Information Note on the Court’s case-law No.
July 1997
Pressos Compania Naviera S.A. and Others v. Belgium (just satisfaction) - 17849/91
Judgment 3.7.1997
Article 41
Costs and expenses
Non-pecuniary damage
Pecuniary damage
Claim for just satisfaction submitted by applicants whom the Court had held to be victims of a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1
[This summary is extracted from the Court’s official reports (Series A or Reports of Judgments and Decisions). Its formatting and structure may therefore differ from the Case-Law Information Note summaries.]
A.Damage
1.Claim of all but the 25th applicant
Before damages were assessed, liability for each of the casualties had to be determined and beneficiaries and compensation duly identified; that was a task for the national courts – Court, however, reserved to itself right to verify whether outcome of national proceedings satisfied Article 50.
Decisions of national courts in cases concerning 16th and 21st applicants: by not applying Act of 30 August 1988 and provided that the decisions become final, those courts had effected the restitutio in integrum to which those applicants might lay claim following Court’s judgment on merits.
Not Court’s task to rule in abstracto on compatibility of provisions of a bill with the Convention.
Conclusion: case struck out subject to Court’s power to restore (unanimously).
2.The 25th applicant
Pecuniary damage: compensation assessed on equitable basis.
Non-pecuniary damage: judgment affords sufficient reparation.
Conclusion: respondent State to pay a specified sum for pecuniary damage (unanimously).
B.Costs and expenses
Lack of information or supporting documentation on costs incurred by 25th applicant.
Conclusion: claim dismissed (unanimously).
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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