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AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application No. 33465/96

by Dusan PETER

against the Slovak Republic

The European Commission of Human Rights (Second Chamber) sitting

in private on 16 April 1998, the following members being present:

MM J.-C. GEUS, President

M.A. NOWICKI

G. JÖRUNDSSON

A. GÖZÜBÜYÜK

J.-C. SOYER

H. DANELIUS

Mrs G.H. THUNE

MM F. MARTINEZ

I. CABRAL BARRETO

J. MUCHA

D. SVÁBY

P. LORENZEN

E. BIELIUNAS

E.A. ALKEMA

A. ARABADJIEV

Ms M.-T. SCHOEPFER, Secretary to the Chamber

Having regard to Article 25 of the Convention for the Protection

of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms;

Having regard to the application introduced on 5 June 1996 by

Dusan PETER against the Slovak Republic and registered on

16 October 1996 under file No. 33465/96;

Having regard to the report provided for in Rule 47 of the Rules

of Procedure of the Commission;

Having deliberated;

Decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant is a Slovak national born in 1933. He is retired

and resides in Bratislava. The facts of the case, as submitted by the

applicant, may be summarised as follows.

On 9 October 1991 the Bratislava 3 State Notary confirmed that

the applicant had inherited land in Komjatice from his late father, Ján

Peter Junior.

The aforesaid land had passed to State ownership in 1959. In

1992 the applicant claimed its restitution under the Land Ownership

Act 1991 (Zákon o úprave vlastníckych vztahov k pôde a inému

polnohospodárskemu majetku) providing for mitigation of certain wrongs

of material nature which had been caused to owners of agricultural and

other property between 1948 and 1989.

On 28 November 1994 the Nové Zámky Land Office (Pozemkovy úrad)

established that the land in question had belonged to Ján Peter Senior,

the uncle of the applicant's father. It therefore held that the

applicant could not be recognised as its owner.

At the hearing before the Land Office the applicant claimed that

the land had been allocated to his father and that the relevant

documents had been later unlawfully modified in favour of Ján Peter

Senior. He submitted evidence that his father had lived and worked on

the land.

The Land Office established that the land had been allocated, in

1928, to "Ján Peter" and that on one of the relevant decrees the name

of the wife of Ján Peter Junior was mentioned. However, in a letter

of 28 August 1934 the Bratislava Land Office stated, in reply to a

claim for a loan lodged by the applicant's father, that the land had

been allocated to Ján Peter Senior who had signed the relevant

documents. The letter further stated that the applicant's father used

the land without an official authorisation and that the claim had to

be signed by the person to whom it had been allocated, i.e. Ján Peter

Senior.

The Land Office further noted that in a letter of 29 August 1938

Ján Peter Senior had informed the Ministry of Agriculture that Ján

Peter Junior had temporarily worked on the land on his behalf. The

Land Office examined also other documents available in the archives and

established that in 1934 Ján Peter Senior had signed a loan claim in

regard of the land in question and that in a document of 1934 the State

Land Office in Prague had considered Ján Peter Senior as the owner of

the land.

The Nové Zámky Land Office had before it also a purchase contract

of 28 June 1947 by which Ján Peter Senior had sold the land in question

to his son Milan Peter and a report of 22 April 1950 concerning

expropriation of the land from the latter.

The Land Office held that the aforesaid evidence clearly

indicated that the land in question had belonged to Ján Peter Senior

and that the applicant had not submitted any relevant documents that

would show that the land had been owned by his father. It therefore

refused to restore the land to the applicant.

The applicant sought a judicial review of the Land Office's

decision of 28 November 1994. He claimed that by virtue of the State

Notary's decision of 9 October 1991 he was to be considered as owner

of the land in question and contested its earlier transfer to the

State. He also contested the truthfulness of the information contained

in the documents on which the Land Office had relied. In particular,

he claimed that between 1934 and 1938 the decrees by which the land had

been allocated to his father had been unlawfully modified in favour of

Ján Peter Senior.

On 30 November 1995 the Bratislava Regional Court (Krajsky súd)

upheld the Land Office's decision. It held that the Land Office had

based its decision on the relevant facts and had applied the law

correctly.

The Regional Court noted that the State Notary's decision of

9 October 1991 was only of a declaratory nature and that as a result

of that decision the applicant could only inherit those rights which

his father had had at the moment of his death. In this respect the

court noted that it was beyond any doubt that in 1989, i.e. when the

applicant's father had died, the land had been owned by the State.

As to the applicant's complaint that between 1934 and 1938 the

relevant documents proving his father's ownership of the land had been

unlawfully modified in favour of Ján Peter Senior, the Regional Court

held that the Land Ownership Act only covered wrongs which had occurred

between 1948 and 1989.

The Regional Court's judgment became final on 2 January 1996.

COMPLAINT

The applicant complains that both the Nové Zámky Land Office and

the Bratislava Regional Court failed to assess the evidence before them

correctly and decided arbitrarily. He alleges a violation of Article 1

of Protocol No. 1.

THE LAW

To the extent that the applicant complains that the Slovak

authorities assessed the evidence before them erroneously and decided

on his claim for restitution of real property arbitrarily, the

Commission recalls that, in accordance with Article 19 (Art. 19) of the

Convention, its only task is to ensure the observance of the

obligations undertaken by the Parties in the Convention. In

particular, it is not competent to deal with an application alleging

that errors of law or fact have been committed by domestic courts,

except where it considers that such errors might have involved a

possible violation of any of the rights and freedoms set out in the

Convention (see, mutatis mutandis, No. 25062/94, Dec. 18.10.95,

D.R. 83-A, pp. 77, 86).

The Commission notes that both the Nové Zámky Land Office and the

Bratislava Regional Court examined the applicant's arguments but found,

for reasons expressly set out in their decisions, that the land at

issue had not formally belonged to the applicant's late father and that

the applicant was not, therefore, entitled to its restitution. The

Commission considers that the reasons on which the aforesaid

authorities based their decisions are sufficient to exclude the

assumption that the evaluation of the evidence in the applicant's case

had been unfair or arbitrary.

As to the applicant's complaint that the dismissal of his above

claim interfered with his property rights, the Commission recalls that

a person complaining of an interference with his or her right to

property under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (P1-1) must show that such

a right existed (see No. 12164/86, Dec. 12.10.88, D.R. 58 p. 63).

The Commission notes that neither the Nové Zámky Land Office nor

the Bratislava Regional Court found the applicant's property rights as

regards the land in question established under the Slovak legal order,

and the Commission has found above that the decisions of the aforesaid

Slovak authorities were not arbitrary. In these circumstances, the

Commission considers that in the present case there has been no

interference with the applicant's rights guaranteed by Article 1 of

Protocol No. 1 (P1-1) as interpreted by the Convention organs (see Eur.

Court HR, Lithgow and Others judgment of 8 July 1986, Series A no. 102,

p. 46, para. 106; No. 30143/96, Estate of Eduard IV Haas v. the Czech

Republic, Dec. 15.5.96, pp. 5, 6, unpublished).

It follows that the application is manifestly ill-founded within

the meaning of Article 27 para. 2 (Art. 27-2) of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Commission, unanimously,

DECLARES THE APPLICATION INADMISSIBLE.

M.-T. SCHOEPFER J.-C. GEUS

Secretary President

to the Second Chamber of the Second Chamber

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PETER v. SLOVAK REPUBLIC

PETER v. SLOVAK REPUBLIC

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