Information Note on the Court’s case-law 60

January 2004

Jahn and Others v. Germany - 46720/99, 72203/01 and 72552/01

Judgment 22.1.2004 [Section III]

Article 1 of Protocol No. 1

Article 1 para. 1 of Protocol No. 1

Deprivation of property

Obligation to return property in the GDR to the State without compensation following the reunification: violation

[This case was referred to the Grand Chamber on 14 June 2004]

F acts : The applicants are the heirs of the new owners of land expropriated after the Second World War under the land reform in the Soviet Occupied Zone of Germany. Full ownership of the land was conferred on them by a German Democratic Republic (GDR) law, w hich came into force in March 1990. After German reunification had taken effect, a 1992 law provided that the heirs of new owners who had not been carrying on an activity in the agricultural, forestry or food-industry sector on 15 March 1990, or had not do ne so during the previous ten years, had to return the land to the State. The applicants, who did not satisfy those criteria, were required by the courts to reassign their land without compensation. They were unsuccessful in their appeals at every level up to the Federal Constitutional Court.

Law : Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 – The applicants had legally acquired full ownership of the land by virtue of a law passed by the GDR parliament before the first free elections in 1990. As a result of the reunificati on of Germany their title to the land had subsequently become an integral part of FRG law, thus falling within the scope of the Convention. After German reunification the applicants had all been registered as owners in the land register and had, initially, been able to dispose of their property as they wished. Subsequent decisions by which the FRG courts had ordered the applicants to reassign their land to the tax authorities of the Länder were to be regarded as a “deprivation” of property. The interference in question had been “provided for by law” and the law had been “in the public interest”. Liquidation of the land reform had involved complex issues in the context of German reunification, which the Court took into account in its examination of the case. However, regardless of the applicants’ position before the entry into force of the 1990 law, there was no doubt that they had legally acquired full ownership of their land when the law came into force. The fact that the German legislature had subsequently sought to correct the effects of that law by passing a new law two years later did not pose a problem in the Court’s view; the problem was the content of the new law. The Court considered that, in order for the principle of proportionality to be complied w ith, the German legislature could not have deprived the applicants of their property for the benefit of the State without making provision for them to be adequately compensated. Although the circumstances pertaining to German reunification were exceptional , the lack of any compensation for the State’s taking of the applicants’ property had upset, to the applicants’ detriment, the fair balance which had to be struck between the protection of property and the requirements of the general interest.

Conclusion : violation (unanimously).

Article 41 – The Court reserved the question of Article 41.

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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