FIFTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 11163/06
by Vladislav HLAVÁČEK and Václav HLAVÁČEK
against the Czech Republic
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 25 March 2008 as a Chamber composed of:
Peer Lorenzen, President,
Volodymyr Butkevych,
Renate Jaeger,
Mark Villiger,
Isabelle Berro-Lefèvre,
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska, judges,
Zdeněk Kühn, ad hoc judge,
and Claudia Westerdiek, Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 16 March 2006,
Having regard to the decision to grant priority to the above application under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicants, Mr Vladislav Hlaváček and Václav Hlaváček, are Czech nationals who were born in 1928 and 1926 respectively and live in Prague. They were represented before the Court by Mr M. Kölbl, a lawyer practising in Praha. The Czech Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr V.A. Schorm, from the Ministry of Justice.
The applicants are the co-owners of two tenement houses in Prague-Nusle which they acquired by restitution under the Extra-Judicial Rehabilitation Act in 1992. The houses consist of a number of dwellings which are subject to the rent-control scheme.
COMPLAINTS
The applicants complained that, at least since the judgment of the Constitutional Court published in the Official Gazette under no.the number 231/2000, there had been an unlawful situation in the rent-control field sphere. As a consequence, landlords of tenement houses had to pay off the maintenance of the houses and flats, because controlled rents did not correspond to the reconstruction value of the dwellings (náklady prosté reprodukce). In fact, landlords involuntarily paid off social allowances normally assumed by the State. They noted that there was a systemic problem caused by the malfunctioning of the Czech legislature and the failure of the Czech executive authorities and the Parliament to deal with the matter.
Under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 alone and together with Article 14 of the Convention, and with reference to the Constitutional Court’s judgment no. 84/2003, the applicants argued that the rent-control scheme was not based on the financial situationpecuniary and earnings situation of tenants and, was, therefore,, highly dissocialdamaging to society, having the a negative impact on the broadest strataa significant part of the population.
Under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 taken together with Article 13 of the Convention, the applicants maintained that the domestic court system of domestic courts constituted a wholly inefficient instrument for defending landlords’ constitutional rights and rights guaranteed by the Convention. ActuallyIn fact, the courts systematically refused to offer protection to landlords. They added that even if the domestic courts and the Constitutional Court were able to deal with a the large number of individual cases, lengthy judicial proceedings would made render that remedy inefficientineffective. Moreover, the Czech judicial system did not provide for a collective constitutional appeal.
THE LAW
Article 37 § 1 of the Convention provides as follows:
“The Court may at any stage of the proceedings decide to strike an application out of its list of cases where the circumstances lead to the conclusion that
(a) the applicant does not intend to pursue his application; ...
However, the Court shall continue the examination of the application if respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and the protocols thereto so requires.”
By a letter of 15 October 2007 the applicants’ representative informed the Court Registry that his clients wished to withdraw their application and to discontinue the proceedings before the Court. He referred to the applicants’ high age and health condition, the length of the proceedings before the Court and a media campaign led against the applicants in the Czech Republic.
In the light of the present circumstances, the Court concludes that the applicants do not intend to pursue their petition, within the meaning of Article 37 § 1 (a). In accordance with Article 37 § 1 in fine of the Convention, the Court finds no special circumstances regarding respect for human rights as defined in the Convention which require the continuation of the examination of the application.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases.
Claudia Westerdiek Peer Lorenzen
RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy