Published on 22 December 2025
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 28268/21
Meri DIMZOVSKA
against North Macedonia
lodged on 21 May 2021
communicated on 1 December 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns allegedly inconsistent decisions taken by the Supreme Court in civil proceedings for compensation against the applicant as a co-debtor.
The applicant’s late mother and aunts concluded a contract with a certain M.N. allowing him to build residential buildings on a plot of land which they owned. After that, M.N. started selling apartments to third persons. It was established in subsequent criminal proceedings against him, in which he was convicted for fraudulent activities, that M.N. had had no intention of finalising the residential buildings. Following M.N.’s conviction, some of the apartment buyers lodged compensation claims against M.N., the applicant (as an heir to her late mother) and her aunts.
In one set of proceedings initiated only against the applicant’s mother and aunts, with a final decision taken by the Supreme Court on 12 July 2012, the domestic courts found that the defendants could not be held liable for the damage caused. They found that the applicant’s mother and aunts had not authorised M.N. to undertake any obligations on their behalf and that the buyer had made the payments only to M.N.
The proceedings which are the subject of the application before the Court were initiated against M.N., the applicant’s mother (later the applicant as an heir) and her aunts. After one remittal and upon the instructions of the Supreme Court, the lower courts found the applicant and her aunts liable as co-debtors, concluding that they had authorised M.N. to sell apartments and had received payments from the buyers based on that authorisation. Addressing the complaint about the consistency of that decision with the existing case-law, the Court of Appeal stated that its judgment was in line with the Supreme Court’s instructions given upon the remittal; it also relied on two judgments of 21 March 2013 where the Supreme Court had come to the same conclusion. The Supreme Court confirmed the findings of the lower courts and affirmed that the judgments were in line with its instructions given upon the remittal. The final decision was adopted on 26 November 2020.
The applicant complains about the lack of legal certainty due to the conflicting decisions adopted by the Supreme Court and about insufficient reasons to justify its departure from the decision of 12 July 2012. She invokes Article 6 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Was the principle of legal certainty, contained in Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, complied with by the Supreme Court in its decision of 26 November 2020, given the decision previously taken by that court on 12 July 2012 in another set of proceedings concerning the applicant (see Lupeni Greek Catholic Parish and Others v. Romania [GC], no. 76943/11, §§ 116-34, 29 November 2016; Balažoski v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, no. 45117/08, §§ 29-30, 25 April 2013; and, mutatis mutandis, Stoilkovska v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, no. 29784/07, § 47 and 49, 18 July 2013)?
2. Did the Supreme Court provide sufficient reasons for the alleged departure from its case-law (see Atanasovski v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, no. 36815/03, §§ 36-39, 14 January 2010; Deryan v. Turkey, no. 41721/04, §§ 30-34, 21 July 2015; and Meli and Swinkels Family Brewers N.V. v. Albania, nos. 41373/21 and 48801/21, §§ 68-69, 16 July 2024)?
The parties are invited to submit examples of any pertinent domestic case-law regarding the relevant legal matter issued before and after the proceedings in question.