FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 9873/11
Jadwiga WASIEWSKA
against Poland
lodged on 28 January 2011
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Ms Jadwiga Wasiewska, is a Polish national, who was born in 1936 and lives in Bydgoszcz.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
In 1997 the applicant and her husband T.W. divorced. Prior to the divorce the applicant’s former husband had thrown her out of their flat. He changed the locks and prevented the applicant from entering it to take personal items belonging to her, their daughter and grand-daughter.
On 30 April 2002 the applicant and her former husband reached a friendly settlement as regards the division of their marital property, i.e. the flat. The applicant was to become the sole owner of the flat and to pay her former husband off until 2 September 2002. Her former husband retained a right to stay in the flat until that date. However, T.W. made it impossible for the applicant to sell the flat so that she could have the money to pay him off.
The applicant’s former husband obtained an enforcement order against the applicant with the result that a part of her retirement pension was seized by the bailiff to help pay off her debt. She was also obliged to pay half of the maintenance costs for the flat.
In 2006 the applicant brought a civil case for eviction against her former husband.
On 22 September 2008 the Bydgoszcz District Court allowed the applicant’s action and ordered the eviction of T.W. At the same time it ordered that the defendant be allocated social accommodation by the municipality. The execution of the judgment was to be stayed until he had been allocated social housing.
The applicant appealed, complaining about the part of the court’s decision obliging the municipality to award her former husband social accommodation. Her appeal was dismissed on 9 April 2009 by the Bydgoszcz Regional Court. The appeal lodged by T.W. was rejected for formal reasons.
On 13 April 2010 the eviction judgment became enforceable because the municipality had allocated social accommodation to T.W.
Subsequently T.W. instituted proceedings in which he sought to quash the enforcement order arguing that the social accommodation allocated to him by the municipality had been in a bad state of repair. Consequently, on 2 August 2010 the enforcement proceedings were stayed. On 29 June 2011 Bydgoszcz Regional Court finally dismissed his application to quash the enforcement order.
On an unspecified date the applicant lodged a complaint under the Law of 17 June 2004 on complaints about a breach of the right to an investigation conducted or supervised by a prosecutor and to a trial within a reasonable time (Ustawa o skardze na naruszenie prawa strony do rozpoznania sprawy w postępowaniu przygotowawczym prowadzonym lub nadzorowanym przez prokuratora i postępowaniu sądowym bez nieuzasadnionej zwłoki– “the 2004 Act”). She complained about the length of the enforcement proceedings conducted by the court bailiff.
On 9 November 2011 the Bydgoszcz Regional Court dismissed the complaint finding that there had been no delay on the part of the bailiff.
The applicant’s former husband still occupies the flat in question and the enforcement proceedings are pending.
The applicant on many occasions complained to the police about T.W.’s behaviour. In 1998 and 1999 the Bydgoszcz District Prosecutor discontinued several sets of investigations against T.W. into allegations of domestic violence made by the applicant and their daughter as well as the investigation into the changing of the locks in the flat.
On 19 April 2010 the police discontinued an investigation into allegations that T.W. had prevented the applicant from having access to her own belongings left in the flat. On 30 July 2010 the Bydgoszcz District Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains under several Articles of the Convention about the authorities’ failure to enforce their own judgments ordering the eviction of her former husband from the flat she owns. She further complains about the impossibility to initiate a criminal investigation against her former husband who made it impossible for her to have access to her belongings left in the flat and the flat itself. The applicant submits that the State failed in their positive obligations to secure respect for her rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Convention.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Was the non‑execution of the eviction judgment awarded in the applicant’s favour compatible with the applicant’s rights guaranteed by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?
2. Has there been a failure by the State to comply with its positive obligations to protect the applicant’s right to respect for her home and private and family life, and her physical integrity, within the meaning of Article 8 of the Convention?
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