Published on 10 June 2025
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 13709/24
Vladimir KESER
against Croatia
lodged on 2 May 2024
communicated on 20 May 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns administrative proceedings regarding the applicant’s entitlement to State housing.
In 2007 the Ministry of Development’s Administration in charge of displaced persons issued an approval for temporary lease of a State-owned house to the applicant and his wife, who moved therein. In 2009 the Administration withdrew the approval as it had established that in 2005 the applicant had inherited a flat which he had transferred to his son and that he was therefore ineligible for allocation of State housing. In the same year (2009) the applicant’s request for State housing was dismissed. The applicant, however, remained living in the house with his wife.
In 2016 proceedings with a view to evicting the applicant and his wife from the house were instituted and then stayed. In 2019 another set of administrative proceedings were instituted against the applicant, in which the authorities established that the applicant was not entitled to State housing owing to the fact that in 2005 he had inherited a flat which he had transferred to his son. Before the domestic authorities the applicant argued that the eviction from the house would be disproportionate to the aim pursued. He submitted that he and his wife had moved into the house in 2007 following the authorities’ approval; were living there ever since; had made the house suitable for living; and had meanwhile both become ill (he from bladder and prostate cancer and his wife from breast cancer) and thereby unable to secure themselves other housing. He stressed that the house was owned by the State, meaning that there were no opposing private interests involved.
The Rijeka Administrative Court found that no issue arose under Article 8 of the Convention because the interference with the applicant’s right to respect for his home was lawful. The High Administrative Court did not address the applicant’s arguments concerning his right to respect for his home. The Constitutional Court held that the applicant’s case fell outside the scope of application of Articles 34 and 35 of the Croatian Constitution (which protect a person’s home from unjustified searches and guarantee the right to respect for private and family life).
Before the Court the applicant complains about a breach of his right to respect for his home, guaranteed by Article 8 of the Convention. He notably argues that his eviction from the State-owned house in which he has been living with his wife since 2007 would be disproportionate in view of his individual circumstances.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to respect for his home guaranteed by Article 8 of the Convention by the decision to evict him from the State-owned house he has been living in with his wife? In particular, was the interference with his right to respect for his home proportionate to the aim pursued and thus “necessary in a democratic society”? Did the domestic courts assess the proportionality of the interference in the light of the applicant’s personal circumstances (see, for example, Ćosić v. Croatia, no. 28261/06, §§ 20-23, 15 January 2009; Paulić v. Croatia, no. 3572/06, §§ 40-45, 22 October 2009; Orlić v. Croatia, no. 48833/07, §§ 63-72, 21 June 2011; Bjedov v. Croatia, no. 42150/09, §§ 64-72, 29 May 2012, and Hasanali Aliyev and Others v. Azerbaijan, no. 42858/11, §§ 47-50, 9 June 2022)?