Published on 28 August 2023

FOURTH SECTION

Application no. 44957/17 Nafija SINANOVIĆ against Serbia lodged on 12 June 2017 communicated on 7 July 2023

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The land belonging to the applicant’s indirect predecessor, located in the centre of Novi Pazar, was expropriated in order to regulate the flow of a local river. No compensation was awarded.

Since a part of this land had ultimately not been used for the intended purpose, in 2004 and in accordance with the relevant legislation, the applicant’s husband, as the predecessor’s son, requested the annulment of the expropriation and the land’s repossession. Following his death, the applicant, as her husband’s legal heir, continued with those proceedings. After several remittals, the request was dismissed in 2012. The national administrative and judicial authorities held, in particular, that the repossession could only be granted if there had been a prior division of the contested land whereby each new plot would have been clearly identified and delineated. This, however, had not taken place. On 24 November 2016 the Constitutional Court upheld the decisions of the said authorities.

Following the conclusion of the administrative and judicial proceedings, the Municipality of Novi Pazar requested the division of the land in question and, having obtained it, sold the plot to a third party (a private company).

Relying on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and Article 13 of the Convention, the applicant complains that by deciding as they did the domestic authorities placed an excessive individual burden on her which she could not have fulfilled. Specifically, to have the land in question divided prior to a repossession, given that, according to the official interpretation of the relevant legislation, this division could only have been carried out at the request of the land’s current owner/user, i.e. the Municipality of Novi Pazar, not the applicant personally. In any event, the applicant maintains that the relevant domestic law did not contain a specific provision to this effect.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Did the applicant have a property right/possession or a sufficiently established legitimate expectation of such within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention (see, mutatis mutandis , Kopecký v. Slovakia [GC], no. 44912/98, § 35, ECHR 2004 IX)?

2. If so, has there been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1? In particular, did the domestic authorities’ dismissal of the request for repossession violate the applicant’s right to the peaceful enjoyment of her possessions within the meaning of this provision (see Keçecioğlu and Others v. Turkey, no. 37546/02, §§ 26-28, 8 April 2008, and Karaman v. Turkey , no. 6489/03, §§ 29-34, 15 January 2008)?

3. Did the applicant have at her disposal an effective domestic remedy for her complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, as required by Article 13 of the Convention?