FIFTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 10932/11
Alois POSPÍŠIL
against the Czech Republic
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 2 July 2013 as a Committee composed of:
Angelika Nußberger, President,
André Potocki,
Aleš Pejchal, judges,
Stephen Phillips, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 8 February 2011,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant, Mr Alois Pospíšil, is a Czech national, who was born in 1938 and lives in Nové Město na Moravě. He is represented before the Court by Ms L. Krejčí, a lawyer practising in Brno.
A. The circumstances of the case
In 1968 the applicant and his late wife bought a house from the State, which had acquired it from a certain K. in 1957. The sale price was set by an expert who was appointed by the State.
In 1992 daughters of K. brought restitution proceedings against the applicant and his son, who each owned half of the house and the adjoining land, claiming the ownership of the property.
On 19 December 2006 the Ždár nad Sázavou District Court upheld the claim. It found that all the conditions for restitution as stipulated in Act no. 229/1991 were fulfilled. In particular, the claimant’s mother had given the property to the State under duress and the applicant had bought it for a price lower than the price required by the regulations on prices applicable at the material time.
The applicant appealed arguing, inter alia, that he and his wife had not had any influence on the purchase price that had been set by the State, that they had not been unlawfully advantaged during the purchase as neither of them had been a member of the communist party or had had any personal contacts with its functionaries. Moreover, they had bought the house in a very poor state and had had to invest a considerable amount of money which had not been taken into account by the expert opinions evaluating the 1968 price of the house that were adduced before the first-instance court.
On 26 August 2008 the Brno Regional Court nevertheless upheld the judgment agreeing with the District Court. It noted that the court’s conclusion that the applicant had paid a lower price for the property was based on four expert opinions.
On 7 May 2009 the Supreme Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal on points of law.
On 3 August 2010 the Constitutional Court dismissed the applicant’s constitutional appeal as manifestly ill-founded. It took note of the Court’s case-law that required that the attenuation of old injuries should not create disproportionate new wrongs and that compensation paid to the person whose property had been taken had to be reasonably related to its “market” value, as determined at the time of the expropriation. Nevertheless it held that the issue of adequate compensation could not have been considered in the present proceedings which dealt only with the return of the property to the original owners.
On 1 March 2011 the applicant received from the Ministry of Agriculture in compensation the original purchase price of the house of 26,394 Czech korunas (CZK, 1,035 euros (EUR)). The applicant also claimed compensation for appreciation of the property during the time he had owned it. That claim was rejected by the Ministry noting that the applicant must first address that claim to the restituents.
On 14 October 2011 the applicant brought proceedings against the State claiming additional compensation of CZK 2,100,812 (EUR 82,385). The proceedings are pending.
B. Relevant domestic law
The relevant domestic law was set out in the Court’s decision in Umlaufová v. the Czech Republic (dec.), no. 3794/08, 29 January 2013.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 that by depriving him of ownership of the house and the adjoining land his right to property had been violated.
Further, relying on Article 6 of the Convention he complained that the decisions of the domestic courts had been wrong.
THE LAW
1. The Government considered the complaint of violations of the right to property premature as the domestic proceedings for compensation were pending.
The applicant did not comment.
The Court recently considered a similar objection of the Government in its decision in Umlaufová v. the Czech Republic, cited above, which concerned similar complaints and facts. It evaluated the evolution of the domestic remedies on the matter and held that due to several judgments of the Supreme Court, an action for compensation against the State had obtained sufficient effectiveness for the purposes of Article 35 § 1 of the Convention on 10 March 2010 when judgment no. 28 Cdo 2836/2009 was adopted.
The Court notes that the present application was lodged almost eleven months after that date. Therefore, even allowing the applicant a certain amount of time to effectively get familiar with those judicial decisions (see, for example, Broca and Texier-Micault v. France, nos. 27928/02 and 31694/02, § 20, 21 October 2003 and Depauw v. Belgium (dec.), no. 2115/04, 15 May 2007) it was incumbent on the applicant to exhaust that remedy before lodging the present application.
The Court observes that the applicant in fact instituted such proceedings against the State in which he claims compensation. These proceedings are pending.
Accordingly, the complaint is premature and must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.
2. The applicant further disagreed with the domestic decisions.
Having examined these complaints submitted by the applicant, the Court, having regard to all the material in its possession and in so far as the complaints fall within its competence, finds that they do not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms set out in the Convention or its Protocols. It follows that the complaints must be rejected as being manifestly ill-founded, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Declares the application inadmissible.
Stephen PhillipsAngelika Nußberger
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy