FIRST SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 72763/14 Nada MEDICA against Croatia

The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting on 26 April 2022 as a Committee composed of:

Péter Paczolay, President, Alena Poláčková, Davor Derenčinović, judges, and Liv Tigerstedt, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the application (no. 72763/14) against Croatia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 12 November 2014 by a Croatian national, Ms Nada Medica, who was born in 1952 and lives in Lovran (“the applicant”), who was represented by Ms M. Radulović, a lawyer practising in Opatija;

the decision to give notice of the complaint concerning the right to respect for home to the Croatian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms Š. Stažnik, and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application;

the parties’ observations;

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

1. The application concerns refusal by the domestic courts to impose a lease-of-flat contract on the owners of premises in which the applicant had been living since 1978.

2. In 1978 the applicant was awarded certain premises in Lovran as temporary accommodation by the hotel where she had been working.

3. In 2011 the applicant brought a civil action against the hotel and the owners of the land on which the premises were built. She argued that the premises constituted a flat and that she had acquired a specially protected tenancy ( stanarsko pravo ) of it. She sought judgment in lieu of lease contract stipulating protected rent. In so doing she relied on the Lease of Flats Act which abolished the legal concept of the specially protected tenancy and provided that the holders of such tenancies were to become “protected lessees” ( zaštićeni najmoprimci ). Such lessees are subject to a number of protective measures, such as the payment of protected rent ( zaštićena najamnina ), the amount of which is set by the Government and is significantly lower than the market rent.

4. The applicant’s action was dismissed by a first-instance judgment of 2 February 2012 which became final on 13 February 2013 when it was upheld by the second-instance court. The civil courts held that the applicant was not entitled to protected lease because she had never acquired specially protected tenancy in respect of the premises in question. In particular, under the housing legislation in force in the period between 1974 and 1996 such tenancy could not have been acquired in respect of premises given for temporary accommodation. The applicant’s subsequent constitutional complaint was dismissed by the Constitutional Court on 2 July 2013.

5. Before the Court the applicant complained under Article 8 of the Convention that the domestic courts’ decisions had violated her right to respect for her home.

THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT

6. The Court first notes that in the proceedings complained of the domestic courts did not order the applicant to vacate the premises in which she had been living.

7. In addition, the Government informed the Court that, after the conclusion of those proceedings, the ownership of the land on which the premises in question were located had changed, and that on 15 January 2019 the applicant and the company M. as the owner of the land concluded an out ‑ of-court settlement before a notary public whereby she had effectively become the owner of the premises in question.

8. In these circumstances it cannot but be concluded that the domestic courts’ decisions complained of did not constitute an interference with the applicant’s right to respect for her home (see, by converse implication, Ćosić v. Croatia , no. 28261/06, § 19, 15 January 2009), and that she no longer runs any risk of eviction because she has in the meantime become the owner of the premises which she considers her home.

9. It follows that the application is therefore inadmissible under Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention as manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 § 4 thereof.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Declares the application inadmissible.

Done in English and notified in writing on 19 May 2022.

Liv Tigerstedt Péter Paczolay Deputy Registrar President