AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF
Application No. 33465/96
by Dusan PETER
against the Slovak Republic
The European Commission of Human Rights (Second Chamber) sitting
in private on 16 April 1998, the following members being present:
MM J.-C. GEUS, President
M.A. NOWICKI
G. JÖRUNDSSON
A. GÖZÜBÜYÜK
J.-C. SOYER
H. DANELIUS
Mrs G.H. THUNE
MM F. MARTINEZ
I. CABRAL BARRETO
J. MUCHA
D. SVÁBY
P. LORENZEN
E. BIELIUNAS
E.A. ALKEMA
A. ARABADJIEV
Ms M.-T. SCHOEPFER, Secretary to the Chamber
Having regard to Article 25 of the Convention for the Protection
of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms;
Having regard to the application introduced on 5 June 1996 by
Dusan PETER against the Slovak Republic and registered on
16 October 1996 under file No. 33465/96;
Having regard to the report provided for in Rule 47 of the Rules
of Procedure of the Commission;
Having deliberated;
Decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant is a Slovak national born in 1933. He is retired
and resides in Bratislava. The facts of the case, as submitted by the
applicant, may be summarised as follows.
On 9 October 1991 the Bratislava 3 State Notary confirmed that
the applicant had inherited land in Komjatice from his late father, Ján
Peter Junior.
The aforesaid land had passed to State ownership in 1959. In
1992 the applicant claimed its restitution under the Land Ownership
Act 1991 (Zákon o úprave vlastníckych vztahov k pôde a inému
polnohospodárskemu majetku) providing for mitigation of certain wrongs
of material nature which had been caused to owners of agricultural and
other property between 1948 and 1989.
On 28 November 1994 the Nové Zámky Land Office (Pozemkovy úrad)
established that the land in question had belonged to Ján Peter Senior,
the uncle of the applicant's father. It therefore held that the
applicant could not be recognised as its owner.
At the hearing before the Land Office the applicant claimed that
the land had been allocated to his father and that the relevant
documents had been later unlawfully modified in favour of Ján Peter
Senior. He submitted evidence that his father had lived and worked on
the land.
The Land Office established that the land had been allocated, in
1928, to "Ján Peter" and that on one of the relevant decrees the name
of the wife of Ján Peter Junior was mentioned. However, in a letter
of 28 August 1934 the Bratislava Land Office stated, in reply to a
claim for a loan lodged by the applicant's father, that the land had
been allocated to Ján Peter Senior who had signed the relevant
documents. The letter further stated that the applicant's father used
the land without an official authorisation and that the claim had to
be signed by the person to whom it had been allocated, i.e. Ján Peter
Senior.
The Land Office further noted that in a letter of 29 August 1938
Ján Peter Senior had informed the Ministry of Agriculture that Ján
Peter Junior had temporarily worked on the land on his behalf. The
Land Office examined also other documents available in the archives and
established that in 1934 Ján Peter Senior had signed a loan claim in
regard of the land in question and that in a document of 1934 the State
Land Office in Prague had considered Ján Peter Senior as the owner of
the land.
The Nové Zámky Land Office had before it also a purchase contract
of 28 June 1947 by which Ján Peter Senior had sold the land in question
to his son Milan Peter and a report of 22 April 1950 concerning
expropriation of the land from the latter.
The Land Office held that the aforesaid evidence clearly
indicated that the land in question had belonged to Ján Peter Senior
and that the applicant had not submitted any relevant documents that
would show that the land had been owned by his father. It therefore
refused to restore the land to the applicant.
The applicant sought a judicial review of the Land Office's
decision of 28 November 1994. He claimed that by virtue of the State
Notary's decision of 9 October 1991 he was to be considered as owner
of the land in question and contested its earlier transfer to the
State. He also contested the truthfulness of the information contained
in the documents on which the Land Office had relied. In particular,
he claimed that between 1934 and 1938 the decrees by which the land had
been allocated to his father had been unlawfully modified in favour of
Ján Peter Senior.
On 30 November 1995 the Bratislava Regional Court (Krajsky súd)
upheld the Land Office's decision. It held that the Land Office had
based its decision on the relevant facts and had applied the law
correctly.
The Regional Court noted that the State Notary's decision of
9 October 1991 was only of a declaratory nature and that as a result
of that decision the applicant could only inherit those rights which
his father had had at the moment of his death. In this respect the
court noted that it was beyond any doubt that in 1989, i.e. when the
applicant's father had died, the land had been owned by the State.
As to the applicant's complaint that between 1934 and 1938 the
relevant documents proving his father's ownership of the land had been
unlawfully modified in favour of Ján Peter Senior, the Regional Court
held that the Land Ownership Act only covered wrongs which had occurred
between 1948 and 1989.
The Regional Court's judgment became final on 2 January 1996.
COMPLAINT
The applicant complains that both the Nové Zámky Land Office and
the Bratislava Regional Court failed to assess the evidence before them
correctly and decided arbitrarily. He alleges a violation of Article 1
of Protocol No. 1.
THE LAW
To the extent that the applicant complains that the Slovak
authorities assessed the evidence before them erroneously and decided
on his claim for restitution of real property arbitrarily, the
Commission recalls that, in accordance with Article 19 (Art. 19) of the
Convention, its only task is to ensure the observance of the
obligations undertaken by the Parties in the Convention. In
particular, it is not competent to deal with an application alleging
that errors of law or fact have been committed by domestic courts,
except where it considers that such errors might have involved a
possible violation of any of the rights and freedoms set out in the
Convention (see, mutatis mutandis, No. 25062/94, Dec. 18.10.95,
D.R. 83-A, pp. 77, 86).
The Commission notes that both the Nové Zámky Land Office and the
Bratislava Regional Court examined the applicant's arguments but found,
for reasons expressly set out in their decisions, that the land at
issue had not formally belonged to the applicant's late father and that
the applicant was not, therefore, entitled to its restitution. The
Commission considers that the reasons on which the aforesaid
authorities based their decisions are sufficient to exclude the
assumption that the evaluation of the evidence in the applicant's case
had been unfair or arbitrary.
As to the applicant's complaint that the dismissal of his above
claim interfered with his property rights, the Commission recalls that
a person complaining of an interference with his or her right to
property under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (P1-1) must show that such
a right existed (see No. 12164/86, Dec. 12.10.88, D.R. 58 p. 63).
The Commission notes that neither the Nové Zámky Land Office nor
the Bratislava Regional Court found the applicant's property rights as
regards the land in question established under the Slovak legal order,
and the Commission has found above that the decisions of the aforesaid
Slovak authorities were not arbitrary. In these circumstances, the
Commission considers that in the present case there has been no
interference with the applicant's rights guaranteed by Article 1 of
Protocol No. 1 (P1-1) as interpreted by the Convention organs (see Eur.
Court HR, Lithgow and Others judgment of 8 July 1986, Series A no. 102,
p. 46, para. 106; No. 30143/96, Estate of Eduard IV Haas v. the Czech
Republic, Dec. 15.5.96, pp. 5, 6, unpublished).
It follows that the application is manifestly ill-founded within
the meaning of Article 27 para. 2 (Art. 27-2) of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Commission, unanimously,
DECLARES THE APPLICATION INADMISSIBLE.
M.-T. SCHOEPFER J.-C. GEUS
Secretary President
to the Second Chamber of the Second Chamber
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy