CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 4 octobre 2011

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Greece - 4056/08 Judgment 4.10.2011 [Section I] Article 46 Article 46-2 Execution of judgment Individual measures Respondent State required to refrain from demanding repayment of compensation awarded for expropriation   Facts – The applicants possessed three plots of land that were expropriated in 1988 for the purpose of building a railway line. They applied to a court of first instance for recognition of their entitlement to compensation for the expropriation. They based their claim on the contracts under which the first applicant and his mother had acquired the plots of land in 1947 from a private individual who, in turn, had acquired them under a contract concluded with the Office for the Management of Church Property in 1936 and had subsequently been granted permission to sell them by the Minister for Agriculture. In 1998 the court of first instance allowed the applicants’ claim and its judgment was upheld on appeal. Following an appeal on points of law by the Greek State, the Court of Cassation quashed the judgment and remitted the case to a court of appeal. In 2003 the court of appeal dismissed the applicants’ claim, holding that they had not succeeded in establishing that their predecessors had occupied the land in question for a continuous period starting thirty years before 1915, and concluding that the Greek State was the official owner of the land. That judgment was upheld by the Court of Cassation. Law – Article 1 of Protocol No. 1: The applicants had been able to provide the domestic courts with a sound legal basis in support of their ownership of the land, namely the contract of sale and the decision of the Minister for Agriculture regarding the legal status of the land in question before they had acquired it. It was beyond doubt that the Minister for Agriculture would not have allowed the applicants’ predecessor in title to sell the land to others if he had considered that it was State property. Admittedly, when examining the case for the second time the court of appeal had not taken into account the decision of the Minister for Agriculture, having accepted that the applicants’ predecessor in title had taken advantage of the “confusion and disputes among the State authorities as to the existence or the scope of the State’s right of property over the land in question and had succeeded in obtaining the adoption of the decision by the Minister for Agriculture forming the basis for its sale”. However, the Court considered that the domestic authorities could not legitimately rely on an alleged lack of coordination within their internal organisation in seeking to avoid implementing lawful administrative decisions. Furthermore, with regard to the position adopted by the domestic court, its determination of the case amounted to drawing adverse inferences to the litigants’ detriment on account of a situation not attributable to them concerning the State authorities’ operating standards. Such an approach contravened the principle of legal certainty, which litigants inevitably relied on when carrying out property transactions. The proceedings before the domestic courts had therefore upset the “fair balance” between the demands of the public interest and the requirements of the protection of the applicants’ right to the peaceful enjoyment of their possessions. Conclusion : violation (unanimously). Article 46: The applicants currently faced the risk of having to repay to the authorities the compensation awarded for the expropriation. Consequently, regard being had to the particular circumstances of the case, if the domestic authorities refrained from claiming back the compensation awarded to the applicants for the expropriation, this would constitute an appropriate form of redress by which to put an effective end to the violation of Article   1 of Protocol No.   1. Article 41: EUR 10,000 to each of the applicants in respect of non-pecuniary damage.   © 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