Põder and Others v. Estonia (dec.)

Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 74

April 2005

Põder and Others v. Estonia (dec.) - 67723/01

Decision 26.4.2005 [Section IV]

Article 1 of Protocol No. 1

Article 1 para. 1 of Protocol No. 1

Deprivation of property

Refusal to return property which had been nationalised during the Soviet regime: inadmissible

The applicant’s property was nationalised in 1947 and allocated to a third person free of charge. In 1994, the County Commission for the Return and Compensation of Unlawfully expropriated Property, recognised the applicant and his family as persons entitled to the nationalised property under property reform legislation. However, the applicant’s request for return of the property was refused by the District Administration in 1996 on the grounds that the property had lost its former distinct character. The decision was subsequently quashed as unlawful. In 2000, the District Administration again refused to the return of the property to the applicants on the grounds that it was in the possession of a third person who had acquired it in good faith. The applicants filed a complaint claiming that when they had filed their first restitution application, the Property Reform Act as in force at that time stipulated that a person who had acquired an expropriated property free of charge could not be regarded as the bona fide owner of the property. The courts dismissed the complaint. In its judgment, the Supreme Court recalled that the Property Reform Act had been amended in 1997 to avoid new injustices in the field of property rights, and that depriving new owners of property who had received it free of charge would create such an injustice. The applicants received compensation in respect of the nationalised property in 2000.

Inadmissible under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1: Concerning Estonia’s reservation that the provisions of this Article would not apply to laws on property reform, the Court found it unnecessary to determine whether the amended Property Reform Act fell within the scope of application of the reservation, as the complaint was in any event inadmissible for the reasons below. Since deprivation of ownership is an instantaneous act and does not produce a continuing situation, the applicants had no “existing possessions” within the meaning of this provision. Furthermore, this provision did not create any general obligation for Contracting States to restore property which had been expropriated prior to their ratification of the Convention. As regards the decision of 1994 when the authorities recognised the applicants as the “entitled subjects” with respect to the property concerned, the Court had doubts as to whether such a decision in itself could give rise to a claim specific enough to be enforceable. It was even more questionable that a claim to the restoration of the property arose from this decision. However, even assuming that the applicants had a valid claim, the alleged interference had been justified: the amendment of the law had been undertaken with a view to affording due protection to the rights of new owners, and, the applicants had received compensation. The authorities had succeeded in striking a fair balance between the proprietary interests of the persons concerned, and the Court did not find that they had imposed an excessive individual burden on the applicants: manifestly ill-founded.

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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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