CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 13 décembre 2005

.s3ABFC313 { font-size:10pt } .sEB86A30B { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:14pt; page-break-after:avoid } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .sA241FE93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:18pt; text-align:justify; page-break-after:avoid; border-bottom:0.75pt solid #000000; padding-bottom:1pt } .s2EF62ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:12pt } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s8F2B0B1B { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:12pt } .s9FF10068 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .s5F48796F { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify } .s5CB9E8AB { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify; border-bottom:1pt solid #000000; padding-bottom:1pt } .sDF790F1E { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s3DC36BA9 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 81 December 2005 Bergauer and Others v. the Czech Republic (dec.) - 17120/04 Decision 13.12.2005 [Section II] Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 Article 1 para. 1 of Protocol No. 1 Possessions Expulsion of Sudeten Germans from their homeland after the end of the Second World War, and confiscation of their property without compensation: inadmissible   The applicants are 90 persons of German ethnic origin. They or their ancestors were residing in former Czechoslovakia, in the area termed by the applicants “Sudetenland”. At the end of the Second World War the territory was annexed to Germany and the applicants were ordered to leave their property and move to the remaining territory of Czechoslovakia. The applicants were collectively made German nationals without their consent. They submit that after the war they or their predecessors were victims of severe and unjustified ill-treatment. Moreover, on the basis of a number of Presidential Decrees adopted in 1945 their property was confiscated without compensation by the authorities of the former Czechoslovakia. As they had lost their Czech citizenship they claim to have been unable to seek restitution of their property or financial compensation before the national courts. Inadmissible under Article 1 of Protocol No.1 – The expropriation of the applicants’ or their predecessors’ property occurred long before the entry into force of the Convention with respect to the Czech Republic. Moreover, a deprivation of property or other rights in rem is in principle an instantaneous act and does not produce a continuing situation of the “deprivation of a right”. Therefore, the applicants had no “existing possessions” within the meaning of this Article when the Convention entered into force with respect to the Czech Republic. Neither could this provision be interpreted as creating any general obligation for a Contracting State to restore property which had been expropriated before such a State had ratified the Convention. Hence, the Czech Republic did not have any general obligation to restore the property confiscated under the Presidential Decrees to the owners. Moreover, under the applicable legislation the applicants had neither a right nor a claim amounting to a legitimate expectation to obtain such restitution and, therefore, they had no “possession” within the meaning of this Article: incompatible ratione materiae .   © Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court. Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes