FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 39210/07
Aleksandrs OSIPKOVS and others
against Latvia
lodged on 13 July 2007
STATEMENT OF FACTS
A list of the applicants is set out in the appendix.
1. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.
1. The first set of proceedings and subsequent events
2. According to information obtained from the Latvian State Archive, in 1933 A.S. had acquired property rights to an undivided share of land, which included part of a forest and unregistered plots of land measuring 30 tenths (desetīnas - approximately 32.7 ha[1]) in an area now within the territory of Dubulti, Jūrmala. In 1999 the second applicant and two other individuals, being beneficiaries of the estate, asked the Rīga Regional Court to recognise their title to 30 ha of forest in Dubulti. They also asked the court to recognise their right to receive a plot of land of the same value in Jūrmala, as it had not been possible to establish the precise boundaries of the inherited land.
3. On 7 May 1999 the Rīga Regional Court gave judgment in favour of the claimants. It recognised that there was no question over whether the claimants were the heirs of the late A.S., as that had been established by court order in 1995. It also recognised that, as per documents received from the State Archive and the Land Registry, A.S. had purchased 30 ha of forest in Jūrmala. Referring to section 12 of the Law On Land Reform in the Republic of Latvia Cities (Par zemes reformu Latvijas Republikas pilsētās), which provided that any requests after 1 June 1994 for the restoration of property rights should be made by court application, the court recognised that the second applicant owned a two-third share of the forest in Jūrmala and that the other two claimants owned a sixth each. As there was no evidence of what the precise boundaries of the forest were, the court also recognised the claimants’ right to receive a plot of land of the same value elsewhere.
4. Jūrmala City Council was a defendant in the above-mentioned proceedings and contested the claim; however, the judgment was not appealed against and it later became effective. On 6 December 2002, in order to comply with its execution, the Jūrmala City Council adopted a decision by which four plots of land were allocated to the claimants.
5. On 27 December 2002 all three claimants’ title to the four plots of land was entered in the Land Register, and on 8 and 9 January 2003 they sold their respective plots to the fifth applicant, a limited liability company, Bulduru Muiža, the owner and director of which at the material time was the second applicant.
6. On 24 October 2003 the President of the Civil Division of the Senate of the Supreme Court lodged an objection against the judgment adopted on 7 May 1999, arguing that there was a lack of evidence to corroborate that A.S. had owned the property before 1940, as information received from the State Archive had suggested that the land in question had consisted of undivided shares and therefore it could not be concluded that in 1933 A.S. had purchased 30 ha of a forest in Jūrmala.
7. On 17 December 2003, in the presence of the representative of the claimants in the initial proceedings, the Senate of the Supreme Court quashed the judgment and remitted the civil case to the Rīga Regional Court. It recognised that there was nothing in the case file to suggest that A.S. had owned the plot of land at issue, and that by failing to establish the boundaries of the claimed 30 ha of forest, the lower court’s judgments did not comply with section 190 of the Civil Law.
2. Subsequent transactions involving the disputed property
8. The fifth applicant entered into the following transactions in connection with the disputed property: on 15 and 16 December 2003 part of the property was sold to A., who on 26 and 29 March 2004 sold it to the third applicant; on 12 and 19 February 2004 two other parts of the property were sold to the fourth and sixth applicants; and on 27 February 2004 another part was sold to K., who on 18 June 2004 sold it to the first applicant.
3. The second set of proceedings
9. On 27 April 2004 the Prosecutor General’s Office, acting on behalf of the Latvian Ministry of Finance, lodged a claim (which was amended on 16 September 2004) against Jūrmala City Council, the second applicant and the two other claimants in the initial proceedings, as well as the other applicants. The Prosecutor General’s Office relied on the fact that the Senate of the Supreme Court had quashed the judgment of 7 May 1999, and that there was no legal basis for the second applicant and the two other claimants to own the property in question. The Rīga Regional Court was asked to quash the decisions of the Jūrmala City Council, by which four plots of land had been allocated to the claimants. The court was also asked to delete the claimants’ details from the relevant Land Registry records and to recognise the State’s property rights over the four plots of land.
10. On 30 May 2004 the Rīga Regional Court decided to join the first and second sets of proceedings.
4. The outcome of the joined proceedings
11. On 9 September 2005 the Rīga Regional Court dismissed the Prosecutor General’s Office’s claim and upheld the decision to recognise the second applicant and the two other claimants as owners of the land.
12. Both the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Jūrmala City Council appealed against the decision. On 22 June 2006 the Civil Division of the Supreme Court partly upheld the appeal submitted by the Prosecutor General’s Office. The court revoked the decisions of the Jūrmala City Council, by which the second applicant and the two other claimants had been allocated four plots of land, and ordered that their entries be deleted from the relevant Land Registry records. It established that the lower court had failed to address the fact that until 1937, the contested plots of land had been jointly owned by the former owner A.S. and seventy-six other individuals. Moreover, the joint ownership of the land had ceased after the passing of a decree in 1937, and after that date the alleged former owner A.S. had not registered his title to the property in question with the Land Registry. The appellate court dismissed the Prosecutor General’s Office’s claim that the State (represented by the Ministry of Finance) had ownership rights over the property in question; instead the plots of land were returned to the Jūrmala City Council in order for it to finalise the land reform. The applicants were not recognised as having acted in good faith, in that the transactions involving the disputed plots of land had been concluded after the Senate of the Supreme Court had lodged an objection against the judgment of 7 May 1999.
13. In appeals on points of law the first five applicants complained, inter alia, that the State did not have sufficient interest in the property to justify the fact that the Prosecutor General’s Office had lodged an objection against the judgment of 7 May 1999. The sixth applicant did not submit an appeal on points of law.
14. By a final decision of 17 January 2007, the Senate of the Supreme Court upheld in essence the appellate court’s judgment. With respect to the lawfulness of the Prosecutor General’s Office’s claim, the Senate noted that it concerned the incorrect application of land-reform legislation, and even if the property rights of the State had not been infringed, that was no obstacle to finding that that the second applicant and the two other claimants in the first set of proceedings had had no rights to the land in question.
15. It appears that after the above judgment took effect, and at the Jūrmala City Council’s request, the applicants’ entries were deleted from the relevant Land Registry records.
COMPLAINTS
16. The applicants complain under Article 1 of Protocol No.1 to the Convention that by quashing a final judgment, the State authorities have deprived them of their property without a legitimate aim. They allege that they acquired their property rights to the impugned plots of land in good faith and as such they should be at least entitled to receive compensation in respect of the property of which they have been deprived.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Does the applicants’ complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 of the Convention fall within the scope of application of the reservation that Latvia has made with respect to that provision?
2. Did the applicants have a “possession” within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1?
3. If so, have the applicants been deprived of their possessions in the public interest and in accordance with the conditions provided for by law, within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, particularly taking into account the Court’s conclusions in the case Brumărescu v. Romania [GC], no. 28342/95, ECHR 1999‑VII)?
APPENDIX Aleksandrs Osipkovs is a Latvian national who was born in 1960 and lives in Rīga; Vano Razmadze is a Latvian national who was born in 1970 and lives in Rīga; Balt Invest Group is a limited liability company registered in Latvia. It is represented by its board of directors. Mārtiņš Ādminis is a Latvian national who was born in 1974 and lives in Jūrmala; Bulduru Muiža is a limited liability company registered in Latvia. It is represented by its managing director, Mr. A. Osipkovs; Egits Kraulis is a Latvian national who was born in 1968 and lives in Jūrmala.
[1] 1 desetīna = 1.09 ha
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