JOINT DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGES PASTOR RIDRUEJO, BONELLO, TULKENS, STRÁŽNICKÁ, LORENZEN, FISCHBACH AND CASADEVALL

1. We regret that we are unable to share the opinion of the majority that there has been no violation of Article 8 in this case. We refer to our joint dissenting opinion in the case of Chapman v. the United Kingdom (no. 27238, judgment of 18 January 2001), the leading case of the five applications brought before our Court concerning the problems experienced by gypsies in the United Kingdom.

2. Identical considerations arise in this application. The applicant and her family followed an itinerant lifestyle for many years, stopping on temporary or unofficial sites. Due to considerations of family health and the education of the children, the applicant took the step of buying land on which to station her caravans with security. Planning permission was however refused for this and they were required to leave. The applicant was subject to injunction proceedings and lives on her land under threat of committal for contempt or other enforcement measures. Her situation is insecure and vulnerable.

During the planning procedures, it was not shown that there were any alternative sites available for the applicant to go to either in the district or in the county as a whole. The Government referred to official sites existing in the county as offering possible accommodation. Following the applicant’s request to the local authority for assistance as being homeless however, the Council offered the applicant three pieces of unsuitable land which were later withdrawn and the option of accommodation in flats in town. No vacancies have been shown to have arisen for caravans on any sites within the area. The Government also stated that the applicant was free to seek sites outside the county. Notwithstanding the statistics relied on by the Government (see paragraph 61), we observe that there was nonetheless a significant shortfall of official, lawful sites available for gypsies in the country as a whole and we consider that it cannot be assumed that vacancies existed or were available elsewhere.

3. Consequently, the measures taken to evict the applicant from her home on her own land, in circumstances where there has not been shown to be any other lawful, alternative site reasonably open to her were, in our view, disproportionate and disclosed a violation of Article 8 of the Convention.

4. We voted for non-violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and Article 14 as, in light of our firm conviction that Article 8 had been violated in the circumstances of this case, no separate issues remained to be examined.

SEPARATE OPINION OF JUDGE BONELLO

I refer to the terms of my separate opinion in the Chapman v. the United Kingdom judgment of this date.

[1] Notes by the Registry

. Protocol No. 11 came into force on 1 November 1998.

[2] . The full text of the Commission’s opinion and of the separate opinions contained in the report will be reproduced as an annex to the final printed version of the judgment (in the official reports of selected judgments and decisions of the Court), but in the meantime a copy of the Commission’s report is obtainable from the Registry.