Published on 7 February 2022

FIRST SECTION

Application no. 65976/16 Stavros KARMIRIS against Greece lodged on 9 November 2016 communicated on 17 January 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the suspension of the applicants’ construction permit by the Urban Planning Office of the Prefecture of Thessaloniki in a plot of urban land they own in the municipality of Sykies located in block 41. In March 2009, the Planning Office issued a construction permit and the applicants immediately started the construction. In October 2010, upon request of the municipality claiming ownership of a plot of 7.80 m2 situated within the plot for which the permit was issued, the Office re-examined the situation and ordered the suspension of the construction work.

The applicants lodged an application for annulment against the suspension order with the Thessaloniki Administrative Court of Appeal. The appellate court dismissed the application. It found that the suspension order was lawful as in the opinion of the administration the construction was likely to obstruct the spatial arrangement of the plot owned by the municipality. It also found that a new Act of Spatial Arrangement and Compensation providing for the incorporation of this plot into the applicants’ property was necessary (the previous one, dating from 1986, being of a temporary nature and having not provided for any spatial arrangement within block 41).

The applicants filed an appeal on points of law. They complained, inter alia , of the fact that the appellate judgment did not examine their specific allegation that no obstruction was likely to result from the construction work and that a new act of spatial arrangement was not necessary since the plot owned by the municipality was going in any case to be incorporated into their plot by virtue of relevant domestic law. The Supreme Administrative Court rejected the appeal as inadmissible pursuant to article 12 of Law 3900/2010.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Have the domestic decisions violated the applicants’ right of access to a court within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, have they infringed the requirement that a tribunal should exercise full jurisdiction over the impugned administrative act? Further, has the Administrative Court of Appeal sufficiently examined their allegation that no obstruction to the spatial arrangement of the neighbouring plot belonging to the municipality was likely to result from the construction work?

2. Has the suspension order, issued more than one year and a half after the beginning of the construction work, constituted an interference with the applicants’ peaceful enjoyment of possessions, within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1? If so, was it in accordance with the conditions provided for by law, did it pursue a legitimate aim in the public interest, and did it impose a disproportionate and excessive burden on the applicants?