Communicated on 21 September 2016
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 48730/11
Nikolay Anatolyevich KISELEV and Viktorina Petrovna KISELEVA
against Russia
lodged on 14 July 2011
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicants, Mr Nikolay Anatolyevich Kiselev and Ms Viktorina Petrovna Kiseleva, are Russian nationals who were born in 1956 and 1961 respectively and live in St Petersburg. They bring this application on their own behalf and on behalf of their daughter Ms Lyudmila Nikolayevna Kiseleva, born in 1999, also a Russian national and a minor.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.
In 1985 the first applicant’s employer, the fire service, provided him with a one-room flat as tied accommodation. His colleague A. was provided with a two-room flat.
In 1990 A. and his family moved to another flat.
In 1992 the housing commission of the fire service granted the first applicant’s request to allocate him the flat previously occupied by A.
From 1992 the applicants lived in that flat. In 1999 their daughter was born and lived together with them in the flat.
In 2008, at A.’s request, the housing commission ruled that A. had the right to return to the two-room flat previously occupied by him and that the applicants therefore had to vacate that flat and move back to the one-room flat. The applicants refused to do so.
In 2010 A. brought court proceedings against the applicants seeking their eviction from the flat. The applicants contested his claims on the following grounds:
(i) they had been lawfully occupying the flat in question since 1992;
(ii) they had been paying utility charges and had carried out maintenance works in the flat;
(iii) A.’s claims were time-barred.
On 14 October 2010 the Petrodvortsovyy District Court of St Petersburg ordered that the applicants be evicted from the flat. The District Court held, in particular, that although the housing commission had assigned the flat to the applicants, they had not been issued with a special order in that respect and had therefore been occupying that flat without any legal basis. In its decision the District Court referred to its decision of 30 April 2009 in another set of the proceedings brought by the second applicant against the Fire Service. The District Court noted that in those proceedings the second applicant claimed that she and her husband had been living in a one-room flat provided to him in 1985 and she should therefore be registered there.
On 3 February 2011 the St Petersburg City Court upheld the eviction order.
In October 2011 the applicants were evicted from the flat in question.
COMPLAINT
The applicants complain under Article 8 of the Convention of a violation of their right to respect for their home.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has there been an interference with the applicants’ right to respect for their home, within the meaning of Article 8 § 1 of the Convention?
2. If so, was that interference in accordance with the law, did it pursue a legitimate aim and was it necessary in terms of Article 8 § 2 of the Convention (see, for instance, McCann v. the United Kingdom, no. 19009/04, § 50, ECHR 2008; Ćosić v. Croatia, no. 28261/06, §§ 20-23, 15 January 2009; and Paulić v. Croatia, no. 3572/06, §§ 40-45, 22 October 2009)?
The Government are requested to submit copies of the following documents:
- the applicants’ reply to the statement of claim brought against them by A.;
- record of the proceedings before the Petrodvortsovyy District Court of St Petersburg in the eviction proceedings;
- the applicants’ grounds of appeal against the decision of the Petrodvortsovyy District Court of St Petersburg of 14 October 2010;
- judgment of 30 April 2009 of the Petrodvortsovyy District Court of St Petersburg.
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