FIRST SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 54462/08
by Malle VALMA
against Estonia
The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting on 29 March 2011 as a Committee composed of:
Peer Lorenzen, President,
Khanlar Hajiyev,
Julia Laffranque, judges,
and André Wampach, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 2 November 2008,
Having regard to the formal declarations accepting a friendly settlement of the case,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant, Ms Malle Valma, is an Estonian national who was born in 1948 and lives in Tallinn. She was represented before the Court by Mr C. Ginter, a lawyer practising in Tallinn. The Estonian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Ms M. Kuurberg, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
N., the applicant’s aunt, claimed restitution of her family’s property, 3.403 hectares of land, which had been unlawfully expropriated in 1940. On 29 August 1994 the Tallinn City Commission for the Return and Compensation of Unlawfully Expropriated Property (Õigusvastaselt võõrandatud vara tagastamise ja kompenseerimise Tallinna linnakomisjon) recognised her as a person entitled to the nationalised property under the property reform legislation.
On 29 August 1997 the Tallinn City Government decided to return the property to N. She was obliged to ensure public access to a ski and jogging track which crossed the plot. N. challenged this requirement before the Tallinn Administrative Court which on 8 January 1998 declared this part of the City Government’s decision unlawful since it lacked reasoning and legal basis. The court ordered the City Government to re-examine the matter and make a new decision. On 6 March 1998 the City Government quashed its decision of 29 August 1997.
On 31 March 1998 N. died and the applicant as her successor became the person entitled to the property in question.
On 8 June 1998 the Tallinn Administrative Court upheld the applicant’s complaint against the City Government’s decision of 6 March 1998. The court declared it unlawful and ordered the City Government to re-examine the matter and take a new decision. It found that that decision too had contained no reasoning and references to its legal bases. The Administrative Court’s judgment was not appealed against and it became final on 19 June 1998.
Several years later, the applicant requested the Tallinn Administrative Court to impose a fine on the Tallinn City Government for its failure to comply with the judgment of 8 June 1998. On 28 January 2002 the Administrative Court dismissed the request. The judgment was upheld by the Tallinn Court of Appeal. However, by a judgment of 3 April 2003, the Supreme Court quashed the lower courts’ judgments and fined the Tallinn City Government 50,000 kroons (EEK) (approximately 3,200 euros (EUR)).
The Supreme Court found that in order to execute the Administrative Court’s judgment of 8 June 1998, the Tallinn City Government had had to decide anew the question of the return of the property, finding, at the same time, a way to ensure public access to the ski and jogging track. The Supreme Court noted that in the absence of any specific time-limit in the Administrative Court’s judgment, the City Government had had to decide the matter within a reasonable time. It observed that in 1998 the City Government had adopted the terms of reference for drawing up a detailed plan (detailplaneeringu lähteülesanne) for the area necessary for the ski and jogging track, in 2000 the detailed plan (detailplaneering) procedure had been initiated and in 2002 it had been adopted and displayed to the public. The Supreme Court considered that although the City Government had taken steps to execute the Administrative Court’s judgment it had failed to execute it within a reasonable time.
The applicant’s correspondence with various institutions indicates that from 2004 to 2008 the Tallinn City Government made to the Harju County Governor (maavanem) six requests for municipalisation (munitsipaliseerimine) of the part of the land required for the ski and jogging track. All these requests were returned to the City Government for the correction of various shortcomings in them. Lastly, on 11 May 2010 the Harju County Governor decided to transfer into the ownership of the municipality the part of the land in question.
B. Relevant domestic law
Article 98 of the Code of Administrative Court Procedure (Halduskohtumenetluse seadustik) provides that a court may give a time-limit for the enforcement of its judgment (paragraph 1). For a failure to enforce the operative part of its judgment, a court may fine a party up to EEK 100,000 (EUR 6,391) (paragraph 3). An amendment to the latter provision, which entered into force on 1 September 2006, provides that a fine imposed on a party does not absolve it from the obligation to enforce the judgment or deprive an interested party of a right to request a court to impose a new fine on the non-compliant party.
COMPLAINTS
1. The applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the Tallinn Administrative Court’s judgments of 8 January and 8 June 1998 had not been executed.
2. She also complained about the authorities’ failure to return or pay her compensation for her unlawfully expropriated property, about a violation of her right to receive information on the proceedings concerning her property claim, that the authorities had not resolved her property claim in fair proceedings within a reasonable time and about various circumstances related to the administrative court proceedings. She relied on Article 6 § 1 and Articles 10 and 13 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.
THE LAW
1. On 21 and 31 January 2011 the Court received friendly settlement declarations signed by the parties under which the applicant agreed to waive any further claims against Estonia in respect of the fact that the judgments of 8 January and 8 June 1998 had not been fully and timeously enforced by the date of the signing of the declaration against an undertaking by the Government to pay her 4,000 euros to cover any and all pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage and any and all costs and expenses, plus any tax that may be chargeable to the applicant. It will be payable within three months from the date of notification of the decision taken by the Court pursuant to Article 37 § 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In the event of failure to pay this sum within the said three-month period, the Government undertook to pay simple interest on it, from expiry of that period until settlement, at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points. The payment will constitute the final resolution of the case.
The parties declared that the settlement should not affect any rights of the applicant to request further enforcement of the above decisions from Estonia, or to pursue any other rights that might arise from the circumstances described in the case. They agreed that the above payment did not constitute compensation for the land that had been the subject matter of the case.
The Court takes note of the friendly settlement reached between the parties. It is satisfied that the settlement is based on respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols and finds no reasons to justify a continued examination of the application in this part (Article 37 § 1 in fine of the Convention).
In view of the above, it is appropriate to strike the case out of the list in so far the complaint about non-enforcement of the judgments of 8 January and 8 June 1998 is concerned.
2. The applicant further complained about the authorities’ failure to return or pay her compensation for her unlawfully expropriated property, about a violation of her right to receive information on the proceedings concerning her property claim, that the authorities had not resolved her property claim in fair proceedings within a reasonable time and about various circumstances related to the administrative court proceedings. She relied on Article 6 § 1 and Articles 10 and 13 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.
The Court has examined the remainder of the complaints as submitted by the applicant. However, in the light of all the material in its possession, and in so far as the matters complained of are within its competence, the Court finds that they do not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms set out in the Convention or its Protocols.
It follows that this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases in so far as the complaint about non-enforcement of the judgments of 8 January and 8 June 1998 is concerned;
Declares the remainder of the application inadmissible.
André WampachPeer Lorenzen
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy