three years and for whom he had provided daily care.   The Court held unanimously that:   there had been a violation of Article 6 (right to a fair hearing) of the European Convention on Human Rights, on account of the excessively long proceedings concerning Mr Korelc’s tenancy rights to the flat he had shared with A.Z.; there had been a violation of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy), on account of the lack of an effective remedy in Slovenian law against excessive length of proceedings; and, Mr Korelc’s complaint under Articles 8 (right to respect for private and family life) and 14 (prohibition of discrimination) , namely that the authorities had discriminated against him by denying him the right to take over the tenancy of the flat, was declared inadmissible , in particular because Mr Korelc’s situation could not be compared to that of a married or unmarried couple, a homosexual civil partnership or close family members, all of whom enjoyed the right to take over a tenancy after the death of its holder.   Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded Mr Korelc 3,000   euros   (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage. ( The judgment is available only in English. )   1.     Principal facts   The applicant, Janez Korelc, is a Slovenian national who was born in 1946 and lives in Ljibljana.   In 1990 having divorced his wife a few years earlier, Mr Korelc moved in with an 86-year-old man, A. Z., who was renting a one-room flat from Ljubljana Municipality. In 1992, Mr Korelc registered his permanent residence at A.Z.’s address; A.Z. concluded a new lease contract with the Municipality which mentioned Mr Korelc as a person who could use the flat and who was providing him with daily care.   In April 1993 A.Z. died. In February 1995, Ljubljana Municipality informed Mr Korelc that he was not entitled to take over the flat’s tenancy and was required to vacate it within three months. Later that month Mr Korelc brought proceedings against the Municipality seeking the right to succeed to the tenancy following A.Z.’s death. While the proceedings were ongoing, Mr Korelc continued to live in the flat, paid monthly rent and, in 1999, had the flat refurbished.   In July 2000 and September 2001, the domestic courts dismissed Mr Korelc’s claim finding that he was neither A.Z.’s spouse, nor a close relative or a person forming with him a long-term relationship as required by domestic law (the 1991 Housing Act) for tenancy to be transferred following a death. The courts referred to unmarried couples as being in a “long-term relationship”, a situation Mr Korelc had not claimed existed between him and A.Z.. Consequently, the two men had cohabitated in an “economic community”, which did not allow a tenancy transfer.   Mr Korelc requested the Public Prosecutor to bring proceedings for legality; his request was rejected, and so was his subsequent complaint before the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court stated expressly that the sex of the two partners was irrelevant in the situation at stake, and it was the type of their relationship that could not allow for the tenancy transfer.   In March 2004 the Ljubljana Municipality started enforcement proceedings aiming to evict Mr Korelc from the flat. In June 2005 he requested that the execution of the eviction order be postponed until such time as the European Court of Human Rights had delivered its judgment in his case; in March 2006 the Municipality made the same request, which was granted by the domestic court in April 2008.   2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 19 August 2003 and was examined together for admissibility and merits on 29 August 2006.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Josep Casadevall (Andora), President, Elisabet Fura-Sandström (Sweden), Boštjan M. Zupančič (Slovenia), Alvina Gyulumyan (Armenia), Egbert Myjer (Netherlands), Luis López Guerra (Spain), Ann Power (Ireland), judges ,   and Stanley Naismith , Deputy Section Registrar ,   3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Complaints   Relying on Articles 8 and 14, Mr Korelc complained that, after the death of his friend, he was denied the right to take over the tenancy of the flat they shared because they had the been of the same sex. Relying also on Article   6   §   1 and Article 13 he complained about the excessive length of the proceedings against Ljubljana Municipality concerning his tenancy rights.   Decision of the Court   Article 8 and Article 14   The Court noted that, since 2005, the Registration of Same Sex Civil Partnership Act gave the right to succeed to a tenancy to a same-sex partner of a deceased tenant. Mr Korelc, however, had not submitted that his relationship had been of a homosexual nature. Nor had he asserted that he had been discriminated against on the ground of his sexual orientation. While he maintained that he had been unable to succeed to the tenancy because he and A.Z. had been of the same sex, the Court found that Mr Korelc’s claim had been ultimately dismissed by the domestic courts because his relationship with A.Z. had represented a relationship of economic dependency rather than a long-term relationship, and not because he and A.Z. had been of the same sex. In addition, the Slovenian Constitutional Court had said that rejecting Mr Korelc’s request on the sole ground that the two men were of the same sex would have been contrary to the Slovenian Constitution; it had also stated expressly that a relationship of economic dependency could not be equated with a long-term relationship irrespective of whether it had been constituted of persons of the same or of the opposite sex. Gender had therefore not been a decisive element in the rejection of his tenancy claim. Consequently, he had not been discriminated against on the grounds of either his sexual orientation or his gender.   The Court found that Mr Korelc’s situation had not been comparable to that of a married or unmarried couple, a homosexual civil partnership or close family members, all of which enjoyed the right to take over a tenancy after the death of its holder. The Court thus held that the difference in treatment to which Mr Korelc had been subjected had not been discriminatory and consequently his complaint under Article 8 and 14 had to be rejected as inadmissible.   Article 6 § 1   The Court found that the proceedings, before the courts and those related to the enforcement of the judgment, which had lasted approximately nine years in all, had been excessively long, in violation of Article 6 § 1.   Article 13   The Court, in line with its earlier case law on the matter, held that domestic law did not provide for a remedy to challenge effectively excessively long court and execution proceedings, and therefore held that there had been a violation of that Article.     ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Press contacts Stefano Piedimonte (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 04) Tracey Turner-Tretz (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30) Paramy Chanthalangsy (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 28 30) Kristina Pencheva-Malinowski (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 70) Céline Menu-Lange (telephone : 00 33 (0)3 90 21 58 77)   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 Convention, 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] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.