Published on 20 December 2021

FIRST SECTION

Application no. 61157/15 O PELASGOS against Greece lodged on 30 November 2015 communicated on 2 December 2021

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The applicant is a housing association of school and nursery teachers possessing a plot of land which was expropriated. The application concerns the domestic courts’ decision that the Greek State was the official owner of the land instead of the applicant.

M. K. purchased a property of the Monastery Agios Dionysios Olympou (successor of the Monastery of Kanales) following a public tender. In 1947 he sold part of the property to Zafranas who in 1992 further sold a part of it to the applicant. In 1994 part of that property was expropriated for the purpose of improving the national road. In 2015 the domestic courts concluded that the applicant had not become the owner of the land and was not entitled to the compensation determined in 1996 (relating to the 1994 expropriation). The Court of Cassation held that the applicant had not acquired the property because the Monastery, the original predecessor-in-title, itself had never acquired the property.

The applicant complains of a breach of Article 1 of Protocol No.1.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

Has there been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention in the present case?

In particular, did the proceedings in question comply with the procedural obligations under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (see Zafranas v. Greece , no. 4056/08, 4 October 2011), taking into account elements such as the invoked property titles, notary deeds, registrations and administrative decisions (ministerial decision of 1946 lifting the prohibition to sell the property, presidential decree of 1997 approving the town-planning study etc.)?