SECOND SECTION
Application no. 17467/07
Vytautas Alfonsas PAUKŠTIS
against Lithuania
lodged on 16 April 2007
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Vytautas Alfonsas Paukštis, is a Lithuanian national, who was born in 1937 and lives in Vilnius.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
On 17 December 1991 the applicant asked the Vilnius City Council to restore him property rights to a 1.975 hectare plot of land in Vilnius city.
By a decision of 16 September 1999, the authorities restored the applicant’s right to 0.18 hectares of land.
On 2 April 2001 the domestic legislation on land restoration was amended to the effect that up to 1 hectare of land could be restored in natura in the city, if that land was not built on.
Following these changes, on 4 May 2001 the applicant asked the Vilnius city authorities to stop distributing or selling the land which he claimed to be that of his father, given that he could claim a bigger part of that land in natura. However, by a decision of 30 May 2001 the Vilnius region governor transferred part of the disputed land, 0.09 hectares, to the ownership of a third person, who subsequently resold it to other persons. In 2003 the Parliamentary Ombudsman and in 2005 the prosecutors found that the Vilnius authorities had acted negligently, which was in violation of the applicant’s property rights. However, given that those third persons had acquired it in good faith, the property could not be taken away from them.
On 21 June 2002, the applicant asked the Vilnius city authorities to return to him the remaining 0.82 hectares of land in natura. He repeated the request on 28 March 2003.
On 20 October 2003 the Vilnius city authorities informed the applicant that the land could not be returned in natura because it was in Vilnius city (the land was built up and contained a forest of national importance). The land thus had to be bought out by the State.
In January 2004 the Vilnius region authorities informed the applicant that he could receive shares to the value of 9,984 Lithuanian litas (LTL, approximately 2,891 euros) for one hectare of his father’s land.
On 24 March 2005 the applicant asked the authorities to return to him 0.73 hectares of land, by allocating him another plot of land in Vilnius city. He also maintained that according to the data from the Real Estate Registry, the 0.09 hectare plot sold to the third person was worth LTL 22,896. Therefore, it was ridiculous to hold that 1 hectare of land in Vilnius city could be compensated by a sum of LTL 9,984. The applicant thus asked the authorities to pay him LTL 22,896.
In reply to the applicant’s complaint, the Vilnius region authorities acknowledged that he was “a candidate (pretendentas) to have restored the property rights to his father’s land in Vilnius”. The authorities asked the applicant to specify how he wanted to proceed with the restitution, given that the land his father had once owned in Vilnius could not be restored in natura. In accordance with Article 16 of the Law on Restitution, the applicant could choose to obtain another plot of land or pecuniary compensation.
In December 2005 the applicant essentially reiterated his choice.
Having received no compensation, the applicant started court proceedings, claiming that the State was to pay him LTL 162,000 for the 0.09 hectares plot of land and LTL 1,314,000 for the remaining part of 0.73 hectares of unrestored land in Vilnius city. The applicant relied on the land value as noted in the Real Estate Registry.
By a decision of 15 June 2006 the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court dismissed the complaint. The court acknowledged that on 30 May 2001 a third person had obtained 0.09 hectares plot in the applicant’s father’s former land unlawfully. However, the applicant was to be compensated for that and the remaining plots not by receiving a market value compensation or the sum noted in the Real Estate Registry, but the sum which had been specified by the “Methods for Establishing the Nominal Price of Land to Be Bought Out by the State”, a normative act approved by the Government.
The applicant appealed against that decision. The Vilnius region administration asked the court to dismiss the applicant’s appeal, although it acknowledged that “the applicant was a candidate (pretendentas) to have restored the property rights to his father’s land of an area of 1,975 hectares, nationalised [by the Soviets]”.
By a ruling of 15 February 2007 the Supreme Administrative Court upheld the lower court’s decision. It noted that the rules regarding compensation for land bought out by the State were set out in Article 16 of the Law on Restitution and in Government regulations. Those legal acts did not impose on the State an obligation to pay compensation equal to the market value of the plot. It followed that the sums the applicant asked for the plots were baseless.
On 25 May 2012, the applicant wrote to the Court that in April 2012 his name was no. 4,606 on the waiting list of persons whose property rights were to be restored in Vilnius city. In September 2009, he was no. 4,846. The list thus moved up by only 240 persons in two and a half years.
B. Relevant domestic law and practice
The relevant domestic law and practice concerning restitution of property have been summarised in the judgment Aleksa v. Lithuania (no. 27576/05, §§ 36-42, 21 July 2009).
As concerns land values, by a ruling of 18 June 1998 the Constitutional Court held that, because for various reasons it was not possible to estimate the value of each individual plot of land to be bought out by the State, it was fair that the Government should set out guidelines and the value of the land be established for the territory of an entire city.
The land values are established by the normative act “Methods for Establishing the Nominal Price of Land to Be Bought Out by the State”, approved by the Government regulations.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that the State authorities breached his rights by not restoring his title to his father’s land. The applicant further complains that the State has not paid him fair compensation for the land. Lastly, given the overall delay in the restitution proceedings and the applicant’s old age, it is unlikely that he will receive compensation at all.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
Has there been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention in view of:
(a) the compensation proposed to the applicant by the Lithuanian authorities for the part of the land that cannot be returned to him in natura;
(b) the overall delay in finalising the restitution process (see Igarienė and Petrauskienė v. Lithuania, no. 26892/05, § 59, 21 July 2009). In this respect the parties are requested to inform the Court about further developments regarding the restitution of the applicant’s property rights.
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