TARPOSHYAN AND OTHERS v. ARMENIA

Published on 13 October 2025

FIFTH SECTION

Application no. 1079/20
Osanna TARPOSHYAN and Others
against Armenia
lodged on 11 December 2019
communicated on 22 September 2025

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The first applicant is the mother of the second and third applicants. Following the death of M.M. – the husband of the first applicant and father of the second and third – the applicants accepted his inheritance and discovered in the process that a jointly owned family plot of land had been alienated back in 2003 without their consent or knowledge. In February 2013 the first applicant filed a crime report, and a criminal case was instituted to investigate into that matter.

The investigation established that M.M. had privatised the land in question in 1991. In 2001 the State Real Estate Registry registered the family’s joint ownership over the land and provided a certificate of ownership. The then head of the municipality where the land was located failed to register the plot in the relevant privatised land inventory, resulting in it remaining marked as state-owned land on the municipality maps. In 2003 the Government donated the state-owned land in that community, including the plot belonging to the applicants, to the municipality which sold it to a third party shortly afterwards. The criminal case was discontinued due to the death of the head of the municipality who was allegedly responsible for the offence under investigation.

The applicants applied to the Administrative Court asking to declare unlawful the relevant inaction and actions of the municipal authorities that had led to a breach of their property rights. The court granted their application. The applicants then applied to the municipality seeking restitution (“elimination of the consequences of the misadministration”). Since their land had already been acquired by a third party, they alleged that the restoration of the status quo ante was impossible and requested monetary compensation for both pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage. After receiving no response from the municipality, they submitted the same application to the Administrative Court. On 26 September 2017 the court dismissed the applicants’ application on two grounds: (i) monetary compensation could only be sought if restitution (that is the restoration of the status quo ante or an adequate alternative) was impossible or ineffective; (ii) the statutory 10‑year time-limit for compensation related to misadministration had expired. The court found that it could not assess the possibility for other forms of restitution since the applicants had asked for only monetary compensation. The applicants appealed arguing inter alia against the application of the 10‑year time-limit that had been introduced after the misadministration infringing their rights had taken place. On 23 November 2018 the Administrative Court of Appeal upheld the judgment. The applicants lodged an appeal on points of law which was declared inadmissible for lack of merit by the Court of Cassation on 14 May 2019. The decision was served on the applicants on 13 June 2019.

The applicants complain under Article 1 of the Protocol No. 1 of unlawful deprivation of property and of bearing disproportionate burden by being denied the compensation against the deprived property.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

Has there been a breach of the applicants’ rights as guaranteed under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1? In particular:

a)     has there been an interference with the applicants’ right to the peaceful enjoyment of their property as protected by Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention? If so, was that interference compatible with the requirements of that article (see Broniowski v. Poland [GC], no. 31443/96, §§ 134-36, 143-44, and 147-51, ECHR 2004-V)?

b)     having regard to the positive obligation of the State to provide appropriate legal mechanism allowing the aggrieved party to assert its rights effectively, did the applicants enjoy procedural and material safeguards enshrined in the Convention when seeking compensation (see Jokela v. Finland, no. 28856/95, § 45, ECHR 2002-IV, and Plechanow v. Poland, no. 22279/04, §§ 99-103 and 108-11, 7 July 2009)?

APPENDIX

List of applicants: