FIFTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 15342/14
Matanat ASADULLAYEVA
against Azerbaijan
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 29 September 2020 as a Committee composed of:
Ganna Yudkivska, President,
Lado Chanturia,
Anja Seibert-Fohr, judges,
and Liv Tigerstedt, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 13 February 2014,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicants,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
FACTS AND PROCEDURE
1. The applicant, Mrs Matanat Mikayil gizi Asadullayeva, was born in 1961 and lives in Baku.
2. She was represented by Mr R. Gasimov, a lawyer based in Baku.
3. On 24 May 2002, the applicant bought a flat in a residential building in Baku from a certain R.G. and, by an order of the District Executive Authority of 5 July 2002, she obtained, under the state housing policy, an occupancy voucher (yaşayış sahəsi orderi) to this flat.
4. When R.G. left the flat, the applicant revealed that S.B. and her family had been living in this flat. They were internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Shusha, a city under the control of Armenian military forces following the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.
5. When the applicant found out that her flat was occupied by people unknown to her, she requested that they vacate the premises. However, S.B. and her family refused to do so.
6. The applicant brought an action, requesting the court to evict S.B. and her family from the flat.
7. On 31 July 2003 the Binagadi District Court rejected the applicant’s request stating that S.B. and her family could not be evicted from the flat in accordance with the Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 200 of 24 December 1999 (“IDP Settlement Regulations”).
8. On 30 October 2003 the Court of Appeal quashed the district court’s judgment stating that the applicant was the owner of the flat and ordered the eviction of S.B. and her family from the applicant’s flat.
9. On 13 February 2004 the Supreme Court upheld the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
10. On 30 September 2004 the Plenum of the Supreme Court reopened the proceedings and quashed the Supreme Court’s decision of 13 February 2004 and the Court of Appeal’s judgment of the of 30 October 2003. The Plenum remitted the case to the Court of Appeal.
11. On 3 December 2004 the Court of Appeal upheld that the applicant was the owner of the flat and ordered the eviction of S.B. and her family. However, the court further held that the execution of the judgment should be postponed until the liberation of the territories occupied by the Republic of Armenia (where the IDPs in question fled from).
12. By its final decision of 6 November 2007 the Supreme Court upheld the judgment of 3 December 2004 of the Court of Appeal.
13. On 12 December 2008 the applicant obtained a certificate on the right to ownership of the flat.
14. On an unspecified date, the applicant lodged an additional cassation appeal with the Plenum of the Supreme Court asking that the proceedings be reopened. On 15 November 2013 the Plenum of the Supreme Court did not admit this appeal on account of non-compliance with formal requirements (lack of valid application form as set out in Article 435 of the Code of Civil Procedure).
15. The applicant’s complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 concerning the non-enforcement of the domestic decision were communicated to the Azerbaijani Government (“the Government”).
THE LAW
16. The Government submitted that the applicant’s case was similar to the case of Akimova v. Azerbaijan (no. 19853/03, 27 September 2007) and that the applicant had failed to lodge the application with the Court within the six month time-limit set by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention. She therefore had failed to comply with the six-month rule.
17. The applicant maintained her complaint.
18. The Court reiterates that, in accordance with Article 35 § 1 of the Convention, it may only examine complaints in respect of which domestic remedies have been exhausted and which have been submitted within six months from the date of the “final” domestic decision. The Court recalls that the six-month period runs from the date of the final domestic decision after effective and sufficient domestic remedies have been used (see e.g. Bethlen v. Hungary, no. 26692/95, Commission decision of 10 April 1997, unreported).
19. The Court notes that in the present case the execution of the judgment to evict the IDPs illegally occupying the applicant’s flat was postponed in the judgment itself, notably, in the judgment of the 3 December 2004 of the Court of Appeal which was upheld by the decision of the Supreme Court of 6 November of 2007 (see Akimova v. Azerbaijan, cited above).
20. The Court observes that the judgment concerning the applicant’s case became final, and the relevant civil proceedings were terminated, upon the delivery of the Supreme Court’s decision of 6 November 2007. Thereafter, there was no higher judicial instance directly accessible to the applicant (see Babayev v. Azerbaijan (dec.), no. 36454/03, 27 May 2004 and Ismayilov v. Azerbaijan, no. 4439/04, §§ 26-41, 17 January 2008).
21. Consequently, at the latest, the date triggering the start of the six‑month time-limit in respect of the complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention about the alleged breach of non-enforcement of the domestic decision was 6 November 2007. The applicant lodged her application with the Court more than six years later, on 13 February 2014.
22. In view of the forgoing considerations, the Court concludes that the applicant has not complied with the six-month rule laid down in Article 35 § 1 of the Convention (contrast Akimova, cited above). Her complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention must therefore be rejected under Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention for non-compliance with the six‑month time-limit.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 22 October 2020.
Liv TigerstedtGanna Yudkivska
Acting Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy