FOURTH SECTION
DECISION
AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF
Application no. 29460/04
by Barbara PYZEL and Others
against Poland
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 8 December 2009 as a Chamber composed of:
Nicolas Bratza, President,
Lech Garlicki,
Giovanni Bonello,
Ljiljana Mijović,
Päivi Hirvelä,
Ledi Bianku,
Nebojša Vučinić, judges,
and Lawrence Early, Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 2 August 2004,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicants,
Having deliberated, decided as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicants, Ms Barbara Pyzel, Ms Natalia Pyzel, Mr Mieczysław Pyzel and Mr Zbigniew Pyzel, are Polish nationals who were born in 1968, 1929, 1956 and 1960 respectively and live in Warsaw. The Polish Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr J. Wołąsiewicz of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
1. The local development plan and the applicants’ complaints to the Supreme Administrative Court
The applicants are co-owners of property in Wilanów, which they inherited from their late father and grandfather F.P., who died in 1976.
On 13 December 1994 the Wilanów City Council (Rada Gminy Warszawa-Wilanów) adopted a general local development plan which stipulated, among other things, that an electricity supply line was to be constructed over the applicants’ property. For that reason there was a “reserve” of about 7,000 square metres created on several properties, including part of the applicants’ property.
In 2000 the Wilanów City Council announced that it was intending to adopt amendments to the existing land development plan.
On 4 January 2001 the applicants lodged an objection (zarzut) to the proposed amendments.
On 15 December 2001, by a resolution, the Wilanów City Council rejected the applicants’ objection.
On an unspecified date the applicants lodged a complaint against that resolution with the Supreme Administrative Court (Naczelny Sąd Administracyjny).
On 30 May 2003 the Supreme Administrative Court quashed the challenged resolution and declared it null and void.
In the meantime, on 27 June 2002, although the applicants’ complaint to the Supreme Administrative Court was still pending, the Wilanów City Council passed further amendments to the local development plan adopted in 1994 and excluded from the plan the plots of land owned by the applicants.
The applicants lodged a complaint against that resolution with the Supreme Administrative Court.
On 30 May 2003 the Supreme Administrative Court declared the resolution null and void in the part challenged by the applicants. The court found that adopting a local development plan with an exclusion of some properties situated on the line of the planned investment amounted to a violation of certain provisions of the 1994 Local Planning Act (ustawa o zagospodarowaniu przestrzennym).
Having obtained two Supreme Administrative Court judgments in their favour, on 22 September 2003 the applicants requested the President of Warsaw to present them with a schedule of measures to end the reserve.
On 20 November 2003 they received a letter from the Chief Architect of Warsaw (Naczelny Architekt Miasta) who informed them that, in spite of the judgments given by the Supreme Administrative Court, the reserve remained in force and that a procedure for withdrawal of the reserve might be instituted after the adoption of a new resolution outlining a study of the local development plan (studium uwarunkowan i kierunków zagospodarowania przestrzennego). The architect did not, however, specify any date or time-limit within which the planned study would be prepared.
On 31 December 2003 the local development plan of 1994 expired.
Between the years 2004 and 2006 the applicants sent numerous letters and complaints to various authorities, but these were ineffective.
On 26 June 2006 the applicants informed the Court that the Warsaw authorities had announced a draft of the study which did not contain a “reserve” for the electricity line.
2. Proceedings for dissolution of co-ownership and division of an inheritance
On 8 February 1999 the applicants lodged a request with the Warsaw District Court (Sąd Rejonowy) for dissolution of the co-ownership of their property.
The proceedings were stayed on several occasions and the applicants lodged several requests for the exclusion of judges sitting in their case. Their requests were dismissed as ill-founded.
On 21 September 2004 the Warsaw District Court rejected the applicants’ request, finding that other proceedings for dissolution of co‑ownership and division of property inherited from the late F.P., concerning the same property and instituted by the applicants had been pending since 1982. The applicants did not appeal against that decision.
On 4 October 2004 the Warsaw District Court resumed the proceedings referred to in its decision of 21 September 2004.
On 8 December 2005 the Warsaw District Court gave a preliminary decision in which it established the shares of particular heirs in the estate of the late F.P.
On 3 April 2007 the Warsaw District Court confirmed the distribution of the estate as set out in the preliminary decision of 8 December 2005.
The applicants did not appeal.
B. Relevant domestic law and practice
The relevant domestic law and practice concerning local development plans are set out in the Court’s judgments in the cases of Skibińscy v. Poland, no. 52589/99, § 28-39 and § 51-53, 14 November 2006, and Pietrzak v. Poland, no. 38185/02, § 31-40, 8 January 2008.
COMPLAINTS
The applicants complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that since 1994 they have been deprived of any possibility to develop their property. They complained, in particular, that their situation amounted to a de facto expropriation.
They also complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the judgments given by the Supreme Administrative Court in 2003 have not been enforced.
The applicants further alleged a breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention in relation to the alleged unfairness and excessive length of civil proceedings for the division of property.
THE LAW
A. Alleged violation on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention
The applicants complained that since 1994 they have been deprived of any opportunity to develop their property. They complained, in particular, that their situation amounted to a de facto expropriation. They relied on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, which provides as follows:
“Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law.
The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of a State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties.”
1. The arguments of the parties
(a) The Government’s plea on non-compliance with the six-month rule
The Government submitted that the present application had been lodged with the Court on 2 August 2004 and concerned the “reserve” on the applicants’ property provided for by the local development plan adopted on 13 December 1994. In accordance with the relevant provisions of the Polish law, the local development plan expired on 31 December 2003. On the same day the “reserve” referred to, and thus any limitation concerning the applicant’s property, ceased to exist.
The Government also pointed to the fact that in the present case no “continuous situation” arose which would render the six-month time-limit inapplicable.
In consequence, in the Government’s view this part of the application should be declared inadmissible for the applicants’ failure to comply with the six-month rule.
(b) The applicants’ submissions
The applicants maintained that in their case the domestic authorities had failed to enforce the Supreme Administrative Court’s final judgments given in their case. They also submitted that the “reserve” still existed on their property. They did not comment on the Government’s submissions as regards the alleged failure to comply with the six-month rule.
2. The Court’s assessment
The object of the six-month time-limit under Article 35 § 1 is to promote legal certainty, by ensuring that cases raising issues under the Convention are dealt with in a reasonable time and that past decisions are not continually open to challenge. It marks out the temporal limits of supervision carried out by the organs of the Convention and signals to both individuals and State authorities the period beyond which such supervision is no longer possible (see, amongst other authorities, Walker v. the United Kingdom (dec.), no. 34979/97, ECHR 2000-I).
The Court notes that in the present case the judgments given by the Supreme Administrative Court were of a cassation nature; they declared the challenged resolutions null and void. Therefore, they could not be “enforced” within the meaning referred to by the applicants. In particular their “enforcement” could not lead to a declaration that the local development plan in the part imposing the “reserve” on the applicants’ property was null and void. Thus, in respect of the Supreme Administrative Court’s judgments no “continuous situation” arose which would have made the requirement to lodge an application within the six-month time-limit inapplicable.
The Court observes further that it is indisputable that the local development plan which introduced the “reserve” on the applicants’ property expired on 31 December 2003. On the same day the “reserve” referred to, and thus any limitation concerning the applicants’ property imposed by the local development plan of 13 December 1994, ceased to exist (see, mutadis mutandis, Skibińscy, cited above, § 91). Therefore the Court considers that the six-month time-limit should be calculated from the date on which the local development plan expired, that is from 31 December 2003, being the end of the situation of which the applicants complain (see Graban v. Poland (dec.) 13851/03, 5 July 2005).
It follows that this part of the application is inadmissible for non‑compliance with the six-month rule set out in Article 35 § 1 of the Convention, and must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 § 4.
B. Other alleged violations of the Convention
The applicants also complained under Article 6 § 1 of an infringement of their right to have their case heard within a reasonable time, because the authorities had failed to enforce the Supreme Administrative Court’s judgments and remove the “reserve” from the local development plan. However, as the judgments referred to by the applicants were of a cassation nature – the relevant resolutions were declared null and void – their enforcement did not consist in removing the “reserve” from the plan. Thus there were no judicial, administrative or enforcement proceedings pending in the applicants’ case and thus no issue arises under Article 6 of the Convention. It follows that this complaint must be rejected as manifestly ill‑founded pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
The applicants also complained that the proceedings for dissolution of co-ownership and division of their inheritance were both unfair and unreasonably long. However, they failed to appeal against the first-instance decision given by the Warsaw District Court on 3 April 2007. As regards the complaint that this set of proceedings was excessively long, the Court notes that the applicants have failed to lodge a complaint about the length of proceedings under the under the Law of 17 June 2004 on complaints about a breach of the right to a trial within a reasonable time (Ustawa o skardze na naruszenie prawa strony do rozpoznania sprawy w postępowaniu sądowym bez nieuzasadnionej zwłoki)
It follows that both complaints must be rejected under Article 35 §§ 1, 3 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Declares the application inadmissible.
Lawrence EarlyNicolas Bratza
RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy