Published on 15 December 2025
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 8810/17
Sevil GULIYEVA and Giymat SAFAROVA
against Azerbaijan
lodged on 21 January 2017
communicated on 26 November 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the demolition of the houses in which the applicants lived and their forced eviction from them.
The applicants are internally displaced persons (IDPs) who had been settled in Baku. The applicants constructed the houses in questions in 2000 and 2004. Those houses were demolished in 2014, allegedly by the Sabail District Executive Authority (“the SDEA”) and the State Committee for Affairs of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (“the Committee”) for construction of the Aquatic Palace in the area where the houses were situated. The applicants were subsequently relocated by the Committee to newly constructed residential buildings on the outskirts of Baku.
The applicants lodged a complaint against the SDEA with Baku Administrative-Economic Court no. 1 seeking compensation in respect of pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage. By a judgment of 12 May 2015, the first-instance court partially upheld their claims and ordered the SDEA to assess the market value of the houses and pay the corresponding compensation to the applicants. However, following an appeal by the SDEA, the Baku Court of Appeal, by a judgment of 20 August 2015, quashed the first-instance court’s judgment and dismissed the applicants’ claims. The court held that the houses in question were unauthorised constructions built on a State-owned land, and that the applicants had not had any registered title to them. By a final judgment of 28 April 2016, the Supreme Court upheld that judgment.
Relying on Article 8 of the Convention, the applicants complain that their forced eviction from the houses in question without any court order had breached their right to respect for their home.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Has there been an interference with the applicants’ right to respect for their home within the meaning of Article 8 § 1 of the Convention? If so, was that interference in accordance with the law and necessary in terms of Article 8 § 2 (see Khalikova v. Azerbaijan, no. 42883/11, §§ 127-29, 22 October 2015)?
The parties are requested to submit evidence in support of their submissions that has not been submitted to the Court so far.