THIRD SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 33183/07
PRIMA SH.P.K. and Artan KOZMAI
against Albania
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 19 September 2023 as a Committee composed of:
Georgios A. Serghides, President,
Darian Pavli,
Oddný Mjöll Arnardóttir, judges,
and Olga Chernishova, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 33183/07) against the Republic of Albania lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 25 July 2007 by Prima sh.p.k., a company incorporated in Albania and an Albanian national Mr Artan Kozmai, who was born in 1962 and lives in Tirana. The second applicant is the owner and the administrator of the first applicant company. The applicants are represented before the Court by Mr A. Hajdari and Mr A. Brovina, lawyers practising in Tirana;
the decision to give notice to the Albanian Government (“the Government”), represented by their then Agent, Mr N. Naço, former Minister of Justice, and subsequently by Mr. O. Moçka, General State Advocate, of the complaints concerning the failure of the Supreme Court to examine the applicants’ plea that the plaintiffs’ action was time barred, under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and the applicants’ right of property under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, and to declare the remainder of the application inadmissible;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns the alleged violation of the applicants’ rights to fair trial and respect of property as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision in a civil case.
2. On 16 August 1997 the Tirana Municipality’s Council for Territorial Planning (hereinafter the “Council”), granted the applicant company a planning permit on a plot of land owned by the second applicant and approved it on 14 October 1997.
3. On an unspecified date in 1998, following the beginning of construction by the applicant company, the neighbours in an adjacent building lodged a civil action against the applicant company, seeking that the construction be halted and the Council’s decisions annulled.
4. On 5 May 1998 the Tirana District Court (“the District Court”) ordered that the construction works be halted.
5. On 20 November 1998 the District Court partially accepted the civil action, but no decision was taken regarding the request for the annulment of the Council’s decision. On 16 April 1999 the Tirana Court of Appeal (“Court of Appeal”) upheld the District Court’s decision.
6. On 8 March 2000 the Supreme Court quashed the decisions of both lower courts and remitted the case to the District Court for a fresh examination by a different bench.
7. On 16 April 2002 the District Court partially accepted the civil action, ordering the applicant company to cease interfering with the plaintiffs’ property rights. It also dismissed the part of the action concerning the annulment of the building permit as unfounded.
8. The applicant company appealed and on 21 July 2003 the Court of Appeal overturned the District Court’s decision and dismissed the plaintiffs’ action, holding that the main claim, in so far as it concerned the request for the annulment of the building permit, had been filed out of the thirty-day time-limit, stipulated in Article 328 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
9. On 23 November 2004 the Supreme Court quashed the Court of Appeal’s decision and found that the new construction posed a risk to the plaintiffs’ property and ordered the applicant company to cease the interference.
10. The Supreme Court also annulled the planning and building permits, holding that they were in breach of the 1993 Urban Planning Act. It held further that, since the building permit had been issued for a period of six months, and no request that it be renewed had been submitted, the decisions granting those permits were to be annulled.
11. On 30 January 2007 the Constitutional Court, sitting as a bench of three judges, declared the applicant company’s constitutional complaint inadmissible.
THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT
12. The applicants argued that the failure of the Supreme Court to address their objection as to the admissibility of the plaintiffs’ claim violated the obligation of the courts to give reasons for their decisions and interfered with their property rights because had the Supreme Court found that the plaintiffs’ civil action had been lodged out of time, the applicant’s building permit would not have been annulled. The applicants relied on Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.
13. The Court does not have to address the issue of the victim status of the second applicant since, even assuming that he has standing, the application is in any event inadmissible on the following grounds.
Article 6 § 1 of the Convention14. The Court reiterates that, according to its established case-law reflecting a principle linked to the proper administration of justice, judgments of courts and tribunals should adequately state the reasons on which they are based (see García Ruiz v. Spain [GC], no. 30544/96, § 26, ECHR 1999-I). This obligation presupposes that a party to judicial proceedings can expect a specific and express reply to those submissions which are decisive for the outcome of the proceedings in question (see Ramos Nunes de Carvalho e Sá v. Portugal [GC], nos. 55391/13 and 2 others, § 185, 6 November 2018).
15. The extent to which this duty to give reasons applies may vary according to the nature of the decision and can only be determined in the light of the circumstances of the case: it is necessary to take into account, inter alia, the diversity of the submissions that a litigant may bring before the courts and the differences existing in the Contracting States with regard to statutory provisions, customary rules, legal opinion and the presentation and drafting of judgments (Ruiz Torija v. Spain, 9 December 1994, § 29, Series A no. 303-A, and Hiro Balani v. Spain, 9 December 1994, § 27, Series A no. 303-B).
16. It is primarily for the national authorities, notably the courts, to resolve problems of interpretation of domestic legislation. This applies in particular to the interpretation by courts of rules of a procedural nature such as the prescribed manner and prescribed time for lodging, inter alia, a civil action or appeals. The Court’s role is confined to ascertaining whether the effects of such an interpretation are compatible with the Convention (see Platakou v. Greece, no. 38460/97, § 37, ECHR 2001-I).
17. As to the case at issue, the Court notes that the civil action concerned two main claims: that the construction work by the applicant company be halted and that the decisions of the Council authorising that construction be quashed. Each of these claims was subject to a different statutory limitation period. For the first claim it was one year from the beginning of the construction works, while for the second claim it was thirty days from the date when the building permit had been issued or from the date the interested parties obtained knowledge of it. It is not contested that the first claim was lodged within the prescribed time-limit. However, the second claim was lodged more than thirty days after the building permit’s approval. Since that decision was not served on the neighbours, it is not possible to determine the exact date when they learned about it.
18. The Court finds that, even if the Supreme Court judgment did not expressly address the question of whether the claim concerning the annulment of the building permit was time-barred, it must be noted that, as the Supreme Court reasoned, it was evident from the file that the building permit had been issued for six months only, and the applicant company had not submitted any request for its renewal or extension. Owing to that, the building permit ceased to be valid, irrespective of any judicial decision. Therefore, the fact that the Supreme Court did not address the question of whether that part of the plaintiffs’ claim was time-barred could not have affected the validity of the building permit, since it had already expired.
19. The main issues to be determined by the domestic courts were whether the construction by the applicant company adversely affected the neighbouring buildings and whether the construction complied with the existing legal framework. These questions were carefully addressed by the Supreme Court in its decision, by listing the inconsistencies of the construction permit with the 1993 Urban Planning Act and finding that the property rights of the applicant company’s neighbours would be infringed had the construction been completed.
20. In these circumstances the Court considers that the applicants’ complaint about the lack of reasoning of the Supreme Court’s decision is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.
Article 1 of Protocol No. 121. The applicants also raised a complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, claiming a breach of their right to peaceful enjoyment of their possessions, due to the annulment of their construction permit. Given the above assessment under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the Court considers that, in the light of all the material in its possession and in so far as this matter is within its competence, this complaint does not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Convention or the Protocols thereto. Having regard to the reasons given by the domestic courts (i.e. the expiration of the building permit in application of sections 60 and 33 of the Urban Planning Act, the lack of diligence shown by the applicants in failing to seek its renewal and other failures to comply with urban planning laws), the Court considers that the courts’ decision resulting in the annulment of the building permit did not disclose a violation of the applicants’ property rights (see, mutatis mutandis, Gorraiz Lizarraga and Others v. Spain, no. 62543/00, § 70, ECHR 2004-III).
22. It follows that this complaint is also manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 12 October 2023.
Olga Chernishova Georgios A. Serghides
Deputy Registrar President