SECOND SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 73016/17
Emil ANGELESKI and Others
against North Macedonia
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 5 September 2023 as a Committee composed of:
Lorraine Schembri Orland, President,
Jovan Ilievski,
Diana Sârcu, judges,
and Dorothee von Arnim, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application no. 73016/17 against the Republic of North Macedonia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 5 October 2017 by the applicants listed in the appended table (“the applicants”), who were represented by Ms J. Tasevska, a lawyer practising in Skopje;
the decision to give notice of the complaints under Article 6 of the Convention regarding sufficient reasoning of domestic decisions and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention concerning restitution proceedings to the Government of the Republic of North Macedonia (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms D. Djonova, and to declare the remainder of the application inadmissible;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The application concerns the applicants’ complaint that they were awarded pecuniary compensation in restitution proceedings for expropriated land in an amount calculated on the basis of a rate applicable to agricultural land (земјоделско земјиште) rather than at a rate applicable to constructible land (градежно земјиште).
2. Relying on decisions of 1952 and 1958, which dealt with the expropriation of parts of two parcels of land including the land owned by the applicants’ predecessors, as well as a certificate of 2001 related to the records of the entries of the parcels in the cadastre, the Restitution Commission (“the Commission”) established that the land, at the time that it was expropriated, had been agricultural and it awarded the applicants (or their predecessors) compensation in an amount calculated under the applicable rules. The Administrative Court and, after one remittal, the Higher Administrative Court upheld the Commission’s decision.
3. The authorities did not give weight to evidence adduced by the applicants or their predecessors pertaining to the alleged construction nature of the land, including a court decision of 1946 “not to seize” the parcels as agricultural land; a decision of 1952 regarding the construction of buildings on land including that expropriated from the applicants’ predecessors; decisions adopted in the 1950s allocating parts of the parcels to third persons for the construction of residential buildings; building licences of 1954 and 1955 in respect of specific plots within the parcels; a certificate of 1958 attesting that the parcels were construction land; a compensation decision of 1964 awarding a former owner compensation calculated on the basis of a rate applicable to construction land; and a restitution decision of 2004 concerning part of the same parcel, awarding compensation in an amount appropriate for construction land. In other restitution proceedings concerning parts of the same parcels expropriated with the 1958 decisions, the Higher Administrative Court eventually awarded compensation in an amount appropriate for construction land.
4. The applicants complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that the amount awarded in the restitution proceedings had been based on an error of fact, namely that the land at the time of expropriation had been agricultural. They further complained under Article 6 of the Convention that the restitution proceedings had been unfair.
THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT
A. Alleged violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention
5. The relevant principles regarding notably the concept of “possessions” within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 are summarised in Stojanovski and Others v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (no. 14174/09, §§ 46-50, 23 October 2014).
6. Section 37 of the Restitution Act provided that the amount of compensation was to be calculated on the basis of the state of the property at the time of expropriation.
7. The Court notes that one of the 1952 decisions specified that the expropriated land concerned a “field, meadow, vineyard and orchard”, that is, agricultural land. The 1958 decisions stated that the plots were “fields” (нива), a term also indicating agricultural land. Accordingly, the Commission’s finding, confirmed by administrative courts at two levels of jurisdiction, that the expropriated land was agricultural cannot be considered arbitrary or manifestly unreasonable (compare also Radomilja and Others v. Croatia [GC], nos. 37685/10 and 22768/12, § 149, 20 March 2018).
8. The evidence submitted by the applicants (see paragraph 3 above) concerned the subsequent compensation proceedings or the parcels in general, and not the land in question or the intended use of the parcels. None of the documents submitted expressly identified the land expropriated from the applicants’ predecessors as construction land at the time of expropriation. Lastly, given the specificity of the facts, the domestic courts could not have known the outcome of all related proceedings (see paragraph 3 above). They consistently applied the statutory criterion pertaining to the state which the land was in at the time of the expropriation (see, by contrast, Stojanovski, cited above, § 55). The Court cannot therefore establish with certainty that the documents concerned identical situations to those of the applicants or their predecessors.
9. Having regard to the information before it and in view of its limited power to deal with alleged errors of fact or law committed by the domestic courts, the Court cannot substitute its view for that of the Administrative and Higher Administrative Courts concerning the character of the expropriated land at the time of the expropriation (compare also Jantner v. Slovakia, no. 39050/97, § 32, 4 March 2003, and Taneva and Others v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (dec.), no. 11363/03, 10 November 2009). Furthermore, its function is not to compare different decisions of national courts, even if given in apparently similar proceedings; it must respect the independence of those courts (see, in the context of Article 6, Nejdet Şahin and Perihan Şahin v. Turkey [GC], no. 13279/05, § 50, 20 October 2011).
10. The applicants’ claim for compensation in the amount appropriate for construction land was therefore not sufficiently established in domestic law so as to be regarded as an “asset” and therefore “possession” protected by Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. Accordingly, this part of the application is incompatible ratione materiae with the provisions of the Convention within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 § 4.
B. Alleged violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention
11. The Administrative Courts dealt with the applicants’ argument that the plots constituted construction land and dismissed it as ill-founded. The domestic courts thus addressed the applicants’ core argument concerning the state of the land at the time of the expropriation, which was decisive for the outcome of the proceedings (compare also Ruiz Torija v. Spain, 9 December 1994, § 30, Series A no. 303‑A). The fact that the domestic courts did not explicitly elaborate on the evidence adduced by the applicants (see paragraph 3 above) does not change the Court’s finding that their reasoning was sufficient to comply with Article 6 of the Convention.
12. The complaint under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention is therefore manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected as inadmissible pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 28 September 2023.
Dorothee von Arnim Lorraine Schembri Orland
Deputy Registrar President
Appendix
List of applicants:
No.
Applicant’s Name
Year of birth/registration
Nationality
Place of residence
1.
Emil ANGELESKI
1941
Macedonian/ citizen of the Republic of North Macedonia
Skopje
2.
Vasile BOGESKI
1952
Skopje
3.
Mihail HADZI-ANGELESKI
1950
Skopje
4.
Petar IVANOVSKI
1943
Skopje