Communicated on 4 December 2014
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 34085/09
Antanas PALIUTIS
against Lithuania
lodged on 12 June 2009
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Antanas Paliutis, is a Lithuanian national, who was born in 1957 and lives in Vilnius. He is represented before the Court by Mr K. Paliutis, a lawyer practising in Vilnius.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
The applicant, who is the owner of a 0.53 ha plot of land in Tauragė region, sought to use that agricultural land for residential purposes. Consequently, he initiated and financed the preparation of an urban plan which was then submitted for evaluation to the competent authority as the national laws required.
On 25 November 2005 a negative report was delivered by the Tauragė Region Administration due to the plan’s alleged inconsistency with the laws governing urban planning.
The applicant complained about that refusal to the Inspectorate of the Territory planning and Construction which on 10 August 2006 upheld his complaint and ordered the Tauragė Region Administration to reconsider its negative decision. It appears that the Administration failed to do so.
Given that the report prevented the applicant from continuing the administrative procedures and made it impossible to have the urban plan adopted until the inconsistencies of the plan were corrected, he applied to the administrative courts with an action against the Tauragė Region Administration seeking an order that the latter deliver a positive report on the plan. Before applying to the courts, the applicant, however, was obliged to undergo a mandatory extrajudicial procedure, in which decision a favourable to the applicant was delivered on 22 December 2006 by the Inspectorate of the Territory planning and Construction. The Inspectorate ordered the Tauragė Region Administration to assess de novo the urban plan of the applicant. Nevertheless, according to the applicant the Administration failed to do so.
In March 2007 the applicant supplemented his court action with a request to annul the report of 25 November 2005, as had been suggested by the panel of judges of the Klaipėda Regional Administrative Court.
On 4 May 2007 the court of first instance dismissed his action on the ground that the report of 25 November 2005 could not be challenged before the courts anymore because its one-year statutory duration had expired. Nevertheless, that decision was quashed by the Supreme Administrative Court on 15 February 2008 and the case was remitted for re-examination. The court noted that by submitting his action to the courts the applicant challenged the negative and unfavourable report disagreeing with the alleged shortcomings of the urban plan and thus seeking to have the initial urban plan eventually adopted. As a result, his court action was to be considered arguable by the courts as holding otherwise would mean it would be impossible for applicants to challenge similar reports if court proceedings lasted longer than one year.
On 16 October 2008 the Klaipėda Regional Court again dismissed the applicant’s action and discontinued the case on the ground that the applicant had been challenging an annulled and invalid act of the authorities.
Finally, on 12 December 2008 the Supreme Administrative Court upheld the decision of the lower court and additionally noted that there was also no need to examine the applicant’s request to order the Tauragė Region Administration to deliver a positive report on the urban plan.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains under Article 13 of the Convention that he could not have his violated rights redressed by the domestic authorities due to their unwillingness to comply with the decisions of a supervisory authority of 10 August and 22 December 2006. In particular, the applicant had no means to have those decisions enforced.
Furthermore, invoking Articles 6 and 13 of the Convention he complains that the domestic courts failed to examine his request to order the administrative authorities to deliver a positive report on the urban plan and thus deprived him of the right to have the dispute resolved. The applicant also alleges that in so doing the domestic courts misled him and rendered the decision of the Supreme Administrative Court of 15 February 2008 devoid of res judicata effect.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has there been a breach of the applicant’s right of access to a court, guaranteed by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, in so far as the domestic courts discontinued the administrative case and failed to rule on the applicant’s request to order the administrative authority to deliver a positive report on the urban plan?
2. Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of his civil rights and obligations, given that the domestic courts allegedly set aside a binding court decision, thereby breaching the principle of legal certainty?
The parties are requested to inform the Court about any further developments regarding the applicant’s situation.
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