FIRST SECTION
Application no. 6169/13
Anton MINDEK
against Croatia
lodged on 27 December 2012
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Anton Mindek, is a Croatian national, who was born in 1932 and lives in Domitrovec. He is represented before the Court by Mr T. Čamovski, a lawyer practising in Varaždin.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
On 31 October 2007 I.M. instituted enforcement proceedings against the applicant before the Varaždin Municipal Court (Općinski sud u Varaždinu), seeking payment of 34,128.43 Croatian kunas (HRK) awarded to him by a final judgment in the civil proceedings.
The sum sought by I.M. eventually rose to HRK 58.415,75, comprising the relevant interest.
Owing to lack of sufficient means, the applicant made several payments to reduce his debt. The first payment was made on 8 September 2010 in the amount of HRK 14,400 and the second on 14 January 2011 in the amount of HRK 7,340.
On 17 March 2011, after a public auction, the Varaždin Municipal Court decided that the applicant’s house and plot of land should be sold to the creditor, I.M., for the sum of HRK 43,734.
On 21 March and 2 May 2011 the applicant made two additional payments of HRK 21,450 and HRK 15,225.75 respectively, thus paying the full amount of his debt.
At a hearing on 26 October 2011 the applicant argued that he had paid his debt and asked the Varaždin Municipal Court to terminate the proceedings. The creditor’s representative confirmed that the applicant had paid his debt.
On 18 November 2011 the Varaždin Municipal Court sold the applicant’s house and plot of land to I.M. and invited him to make the payment of HRK 43,734. The court found irrelevant the fact that the applicant had paid the full amount of his debt on 2 May 2011, since the decision that the house and the plot of land should be sold to I.M. had been adopted on 17 March 2011.
On an unspecified date in 2012 the applicant lodged an appeal against the above decision with the Varaždin County Court (Županijski sud u Varaždinu). In his appeal the applicant argued that during the enforcement proceedings he had made several payments and finally paid the full amount of his debt in May 2011. Therefore, there had been no reason to sell his house and the plot of land in November 2011 for the same debt.
On 16 January 2012 the Varaždin County Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal on the ground that the necessary conditions for selling the applicant’s house and plot of land to I.M. had been met on 17 March 2011. Therefore, the fact that he had later paid his debt had no bearing on the validity of the decision to sell the property at issue to I.M., regardless of the fact that it had been done with an unjustified delay between the auction and the judicial sale.
The applicant lodged a constitutional complaint with the Constitutional Court (Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske) against the above-mentioned decision.
On 24 May 2012 the Constitutional Court declared the applicant’s constitutional complaint inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded.
The decision of the Constitutional Court was served on the applicant’s representative on 26 June 2012.
COMPLAINT
The applicant complains that in the enforcement proceedings the domestic courts sold his house and plot of land in respect of a debt which he had already paid.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
1. Has there been 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 necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest? In particular, did that interference impose an excessive individual burden on the applicant (see Immobiliare Saffi v. Italy, [GC], no. 22774/93, § 59, ECHR 1999-V?
The Government are required to submit two copies of the entire case file of the enforcement proceedings in the applicant’s case.
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