THIRD SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 35600/16
Svetlana Anatolyevna SERGEYEVA and Others
against Russia
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 13 February 2018 as a Committee composed of:
Luis López Guerra, President,
Dmitry Dedov,
Jolien Schukking, judges,
and Fatoş Aracı, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 17 June 2016,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicants,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicants, Ms Svetlana Anatolyevna Sergeyeva, Mr Sergey Vladimirovich Sergeyev and Ms Anna Sergeyevna Sergeyeva, are Russian nationals, who were born in 1973, 1971 and 2011 respectively and live in Bolokhovo, Tula Region. They were represented before the Court by Mr Ilyas Vakhitov, lawyer practising in the Moscow Region.
The Russian Government (“the Government”) were represented initially by Mr G. Matyushkin, former Representative of the Russian Federation to the European Court of Human Rights, and then by his successor in that office, Mr M. Galperin.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
1. Transactions in respect of the flat later purchased by the applicants
A flat located at 5-36 Ulitsa Bondarenko, Tula was Kan.’s property.
On 24 September 2011 Kan. died. On 18 October 2011 the flat was registered as vacant.
On 17 August 2012 the Proletarskiy District Court of Tula recognised Kar. as Kan.’s son and heir. The Tula City Administration appealed.
On 1 November 2012 the Tula Regional Court quashed the judgment of 17 August 2012 on appeal and dismissed Kar.’s claims.
On 18 February 2012 the City Administration informed the state registration body that the flat was bona vacantia and asked for the registration of the flat as municipal property.
According to the state register, as of 12 September 2014 Kan. was still registered as the owner of the flat.
On 16 November 2014 Nen. sold the flat to Nik. acting by virtue of a power-of-attorney on behalf of Kan. The power-of-attorney was issued on 12 June 2012.
On 27 January 2015 Nik. sold the flat to B.
On 2 February 2015 B. sold the flat to the applicants.
2. Civil proceedings concerning the title to the flat
On an unspecified date the Tula City Administration brought a civil action seeking the title to the flat. The administration argued that Kan. had died intestate and without heirs, that the flat should be considered bona vacantia and that the title to it should be transferred to the city. The applicants asked the court to recognise them as bona fide purchasers of the flat.
On 29 September 2015 the District Court granted the City Administration’s claims in full. The court established that, following Kan.’s death, the flat was bona vacantia and ordered its restitution to the City of Tula. The court recognised that the applicants had bought the flat in good faith. However, it found that because the sale of the flat to Nik. had been fraudulent, the City of Tula had the right to reclaim the flat from the applicants, despite the fact that they were bona fide purchasers.
The applicants appealed. They argued that the District Court had erred in applying substantive law in their case and that it had failed to establish correctly the facts of the case.
On 24 December 2015 the Regional Court upheld the judgment of 29 September 2015 on appeal.
On 29 February 2016 the Regional Court refused to grant the applicants’ leave to cassation appeal.
On 15 April 2015 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation issued a similar decision.
On an unspecified date the Ombudsperson of the Russian Federation lodged a cassation appeal against the judgments of 29 September and 24 December 2015.
On 31 January 2017 the Supreme Court quashed the judgment of 24 December 2015 and remitted the matter for fresh consideration by the appellate court.
On 26 April 2017 the Regional Court quashed the judgment of 29 September 2015 and dismissed the City Administration’s claims. The court considered that the City Administration had missed the statutory time‑limit for lodging the claims. The flat remained the applicants’ possession.
COMPLAINTS
The applicants complain under Article 8 of the Convention and under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention about the transfer of the loss of the title to their flat and imminent eviction.
THE LAW
The applicants complained about the loss of housing. They relied on Article 8 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, which provide, in so far as relevant, as follows:
Article 8
“1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”
Article 1 of Protocol No. 1
“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.”
The Government submitted that there had been no violation of the applicants’ rights. They pointed out that the judgment recognising the City Administration’s title to the flat had been quashed. The applicants had not been evicted.
The applicants maintained their complaints. They considered that they had not lost their victim status despite the quashing of the judgment in the City Administration’s favour. They had suffered distress and frustration on account of the deprivation of their possessions and the imminent eviction.
The Court reiterates that under Article 34 of the Convention it may receive applications from any person claiming to be a victim of a violation by one of the High Contracting Parties of the rights set forth in the Convention or the Protocols thereto. It falls first to the national authorities to redress any alleged violation of the Convention. In this regard, the question whether an applicant can claim to be a victim of the violation alleged is relevant at all stages of the proceedings under the Convention. A decision or measure favourable to an applicant is not, in principle, sufficient to deprive him of his status as a “victim” unless the national authorities have acknowledged, either expressly or in substance, and then afforded redress for, the breach of the Convention (see, for example, Scordino v. Italy (no. 1) [GC], no. 36813/97, §§ 178-80, ECHR 2006‑V).
Turning to the circumstances of the present case, the Court notes from the outset, that the judgments ordering the applicants’ eviction and restitution of their flat to the City of Tula have never been enforced. The enforcement proceedings were not instituted and the applicants’ continued to reside in the flat even after the final judgment on the matter was delivered on 24 December 2015.
The Court further notes that on 31 January 2017 the appeal judgment in the applicants’ case was set aside by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. The effect of the proceedings which formed the basis for the applicant’s complaints under Article 8 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 has thus been annulled (compare, Varin and Others v. Russia (dec.), nos. 78544/13 and 46727/14, 27 April 2017). In the new appeal hearing, the Regional Court acknowledged that the transfer of the title to the flat to the City Administration had been wrongful and adopted new judgment favourable to the applicants. The applicants did not complain to the domestic authorities that they had suffered any non-pecuniary damage as a result of the transfer of the title to the flat to the City Administration. Nor did they seek the reimbursement of the costs and expenses incurred, if any.
Regard being had to the above, the Court considers that the national authorities have acknowledged the breach of the Convention, and, in the circumstances of the case, such acknowledgement had constituted a sufficient and adequate redress, having the effect of rendering the applicants “no longer victims” of the alleged violations.
It follows that the applications must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ (a) and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 15 March 2018.
Fatoş AracıLuis López Guerra
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy