GNIAZDOWSKA-SAPIEHA v. POLAND

FIRST SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 18887/11
Elżbieta GNIAZDOWSKA-SAPIEHA
against Poland

The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting on 9 July 2024 as a Chamber composed of:

 Alena Poláčková, President,
 Krzysztof Wojtyczek,
 Péter Paczolay,
 Gilberto Felici,
 Erik Wennerström,
 Raffaele Sabato,
 Lorraine Schembri Orland, judges,
and Liv Tigerstedt, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 9 March 2011,

Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

1.  The applicant, Ms Elżbieta Gniazdowska-Sapieha, was a Polish national who was born in 1939 and lived in Warsaw. She was represented before the Court by Mr M. Moraczewski, a lawyer practising in Toruń. She died on 29 August 2011 (see paragraphs 48-53 below).

2.  The Polish Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr J. Sobczak of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The circumstances of the case

3.  The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.

4.  A.G., the applicant’s grandfather, was the owner of a property (“the property”) in Toruń consisting of a tenement house (kamienica) and an outbuilding (oficyna). He died in 1937, and the applicant’s parents were killed in September 1939.

5.  The property was in the hands of Soviet troops and was later taken over by the Toruń municipal authorities.

6.  In 1946 the court appointed guardians for the applicant and her sister.

7.  On 16 May 1947 the Toruń Municipal Court (Sąd Grodzki – “the Municipal Court”) issued a decision declaring that the applicant and her sister had inherited A.G.’s property.

8.  On 7 July 1948 the Municipal Court held that the applicant and her sister were entitled to recover possession of the property. The court referred to Article 16 of the 1946 Decree on abandoned and formerly German properties (dekret o majątkach opuszczonych i poniemieckich – “the 1946 Decree”).

9.  The applicant and her sister did not recover possession of the property.

10.  On 17 September 1956 the applicant and her sister asked the municipality of Toruń for the property to be returned to them. By a letter of 22 November 1956, the municipality confirmed that they could recover the property on the basis of the Municipal Court’s decision of 7 July 1948. It further stated that since no work had been carried out on the property during or after the Second World War, there were no debts to be repaid to the municipality. Only the costs of managing the property were to be settled at the time of its return. The applicant was also advised to which department of the municipal office further correspondence should be addressed.

11.  The applicant submitted that the letter of 22 November 1956 had never been served on her and her sister, and that she had obtained it from the State archives on an unspecified later date.

12.  In or around 1958 the applicant emigrated to France for family and economic reasons.

13.  In 1976 the applicant’s sister died. The applicant was declared her sole heir.

14.  On 29 March 1979 the Toruń town hall issued a decision declaring that the property should be regarded as abandoned property within the meaning of Article 34 of the 1946 Decree. The town hall established that A.G. had owned the property and that it was not possible to determine the date of his death. It stated that the property had been managed since 1945 by the municipal housing and utilities company. In view of the above, it found that the property constituted abandoned property within the meaning of Article 34 of the 1946 Decree and that it had therefore been acquired ex lege by the State Treasury.

15.  On the basis of that decision, an entry in the land register was made to confirm the State Treasury’s ownership of the property.

16.  In the years 1979 to 2000 the municipal authorities, acting on behalf of the State Treasury and later on behalf of the municipality of Toruń, divided the tenement house into a number of separate flats and sold seven of them to the tenants.

17.  On 16 December 2002 the applicant applied to the Toruń Local Government Board of Appeal (Samorządowe Kolegium Odwoławcze – “the Board of Appeal”) to have the Toruń town hall’s decision of 29 March 1979 declared null and void.

18.  On 31 August 2006 the Board of Appeal quashed an earlier decision by the same authority of 14 June 2006 and allowed the applicant’s request. It held that the decision of 29 March 1979 had been issued in flagrant breach of the law (wydana z rażącym naruszeniem prawa) under Article 156 § 1 (2) of the Code of Administrative Procedure, as the municipal authorities had failed to take into consideration the Municipal Court’s decision of 7 July 1948 granting possession of the property to the applicant and her sister (see paragraph 8 above). The Board of Appeal held that, in the light of the Municipal Court’s decision, the property could not have been regarded as abandoned within the meaning of the 1946 Decree. The State Treasury should not therefore have acquired the property on the basis of Article 34 of the Decree. That decision became final.

19.  On 18 and 24 July 2007 the municipality of Toruń restored possession (wydanie w posiadanie) of the part of the property in question to the applicant. The returned property consisted of the outbuilding and five flats in the tenement house which had not been sold. The applicant received rent from the tenants and paid charges, but no entry in the land register was made in her name.

20.  On 21 August 2007 the applicant instituted administrative proceedings under Article 160 of the Code of Administrative Procedure, claiming compensation in the amount of 4,229,271.92 Polish zlotys for damage resulting from the municipality’s decision to sell some of the flats to third parties.

21.  On 31 January 2008 the Board of Appeal refused to award compensation. It was of the view that the applicant had not sustained any damage as a result of the 1979 decision and the quashing of that decision on 31 August 1976. It further found that between 1945 and 2002 the only action taken by her had been to request the return of the property in 1956. Having regard to the letter of 22 November 1956, the Board of Appeal established that the applicant had had legal title enabling her to recover the property and that the authorities had recognised this and had been ready to transfer the building to her, but that this had not happened because of her inaction. It also found that the expenditure incurred in maintaining the property since 1945, first by the State Treasury and later by the municipality, was likely to have exceeded the amount of compensation claimed by the applicant.

22.  On 12 March 2008 the applicant brought a civil action for compensation against the State Treasury in the Toruń Regional Court (“the Regional Court”), seeking the same amount of compensation in respect of the same damage.

23.  On 27 January 2011 the court dismissed the applicant’s compensation claim. Having regard to the outcome of the proceedings for adverse possession (see paragraphs 32 and 47 below), it held that the applicant was not the owner of the property and therefore could not claim to have sustained any damage. She did not appeal against the first-instance judgment, which subsequently became final.

24.  On an unspecified date in 2008 the State Treasury, represented by the General Counsel (Prokuratoria Generalna), brought proceedings before the Toruń District Court (“the District Court”), claiming that it had acquired ownership of the property by adverse possession. The applicant, the municipality and owners of the flats in the tenement house were parties to the proceedings. The State Treasury claimed that it had been in independent possession (posiadanie samoistne) of the property, which had led to the acquisition of ownership by adverse possession after a period of thirty years.

25.  The applicant argued that the State had never been in independent possession that could have led to the acquisition of title by adverse possession.

26.  On 3 June 2009 the District Court allowed the claim and held that the State Treasury had acquired ownership of the property on 29 July 1978. Firstly, it held that the institution of adverse possession, regulated by Article 172 of the Civil Code and, as regards the earlier period, the 1946 Decree on rights in rem, provided for the acquisition of title by a person who was not the owner as a result of a de facto and continuous exercise of ownership rights throughout the period prescribed by law. Two requirements had to be met simultaneously for such acquisition to become effective, namely (i) the expiry of the statutory period of possession and (ii) the independent nature of possession. The length of the necessary period of possession depended on whether the possessor had acquired possession in good or bad faith.

27.  The facts of the case were not disputed by the parties; rather, the gist of the dispute was the nature of the control exercised by the State over the property. The District Court stated that Article 339 of the Civil Code established the presumption that the actual possessor of a property was in independent possession. The applicant had not rebutted this presumption. In the circumstances of the case, the District Court found that the State Treasury had been an independent possessor of the property. It pointed out that in 1945 the property had been designated as accommodation for employees of the new university in Toruń. It had been the municipal authorities, exercising control over the property for the State Treasury, that had carried out renovations, derived profits from the property, decided on important matters for residents, rented premises and finally sold flats in the tenement house. Contrary to the applicant’s submissions, these actions could not be regarded as management of the property. The actions of the State Treasury objectively demonstrated that the State had been in independent possession. In addition, the residents of the property, and currently owners of some of the flats, had regarded the State Treasury as the property’s owner.

28.  The District Court pointed out that the State Treasury had not obtained possession of the property as a result of administrative decisions or other acts of a public-law nature. The court established that the applicant had not taken any action to recover the property until the early 2000s, even though there had been no objective obstacles to her doing so since 1945. It noted that after the Second World War, many tenement houses in Toruń had remained in private ownership.

29.  The court concluded that the State Treasury had been in independent possession of the property in bad faith since at least 29 July 1948, that is, the date on which the decision of 7 July 1948 had become final. The thirty‑year period of adverse possession provided for by the law, had expired on 29 July 1978, and on that date the State Treasury had acquired ownership of the property.

30.  The applicant lodged an appeal. She argued that the District Court had erred in accepting that the State Treasury had been in independent possession of the property. She referred to the municipal authorities’ letter of 22 November 1956 and the decision of 29 March 1979 to justify her arguments that the State had only been acting as the property’s manager and not as its independent possessor. She further referred to the restitution of the property by the mayor of Toruń in 2007, a fact which had been disregarded by the lower court. The restitution of the property demonstrated a lack of possession by the municipality (the successor to the State Treasury) as property owner.

31.  In its reply to the applicant’s appeal, the State Treasury argued, inter alia, that the 1979 decision had not nationalised the property, since on the date it had been issued the property had already been in the ownership of the State.

32.  On 21 October 2009 the Regional Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal, agreeing with the lower court’s assessment that the State Treasury had been in independent possession of the property since 29 July 1948. The court held as follows:

“The key to deciding this case was to establish the nature of [the State Treasury’s] possession of the property in question. The [D]istrict [C]ourt correctly found that [the State Treasury] had been in independent possession of the property since 2  July 1948 ... Contrary to the applicant’s argument, the State Treasury’s possession ‘as owner’ had not originated from the act of a public authority. The State Treasury had lost such [public-law] nature of possession in 1948, when the Municipal Court granted possession to the applicant and her sister. However, since they had not recovered possession, the property had remained in the de facto possession of the State Treasury. The applicant had not demonstrated that the State Treasury had refused to return the property and, accordingly, the State’s possession had not resulted from the State’s exercise of public power (imperium), but had been a possession within the meaning of civil law (dominium). Where the State acted in the exercise of its imperium, an owner was prevented from asserting his rights under civil law. However, such a situation had not arisen in the applicant’s case. The State Treasury had not acted in the exercise of its imperium when it had begun using someone else’s property, not on the basis of an administrative decision, but by way of de facto actions (czynność faktyczna), even if those actions had been undertaken arbitrarily or in bad faith (referring to the Supreme Court’s judgment of 31 May 2006, no. IV CSK 149/05). In consequence, the presumption that the actual possessor (the State Treasury) was in independent possession of the property had begun to operate in accordance with Article 298 of the 1946 Decree on rights in rem, and subsequently Article 339 of the Civil Code. This had given the State Treasury the possibility to acquire the property through adverse possession (referring to the Supreme Court’s decision of 24 May 2005, no. V CK 664/04).

The burden of rebutting the presumption of independent possession rested with the applicant, who did not successfully challenge it. In the view of the regional court, the letter of 22 November 1956 was not sufficient to establish that the State Treasury’s possession had lost its independent nature. The State Treasury, aware that it did not own the property in view of the lack of any interest in the property by the applicant and her sister, had acted as owner and exercised all the attributes of ownership throughout the period of its possession. The [State Treasury] managed the entire property, dealt with the issues of the tenants living in the property, carried out costly renovations and expenses and divided the flats and sold them. The fact that [the applicant] applied for the return of the property does not lead to a different conclusion since she had not taken any further steps aimed at recovering the property. On reaching the age of majority, the applicant could have recovered the property herself. She had not made use of this right and had left Poland, returning to the country after several decades. Her stay abroad, motivated by family and economic reasons, had not constituted an obstacle to recovering possession of the property. Actually, an owner did not have to manage a property in person, but could delegate this right to a third party. However, the applicant admitted that until the year 2000 she had not taken any action with a view to recovering possession of the property and did not explain her inaction. Her argument that the letter of 22 November 1956 had not been served on her did not sufficiently justify her passive behaviour.”

33.  The Regional Court dismissed the applicant’s argument that the 1979 decision indicated a lack of independent possession by the State Treasury prior to it being issued. On the contrary, it had been the State acting in that capacity that had led to the 1979 decision being issued in an attempt to formally regulate the legal status of the property and sell some of the flats, which had happened a few months after the decision had been issued. In fact, the period of the State’s possession prior to the 1979 decision had been sufficient for the acquisition of ownership. The court held:

“It should be noted here that the State Treasury’s possession ‘as owner’ did not originate from the act of a public authority (administrative decision) the invalidity of which was subsequently established ex tunc. In the present case, that possession had already existed before the decision [of 1979] was taken.”

34.  In conclusion, the Regional Court found that following the date on which the decision of 7 July 1948 had become final and when the owners had not recovered the property, the State’s possession had been transformed into independent possession. The State had acted with regard to the property as a party to private‑law relations. The court found that the State had been in independent possession of the property for the required period of thirty years, which had ended on 29 July 1978. Accordingly, on that date the State had become the owner of the property.

35.  The court held that, in those circumstances, the return of the property to the applicant in 2007 had no relevance for its assessment of the nature of possession. The applicant had taken possession of the property from the municipality of Toruń and not from the State, and this had not occurred until nearly thirty years after the property had been acquired by adverse possession. In its view, the return of the property in 2007 could not be regarded as a lack of intention to possess the property as owner.

36.  On 5 January 2010 the applicant lodged a cassation appeal with the Supreme Court.

37.  On 9 September 2010 the Supreme Court refused to entertain the applicant’s cassation appeal finding that she had failed to establish that her case raised a significant legal issue.

38.  On an unspecified date following the second-instance court’s judgment the municipality of Toruń instituted proceedings against the applicant for release of the property before the District Court. On 30 November 2010 the applicant released the property to the municipality. On that basis, the District Court discontinued the proceedings for release of the property on 22 December 2010.

RELEVANT LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND PRACTICE

39.  The Decree of 8 March 1946 on abandoned and formerly German properties (dekret o majątkach opuszczonych i poniemieckich) entered into force on 19 April 1946 and was repealed on 1 August 1985. Article 1 § 1 provided:

“1.  Any property (movable or immovable) of persons who, in connection with the war that began on 1 September 1939, lost and did not subsequently recover possession of it, shall be considered abandoned property within the meaning of this Decree.”

40.  Article 15 provided:

“1.  [Persons] who, in connection with the war that began on 1 September 1939, lost possession of property, shall have possession of [it] restored to [them] at [their] request, if there are no obstacles as specified in Article 22.

2.  Applications for restoration of possession under the procedure specified in this Decree may be made until 31 December 1948.”

41.  Article 34 provided:

“1.  The State Treasury and entities of local government shall acquire, by way of prescription (adverse possession), legal title to abandoned properties:

(a) after ten years in respect of immovable property,

(b) after five years in respect of movable property, both periods running from the end of the calendar year in which the war ended.

2.  Claims for restitution of income derived from abandoned properties are subject to prescription, a five-year prescription period running from the end of the calendar year in which that income was generated.

3.  Ownership of abandoned properties transferred into the use and management of the institutions and organisations listed in Article 12 § 2 of this Decree shall be acquired by them if, immediately before the expiry of the adverse possession periods referred to in paragraph 1 above, they have been in possession of the immovable property for at least eight years and movable property for five years.”

42.  Prior to the entry into force of the 1964 Civil Code, adverse possession was regulated by the 1946 Decree on rights in rem. It provided that a person could acquire ownership of land after ten years of continuous and independent possession in good faith and twenty years in bad faith.

43.  In 1990 the Civil Code was amended and the statutory periods of adverse possession in good and bad faith were extended by ten years. Article 172, in force since 1 October 1990, reads:

“1.  Persons in possession of property who are not the owner shall acquire title thereto if they have been in continuous and independent possession for twenty years unless they obtained possession in bad faith.

2.  After thirty years, persons in possession of property shall acquire title thereto even if they obtained possession in bad faith.”

44.  Persons in possession of property can apply to a district court for a declaration that, on a specific date, they acquired ownership of property through adverse possession for a statutory period.

45.  In a resolution adopted by the full bench of the Civil Chamber on 26 October 2007 (case no. III CZP 30/07), the Supreme Court held that:

“[T]he State Treasury’s possession of someone else’s property, acquired by the exercise of public power, may constitute independent possession leading to the acquisition of property by adverse possession. However, the period required for adverse possession did not run if the owner was unable to effectively seek recovery of the property.”

COMPLAINT

46.  The applicant complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that she had been deprived of her property as a result of the judicial decisions given in the proceedings for adverse possession.

47.  She also complained under Article 6 that the Supreme Court had declined to examine her cassation appeal.

THE LAW

48.  The Court notes that the applicant died on 29 August 2021. She left a will, which she signed on 11 May 2020 before a public notary in Warsaw, in which she designated Mr Bogdan Komornicki as her sole heir. The will contained several legacies (zapis zwykly) in the form of real estate and money, which the heir was to transfer to six other named individuals. Proceedings concerning the declaration of acquisition of the inheritance are pending before the Warsaw District Court. Twenty-one participants have joined the proceedings, including statutory heirs omitted from the applicant’s will.

49.  On 19 November 2021 Mr Komornicki declared that he wished to pursue the applicant’s application before the Court. He referred to the applicant’s will, in which he was named as her sole heir.

50.  The Government emphasised that the inheritance proceedings were still pending, and that Mr Komornicki’s assertion that he was the applicant’s sole heir had not been confirmed.

51.  The Court reiterates that in cases where an applicant has died in the course of the proceedings, it has taken into account the statements of the applicant’s heirs or close members of his family who have expressed the wish to pursue the proceedings before the Court (see, with further references, Malhous v. the Czech Republic (dec.) [GC], no. 33071/96, ECHR 2000‑XII).

52.  In the present case, it is not clear what Mr Komornicki’s relationship was with the late applicant, but it is not disputed that in her will she designated him as her sole heir. The Court further notes that the inheritance proceedings are still pending before the relevant national court. However, it will not attach decisive importance to the fact that the person wishing to pursue the application has not been confirmed as the applicant’s heir in accordance with the provisions of national law (ibid.) since it considers it sufficient that the original applicant designated him as her heir and that there are prospects of his eventually being recognised as such, in which case at least part of the applicant’s estate, including the claims in issue in the present case, would accrue to him (ibid.).

53.  The Court therefore accepts that Mr Komornicki can pursue the application in the late applicant’s stead. However, reference will still be made to the applicant throughout the present judgment.

54.  The applicant complained that she had been deprived of her property as a result of the judicial decisions given in the proceedings for adverse possession, in breach of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, which provides:

“Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law.

The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of a State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties.”

Compatibility ratione temporis

55.  The Court first has to examine whether the applicant’s complaint of deprivation of property is compatible ratione temporis with the provisions of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.

(a)   The parties’ submissions

(i)      The Government

56.  The Government argued that the application was incompatible ratione temporis with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. The authorities could not be held responsible for any acts which had taken place before 10 October 1994, the date on which Protocol No. 1 had taken effect with regard to Poland. In the period subsequent to that date, the authorities had not carried out any acts that had restricted the applicant’s rights in respect of the property.

57.  The State Treasury had acquired ownership of the property by adverse possession on 29 July 1978, before the ratification of the Protocol No. 1 by Poland. The property had remained in the uninterrupted possession of the State Treasury since 1948. The applicant had accepted this fact and had not taken any steps to recover it for decades.

58.  The Government submitted that the applicant’s submissions that she had allegedly acquired rights to the property on the basis of the Board of Appeal’s ruling of 31 August 2006 were groundless. The fact that the decision of 1979 had been declared null and void had not changed the applicant’s factual and legal situation because, in any event, the State Treasury had acquired the property by way of adverse possession with effect from 1978.

59.  The Government explained that, under domestic law, the acquisition of a property right by way of adverse possession took place by operation of law. Adverse possession took effect as soon as the statutory requirements were met – the person who had been in continuous independent possession of the property for the required period of time became owner on the date on which the statutory period ended. In the proceedings which had ended in 2009, the courts had only needed to establish the good or bad faith of the possessor, as that had a bearing on the length of the period required by law. It was undisputed that, under domestic law, proceedings concerning adverse possession were purely declaratory in nature. The courts’ rulings had not created a new legal situation, but had merely confirmed that the possessor had acquired the property in the past, at the time when the statutory period of adverse possession had ended. The applicant’s claim that she had been deprived of her property as a result of the domestic courts’ decisions given in 2009 was therefore unfounded, since those decisions had been purely declaratory in nature and had merely confirmed the status of the State Treasury as owner of the property since 29 July 1978.

60.  The State had acquired the property by way of adverse possession in 1978 because the applicant had not shown any interest in the property for decades and it had been in the independent possession of the State Treasury since at least 1948. Only once, in 1956, had she and her sister asked the municipality to restore possession of the property to them, but they had not taken any steps to follow up on the decision taken in response. The applicant had moved abroad for family and economic reasons, not political ones. For these reasons, the Government stated that the applicant’s inactivity in the case seemed to be unjustified.

61.  The Government submitted that the domestic courts had set out at length their reasons for granting the State’s application for acquisition of title by adverse possession. There had been no arbitrariness or manifest unreasonableness in these judicial decisions. On the contrary, those decisions had reflected the consistency of the Polish courts’ case-law. In addition, the statutory period of adverse possession applied in the present case had been the most advantageous for the applicant, as it had been the longest provided for by Polish civil law.

62.  The Government also argued that the application was incompatible ratione materiae with the provisions of the Convention since the applicant had neither had an existing possession nor a legitimate expectation of obtaining enjoyment of property rights.

(ii)    The applicant

63.  The applicant disagreed with the Government’s submission on the lack of jurisdiction ratione temporis. She submitted that several key facts in the case had occurred after 10 October 1994, which proved that she had had “existing possessions” within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, or at least a “legitimate expectation” of obtaining enjoyment of a property right. She referred to the Board of Appeal’s ruling of 31 August 2006, the mayor of Toruń’s decision of 6 July 2007 to restore the property and court decisions on adverse possession given in 2009. In her view, a decision issued after the ratification of Protocol No. 1 and providing for full or partial restoration of property lost before the Protocol’s entry into force or compensation in lieu thereof could be regarded as giving rise to a new property right. The applicant reiterated that her complaint did not concern a deprivation of property in the period between 1945 and 1979.

64.  The applicant maintained that, owing to the invalidity of the 1979 decision, the State had not obtained ownership of the property. Following the Board of Appeal’s ruling of 2006 the municipality of Toruń had returned the property to her. She pointed out that the municipality of Toruń had decided not to challenge the 2006 ruling before the administrative courts. In her view, the Board of Appeal’s ruling in 2006 had renewed or created a new property right or a legitimate expectation of obtaining effective enjoyment of property rights. The applicant had obtained possession on 24 July 2007, which she had enjoyed until 30 November 2010. She had collected rent from tenants, paid all the required charges related to the maintenance of the property and expected to have her title duly entered into the land register in the near future.

65.  The applicant argued that the State had deprived her of her possessions, in breach of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, on account of the judicial decisions declaring that the State Treasury had acquired title through adverse possession. The assessment of the courts had been unreasonable and unfounded. They had not taken into account the historical background of the case, that the property had been returned to her on the basis of the 2006 decision and that she had been unable to effectively recover possession of the property until the fall of the communist regime. Adverse possession should not be allowed in cases where a person was dispossessed of his or her property by a totalitarian regime and the State authorities admitted that the decision depriving the person of property was null and void. Those provisions should not be applied rigidly, irrespective of such unique circumstances as those in the present case. Furthermore, the applicant claimed that the requirements of adverse possession had not been met in that the criterion of “independent possession” by the State had not been properly established. In her view, the State had only managed the property owned by her, and its possession could not be regarded as possession “as property owner”.

66.  The applicant concluded that the conduct of the authorities had created a situation of legal uncertainty. Firstly, they had annulled the 1979 decision by the ruling issued on 31 August 2006 and returned the property to her in July 2007. Then, they had decided to deprive her of her property by claiming that the State had acquired title through adverse possession. In the applicant’s view, the changing attitude of the authorities and the demand to return the property following the proceedings for adverse possession in spite of the 2006 ruling had been arbitrary. In consequence, the deprivation of her possession by way of adverse possession had been inconsistent with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.

(b)   The Court’s assessment

(i)      General principles

67.  The Court’s jurisdiction ratione temporis covers only the period after the date of ratification of the Convention or its Protocols by the respondent State. From the ratification date onwards, all the State’s alleged acts and omissions must conform to the Convention or its Protocols; subsequent facts fall within the Court’s jurisdiction, even where they are merely extensions of an already existing situation (see, for example, Broniowski v. Poland (dec.) [GC], no. 31443/96, §§ 74 et seq., ECHR 2002‑X, with further references).

68.  A continuing violation of the Convention – that is to say, a situation which originates before the date on which the Convention entered into force but which continues after that date – has effects on the temporal limitations of the Court’s jurisdiction. In particular, such situations as a continuing and total denial of access to – and the control, use and enjoyment of – property, as well as any compensation for the expropriation of property, may fall within this notion, even if they stemmed from events or laws that occurred before the ratification of the Convention or the Protocol (see, inter alia, Loizidou v. Turkey (merits and just satisfaction), 18 December 1996, §§ 41 et seq., Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996‑VI, and Cyprus v. Turkey [GC], no. 25781/94, §§ 187‑89, ECHR 2001-IV).

69.  However, as the Court has consistently held (in particular within the context of expropriation measures effected by the post-Second World War regulation of ownership relations), the deprivation of ownership or another right in rem is in principle an instantaneous act and does not constitute a continuous “deprivation of a right” (see, among many other authorities, Malhous, cited above; Smoleanu v. Romania, no. 30324/96, § 46, 3 December 2002; Bergauer and Others v. the Czech Republic (dec.), no. 17120/04, 13 December 2005; and Von Maltzan and Others v. Germany (dec.) [GC], nos. 71916/01 and 2 others, § 74, ECHR 2005-V).

70.  The right to compensation for damage or wrongs caused prior to the entry into force of the Convention with respect to the Contracting Party concerned is not, as such, guaranteed by the Convention or its Protocols (see Kopecký v. Slovakia [GC], no. 44912/98, § 38, ECHR 2004‑IX, and Petrova and Valo v. Slovakia (dec.), no. 49103/09, § 44, 5 November 2013). On the other hand, from the ratification date onwards, all the State’s alleged acts and omissions must conform to the Convention or its Protocols and subsequent facts fall within the Court’s jurisdiction even where they are merely extensions of an already existing situation (see Broniowski, cited above, § 74)

(ii)    Application of the above principles in the present case

71.  The Court notes from the outset that it is competent to examine the facts of the present case for their compatibility with the Convention only in so far as they occurred after 10 October 1994, the date of ratification of Protocol No. 1 by Poland. It may, however, have regard to the facts prior to ratification inasmuch as they could be considered to have created a situation extending beyond that date or may be relevant for the understanding of facts occurring after that date (Broniowski, cited above).

72.  The Courts considers that the following facts, established by the domestic authorities and not disputed by the parties, are crucial for its assessment of the case. The property in question was owned by the applicant’s grandfather prior to the Second World War and the applicant was his heir (see paragraph 7 above). After the war, it was not expropriated ex lege or by any formal decision. On the contrary, on 7 July 1948 a domestic court confirmed that the applicant, at that time a child represented by a guardian, was entitled to recover possession of the property (see paragraph 8 above). That decision became final on 29 July 1948. The applicant (and her sister) therefore had their title to it confirmed on that date. However, owing to her own inaction, she did not regain possession of the property. On one occasion, in 1956, she asked for the property to be returned to her, but she did not follow up that request (see paragraph 10 above). It is not clear whether, at the material time, the applicant knew about the letter of 22 November 1956 setting out the manner in which the property would be returned to her (see paragraph 11 above). What is clear, however, is that she did not make any serious attempt to recover the property until 2002 (see paragraph 17 above). During this time, she lived abroad and for almost fifty years showed no interest in the property, which continued to be in the independent and continued possession of the State authorities.

73.  The Court considers that, in the proceedings relating to adverse possession, the domestic courts examined in depth the complex legal and factual situation of the case. They concluded that, having been in possession of the property for thirty years since the decision of 7 July 1948 became final, the State Treasury had become its owner on the basis of the provisions on adverse possession. During this time, the public authorities continuously possessed the property “as owner”, carrying out work, managing it and collecting rent. The State had therefore already acquired the property in bad faith on 29 July 1978 (for a case where the State was also found to have acted in bad faith, see Weitz v. Poland (dec.), no. 37727/05, 23 June 2009). This had been prior to the Court’s jurisdiction ratione temporis.

74.  The Court reiterates that a large number of member States possess some form of mechanism for transferring title in accordance with principles similar to adverse possession (see Borenstein and Others v. Poland (dec.), no. 6303/04, 24 June 2008). Even where title to real property is registered, it must be open to the legislature to attach more weight to lengthy, unchallenged possession than to the formal fact of registration. The Court has accepted that to extinguish title where the former owner has not been exercising his or her ownership for a long period of time cannot be said to be manifestly without reasonable foundation. There exists therefore a general interest in both the existence of a statutory period of adverse possession and the extinguishment of title at the end of the period (see, mutatis mutandis, J.A. Pye (Oxford) Ltd and J.A. Pye (Oxford) Land Ltd v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 44302/02, §§ 72-74, ECHR 2007-III). In this regard, the Court reiterates that it is in the first place for the national authorities, and in particular the courts of first instance and appeal, to construe and apply the domestic law (see Pla and Puncernau v. Andorra, no. 69498/01, § 46, ECHR 2004‑VIII).

75.  The Court’s jurisdiction to verify that domestic law has been correctly interpreted and applied is limited and it is not its function to take the place of the national courts, its role being rather to ensure that the decisions of those courts are not flawed by arbitrariness or otherwise manifestly unreasonable (see, mutatis mutandis, Vistiņš and Perepjolkins v. Latvia [GC], no. 71243/01, § 96, 25 October 2012, with further references). This is particularly true when, as in this instance, the case turns upon difficult questions of fact dating back fifty years and the interpretation of domestic law. The Court reiterates its settled case‑law that, in accordance with Article 19 of the Convention, its duty is to ensure the observance of the engagements undertaken by the Contracting Parties to the Convention. In particular, it is not its function to deal with errors of fact or law allegedly committed by a national court unless and in so far as they may have infringed rights and freedoms protected by the Convention (see García Ruiz v. Spain [GC], no. 30544/96, § 28, ECHR 1999‑I, and Anheuser-Busch Inc. v. Portugal [GC], no. 73049/01, § 83, ECHR 2007-I).

76.  The arguments of the domestic courts are quoted and summarised above, and there is no need to repeat them here (see paragraphs 26-35 above). Those decisions were based on a detailed analysis of the provisions of domestic law pertaining to adverse possession and the nature of the State Treasury’s possession of the property since 1948. The Court does not find any appearance of arbitrariness or that the findings reached were otherwise manifestly unreasonable. Moreover, in the proceedings for adverse possession the State did not enjoy a privileged position and the courts determined a civil dispute between two parties in an adversarial procedure where the applicant enjoyed all procedural guarantees. The applicant was duly represented during those proceedings and had ample opportunities to advance all arguments which she regarded as pertinent for the outcome of the case (see Borenstein and Others, cited above).

77.  Under domestic law, rulings finding that the State had acquired a property by way of adverse possession were of a declaratory nature, merely confirming that the possessor had acquired a property in the past, at the time when the statutory period of adverse possession had ended (see paragraph 59 above of the Government submissions). Whether the possessor occupied the property in good or bad faith had a bearing on the length of the period required for adverse possession. In the present case, the courts considered that there had been bad faith, so the longest period of thirty years of uninterrupted possession had been necessary for the State Treasury to own the property. That period expired on 29 July 1978 and it was on that date that the applicant lost her possession within the meaning of the Convention. Therefore, in the particular circumstances of the case, although the issue of adverse possession was the subject of rulings given in 2009, it cannot be concluded that those rulings amounted to a deprivation of the applicant’s possession.

78.  The Court reiterates that the deprivation of an individual’s property is in principle an instantaneous act and does not produce a continuing situation of “deprivation” of his or her rights (see, among other authorities, Malhous, cited above).

79.  As concerns the other sets of proceedings which took place after the entry into force of the Protocol No. 1 in respect of Poland on which the applicant has based her arguments in support of the applicability of the case, the Court considers, for the reasons set out below, that they are irrelevant to its conclusion above that the deprivation of the applicant’s property rights took place in 1978 when the State acquired the property by way of adverse possession (see paragraph 73 above).

80.  In particular, the proceedings concluded in 2006 did not determine, as a matter of domestic law, who was the owner of the property (see paragraph 18 above). They were limited to the quashing of an illegal decision from 1979 declaring the property abandoned within the meaning of the 1946 Decree (see paragraph 14 above). The Court observes that, under domestic law, the civil-law provisions on adverse possession and the provisions under the 1946 Decree regarding abandoned property concerned different legal bases for the acquisition of title. The applicant is correct in stating that, owing to the invalidity of the 1979 decision, the State did not obtain ownership of the property under the 1946 Decree. However, the quashing of the 1976 decision in 2006 did not amount to confirmation of the applicant’s title to the property; it merely confirmed that the conditions for applying the 1946 Decree had not been met in the case. The Court therefore finds that the applicant’s argument that the 2006 decision gave her a new claim to the property is unfounded in the circumstances of the case.

81.  Moreover, it is clear from the facts of the case that the 1979 decision did not expropriate the property, as by that time it had already been acquired by the State Treasury by way of adverse possession.

82.  The Court also notes that a particular feature of the present case is the fact that the municipality of Toruń restored the possession of part of the property to the applicant in 2007 in enforcement of the 2006 ruling (see paragraph 19 above). Subsequently, she was in possession of the property for three years and four months. In late 2010, following the outcome of the proceedings for adverse possession, she surrendered the property to the municipality (see paragraph 38 above).

83.  However, the municipality of Toruń restored the possession of part of the property to the applicant without issuing a new administrative decision, without any justification for the return and, consequently, without any confirmation of her title to it. It is clear from the applicant’s submissions and the documents submitted by the parties that in the period 2007-2010 her name was not entered in the land register (see paragraphs 19 and 64 above).

84.  The Court reiterates that where there is a dispute as to whether an applicant has a proprietary interest which is eligible for protection under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, it is required to determine the legal position of the applicant (J.A. Pye (Oxford) Ltd and J.A. Pye (Oxford) Land Ltd, cited above, § 61). The Court found no proprietary interest sufficient to constitute a “possession” in a case where the liquidation of the applicant’s father’s estate occurred well before her filiation had been established (see Wysowska v. Poland (dec.), no. 12792/13, §§ 50-52, 23 January 2018). The Court considers that the situation in the present case is similar as the applicant lost ownership of the property in 1978, long before she temporarily regained possession of it between 2007 and 2010.

85.  The date from which the Court has jurisdiction ratione temporis not only marks the beginning of the period throughout which, up to the present day, acts or omissions of the Polish State will be assessed by the Court from the point of view of their compliance with the Convention, but is also relevant for the determination of the actual content and scope of the applicant’s legal interest guaranteed by Polish law to be considered under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (see Broniowski v. Poland [GC], no. 31443/96, § 123, ECHR 2004‑V). The Court has already observed that that issue must be seen from the perspective of what “possessions” the applicant had on the date of the Protocol’s entry into force and, critically, on the date on which he or she submitted his or her complaint to the Court (ibid., § 132). In the present case, on both dates, 10 October 1994 and 9 March 2011, the applicant’s situation was essentially the same, that is, she had neither ownership of the property confirmed nor possession of it.

86.  In view of the foregoing, the Court considers that the applicant cannot be regarding as having had a “legitimate expectation” to regain ownership of the property, or receive compensation for it, based on a reasonably justified reliance on a legal act which has a sound legal basis and which bears on property rights (see Béláné Nagy v. Hungary [GC], no. 53080/13, § 78, 13 December 2016).

87.  The gist of the case is therefore that the property in question was not expropriated after the Second World War, that the applicant had her title to it confirmed in 1948, but that, owing to her own inaction she did not regain possession of it. The period of adverse possession was therefore running and ended in 1978. In that year the State became owner of the property. Consequently, contrary to the applicant’s view, it was not the ruling of the Regional Court of 21 October 2009 that led to the deprivation of ownership (see Gottwald-Markušić v. Croatia (dec.), no. 49049/06, 30 March 2010). Rather, the applicant lost title to the property on 29 July 1978 as a result of the expiry of the period of adverse possession. The rulings given in the proceedings which ended in 2009 merely declared that the already existing deprivation of property had occurred in 1978, before 10 October 1994, when Protocol No. 1 to the Convention entered into force in respect of Poland.

88.  The deprivation of the applicant’s possession took place outside the Court’s temporal jurisdiction. The Court is therefore precluded from examining the complaint. It follows that this part of the application is incompatible ratione temporis with the provisions of the Convention within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 § 4.

89.  The applicant complained under Article 6 that the Supreme Court had declined to examine her cassation appeal. She contested the Supreme Court’s finding that she had failed to establish that her case raised a significant legal issue.

90.  The Court finds that the applicant has not properly substantiated her complaint under Article 6. In so far as she may be understood as maintaining that the Supreme Court’s decision was inadequately reasoned, the Court points out that in the case of Wnuk v. Poland ((dec.), no. 38308/05, 1 September 2009) it dealt with a similar complaint of a lack of sufficient reasoning for a Supreme Court decision on an application for leave to appeal. In that case, the Court found, having regard to its relevant case‑law, that in this context very limited reasoning could satisfy the requirements of Article 6 of the Convention and declared the complaint under Article 6 § 1 inadmissible. In the present case, the Court is satisfied that the reasoning of the Supreme Court in respect of the admissibility of the applicant’s cassation appeal does not give rise to any appearance of a breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see, mutatis mutandis, Dryzek v. Poland (dec.), no. 12285/09, § 52, 20 March 2012).

91.  It follows that the complaint under Article 6 is manifestly ill‑founded and must be rejected in accordance with 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 29 August 2024.

 Liv Tigerstedt Alena Poláčková
 Deputy Registrar President