Communicated on 14 November 2017
FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 5434/17
Christoph-Herwig LIEBSCHER
against Austria
lodged on 11 January 2017
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the applicant’s request to grant the transfer of his ownership share in joint property by making the respective amendments in the land register, based on a corresponding agreement between the applicant and his former wife in their divorce settlement. Given that the deeds, upon which property rights were to be entered in the land register, were all made publicly available, the applicant did not want to submit the original divorce settlement in its entirety as it contained various details about his and his former wife’s private and family life (such as custody and maintenance agreements or their statement of assets). He thus submitted a certified extract of the divorce settlement in order to prove the said agreement. The competent Land Register Court, however, refused his request to transfer his ownership share to his former wife because he failed to submit the original divorce settlement. The Vienna Regional Court dismissed his appeal and the Supreme Court upheld the lower courts’ decisions, holding that the examination of original deeds in their entirety, on which basis property rights were to be registered in the land register, served the interest of protecting the constitutional right to property.
QUESTIONS tO THE PARTIES
1. Did the obligation to submit the original divorce settlement in its entirety in order to have the request for the transfer of his ownership share granted amount to an interference with the applicant’s right to respect for his private and family life 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?
2. Did the refusal to grant the requested transfer of his ownership share, based on the applicant’s failure to submit the original divorce settlement, amount to an interference with the applicant’s peaceful enjoyment of possessions, within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1? If so, was that interference justified under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1?
3. Did the applicant have at his disposal an effective domestic remedy for his complaint under Article 8 of the Convention as required by Article 13 of the Convention, in particular concerning the publication of the divorce settlement in the land register?
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