Published on 25 October 2021

FIRST SECTION

Application no. 11650/21 Jan MARSZAŁEK against Poland lodged on 5 February 2021 communicated on 8 October 2021

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the non-enforcement of a judgment from 2003, ordering the Białogard Municipality to provide the applicant, a homeless person, with a welfare flat.

On 13 October 2003 the District Court ordered eviction of the applicant, his brother and his mother (now deceased) from the welfare tenancy flat that they had been leasing from the Municipality. In the same judgment, as required by the applicable law, the court ordered the Municipality to provide to the evicted tenants a social accommodation. The eviction was due to take place only after the Municipality had offered the social accommodation to the applicant.

In 2004 the applicant was admitted and moved to an addiction therapy centre. In January 2006 the Municipality offered the applicant and his brother a welfare lease. The offer did not reach the applicant as he was in the addiction therapy centre. The brother rejected the offer for unknown reasons. Since then, the Municipality has not made any other lease offer to the applicant.

At an unknown date the applicant’s flat became unavailable to him - presumably following his brother’s eviction. The applicant did not bring any court action to retrieve the lost possession.

In June 2020 a lawyer (appointed to represent the applicant under a legal ‑ aid scheme), asked the Municipality to provide the applicant with social accommodation. The Municipality replied that no welfare flats were available, and that the situation was unlikely to change. Given this, and since the applicant’s lawyer instructed him that any legal action against the Municipality would have no prospects of success, he decided not to pursue his civil action. The applicant currently lives in a shelter for the homeless.

The applicant complains, without invoking any provisions of the Convention, that the Municipality has not executed the District Court’s decision of 13 October 2003.

QUESTION TO THE PARTIES

Has there been a violation of Article 6 of the Convention and of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention on account of the non-enforcement of the District Court’s judgment of 13 October 2003 concerning the replacement accommodation (see, mutatis mutandis , Yașar v. Romania , no. 64863/13, 26 November 2019; Tchokontio Happi v. France , no. 65829/12, 9 April 2015; Ilyushkin and Others v. Russia , nos. 5734/08 and 28 others, 17 April 2012; Akimova v. Azerbaijan , no. 19853/03, 27 September 2007; Sypchenko v. Russia , no. 38368/04, 1 March 2007; Kukalo v. Russia , no. 63995/00, 3 November 2005; Teteriny v. Russia, no. 11931/03, 30 June 2005; Malinovskiy v. Russia , no. 41302/02, ECHR 2005 VII (extracts); and Burdov v. Russia , no. 59498/00, ECHR 2002-III)?