CEDH · PRESS;GENERAL;ENG — 6 mars 2003

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s94935B0F { width:389.85pt; display:inline-block } .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 } .s6E2BBA0B { width:66.08pt; display:inline-block } .s4CDF22F7 { width:158.81pt; display:inline-block } .s83755C62 { width:18.15pt; display:inline-block } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .s3964C3A3 { width:1.36pt; display:inline-block } .s901C2590 { width:56.7pt; display:inline-block } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } .s3133A7C8 { font-family:Arial; color:#0069d6 } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS     126   6.3.2003   Press release issued by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENTS CONCERNING Greece, Italy and Lithuania   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing the following three Chamber judgments, of which only the friendly-settlement judgment is final. [1]   Section 1   (1)     Ipsilanti v. Greece (application no. 56599/00)   Violation Article 6 § 1 Zoe Ipsilanti, a Greek national who was born in 1947 and lives in London, was the manager of the London branch of a Greek company based in Athens.   On 6 June 1986 the company manager lodged a complaint with the public prosecutor at the Athens Criminal Court, accusing the applicant of embezzlement. On 4 September 1995 the applicant was arrested at Athens Airport and taken into custody. On 10 May 2000 the Criminal Court of Appeal sentenced her to six years’ imprisonment and deprived her of her civic rights for five years. She appealed on points of law to the Court of Cassation, which found against her in a judgment of 5 February 2002. Relying on Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time), the applicant complained of the length of the criminal proceedings against her.   The Court noted that the period to be taken into consideration had begun on the date of the applicant’s arrest and had ended with the judgment of the Court of Cassation. It had therefore lasted six years and six months. Observing that the main delays had been attributable to the conduct of the judicial authorities, the Court considered that the length of the proceedings had been unreasonable. It accordingly held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article   6 § 1 and dismissed the applicant’s claim for just satisfaction. (The judgment is in French only.)   (2)     Ferretti v. Italy (no. 60660/00)   Friendly settlement   Maria Grazia Ferretti, an Italian national, complained about her prolonged inability – through lack of police assistance – to recover possession of her apartment and about the duration of the eviction proceedings. She relied on Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No 1. The case has been struck out following a friendly settlement in which 6,085 euros (EUR) is to be paid for any non-pecuniary and pecuniary damage and for costs and expenses. (The judgment is in English only.)   Section 3   (3)     Jasiūnienė v. Lithuania (no. 41510/98)   Violation Article 1 of Protocol No. 1   The applicant, Stasė Jasiūnienė, is a Lithuanian national, born in 1923 and living in Palanga.   Her late mother had owned a house in a tourist resort by the Baltic Sea. Following the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940, the land was nationalised and the house demolished in the 1960s. The Palanga City Council gave a decision on 25 September 1992 restituting the rights of the applicant and her sister to their late mother’s land. The decision was not implemented, however, and no compensation was offered.   In January 1995 the applicant brought proceedings against the local authority for recovery of the land. The District Court dismissed her action, but held that she should have been offered an alternative parcel of land in compensation. She appealed. The Regional Court quashed the District Court’s judgment on 3 April 1996 and referred the case back to the local authority. The applicant refused an offer of an alternative parcel of land. She instructed bailiffs to enforce the Regional Court’s judgment, but they were unable to do so. The County Governor warned her that if she did not choose an alternative parcel of land, she would be allotted one without her consent. On 31 December 1997 she complained to the Prime Minister that the alternative parcels of land on offer were located in the outskirts of Palanga and therefore of inferior value to her late mother’s plot. The applicant was informed on 30 August 1999 that she had failed to prove her mother’s ownership of the original plot and that no decision on compensation could be made until such proof was provided.   The applicant alleged that the nationalisation and destruction of her late mother’s property by the Soviet authorities and the failure by the Lithuanian authorities to return it or award her compensation breached Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property), taken alone and in conjunction with Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination). She complained, further, that the non-enforcement of the Regional Court’s judgment of 3 April 1996 breached Articles 6 (right to a fair hearing) and 13 (right to an effective remedy).   The European Court of Human Rights reiterated that the right to a court enshrined in Article 6 of the Convention would be illusory if a final binding judgment were allowed to remain inoperative to the detriment of one party. The Regional Court had not denied the merits of the applicant’s claim to the property, but merely required the authorities to choose the form of compensation to be made to her. By failing to execute that court’s judgment, the Lithuanian authorities had deprived Article 6 § 1 of the Convention of all useful effect. There had accordingly been a violation of that Article. It was unnecessary to rule on the complaint under Article 13 because the requirements of that provision were absorbed by those of Article 6 § 1.   The Court pointed out that it had no power to examine the applicant’s complaint about the nationalisation of her late mother’s land and the destruction of her house because it related to events prior to the date of entry into force of the Convention and Protocol No. 1 with regard to Lithuania. There had therefore been no violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, taken alone or in conjunction with Article 14 of the Convention, in that respect.   In respect of the applicant’s complaint that she could not recover the land in kind following the re-establishment of the Lithuanian State, the Court reiterated that the Convention did not guarantee, as such, the right to restitution of property. The hope that a long-extinguished property right might be revived could not be regarded as a “possession” for the purposes of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. It was clear that the applicant had no legitimate expectation of recovering the land under the applicable domestic legislation and that the authorities were only required to afford her compensation in the form of land or money. Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention was therefore inapplicable to this complaint. As Article 14 could not be relied on in isolation, it did not apply either. There had therefore been no violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, taken alone or in conjunction with Article 14.   Regarding the authorities’ failure to enforce the Regional Court’s judgment, the Court reiterated that a claim could amount to a possession for the purposes of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 if it was sufficiently established to be enforceable. The Regional Court’s judgment had provided the applicant with an enforceable claim amounting to a possession. Her inability to enforce that judgment constituted an interference with her right to peaceful enjoyment of her possession. The national authorities had prevented the applicant from obtaining the compensation she could reasonably have expected to receive and the Government had advanced no plausible justification for that interference.   The European Court of Human Rights held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights with regard to the non-enforcement of the Regional Court’s judgment and awarded the applicant 9,000 euros (EUR) for pecuniary damage. It did not, however, find that the applicant had been discriminated against on account of that violation. (The judgment is in English only.)     ***   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 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 in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. On 1 November 1998 a full-time Court was established, replacing the original two-tier system of a part-time Commission and Court. [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.