Communicated on 21 June 2016
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 54909/13
Kastytis ŠPAKAUSKAS
against Lithuania
lodged on 23 August 2013
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Kastytis Špakauskas, is a Lithuanian national who was born in 1975 and lives in Kaunas. He is represented before the Court by Mr D. Ramanauskas, a lawyer practising in Vilnius.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
On 17 August 1998 the national authorities restored M.G.’s property rights to land that had originally belonged to his deceased wife’s father. M.G. died on an unspecified date and his wife P.G. inherited 3 hectares of land and a house. On 23 March 2009 P.G. sold the land and the house to the applicant and his wife.
On 26 July 2010 the prosecutor started court proceedings and asked the Šakiai District Court to annul the order which restored M.G.’s property rights, the part of M.G.’s will concerning the land and the purchase agreement. On 7 October 2011 the Šakiai District Court partly satisfied the prosecutor’s application and annulled the order of the national authorities of 17 August 1998, and the parts of the will and purchase agreement concerning the land. The court decided to apply the rules on restitution and to return the land to the State. The court held that M.G. had not had any property rights to restore because the land in question had belonged to his deceased wife’s father, but M.G. had remarried, to P.G. That meant he had not fallen within the scope of persons to whom property rights could be restored in accordance with domestic law. The court also stated that the applicant had represented P.G. before the domestic courts on the establishment of the legal facts. However, his wife was one of M.G.’s granddaughters and he should therefore have known that the restoration of property rights to M.G. had been illegal.
The applicant and his wife appealed and on 29 November 2012 the Kaunas Regional Court upheld the decision of the court of first instance. It held that the applicant and his wife had acted in bad faith and that the guarantees for owners who had acquired property in good faith had not been applicable. The applicant and his wife argued that the prosecutor had missed the period of limitation of 30 days, but the court held that the prosecutor had only become aware of a violation of the public interest on 28 June 2010 and had started the court proceedings on 26 July 2010. The period of limitation had therefore not been missed.
On 5 March 2013 the Supreme Court dismissed a cassation appeal as not raising any important legal issues.
B. Relevant domestic law
Article 1.80 of the Civil Code provides that any transaction that fails to comply with mandatory statutory provisions is null and void. When a transaction is declared null and void, each party is required to restore to the other party everything that he or she has received by means of that transaction (restitution). Where it is impossible to restore the assets received in kind, the parties are required to compensate each other in money, unless the law provides for other consequences as a result of the transaction’s being declared void.
Article 6.145 of the Civil Code provides that restitution is to take place where a person is bound to return to another person the property he has received either unlawfully or by error, or as a result of the transaction in which the property has been received by him being annulled ab initio, or as a result of the obligation becoming impossible to perform because of force majeure. In exceptional cases, the court may modify the mode of restitution or refuse restitution altogether where it would impose an undue and unfair burden on one party and, accordingly, bring undue advantage to the other party.
Article 6.153 of the Civil Code provides that third parties acting in good faith who in a transaction for valuable consideration acquire property subject to restitution can invoke that transaction against a person who claims restitution. Third parties acting in good faith who in a transaction without valuable consideration acquire property subject to restitution cannot invoke that transaction against a person who claims restitution if the time-limit for such a claim has not been exceeded by the latter. Any other actions performed in favour of a third party acting in good faith may be invoked against a person who claims restitution.
COMPLAINT
The applicant complains under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that the domestic courts deprived him and his wife of the plot of land in question and that even the money they paid for it was not returned.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has the applicant been deprived of his possessions within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention?
2. If so, was the interference justified under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention? In particular, taking into account that the land was returned to the State without granting any financial compensation to the applicant, was the latter obliged to bear a disproportionate and excessive burden within the meaning of the Court’s case-law (see, for instance and mutatis mutandis Valle Pierimpiè Società Agricola S.p.a. v. Italy, no. 46154/11, §§ 64-77, 23 September 2014)?
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