SECOND SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 50831/19 BronÄ— LOZOVSKIENÄ– against Lithuania

The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 9 May 2023 as a Committee composed of:

Pauliine Koskelo , President , Egidijus Kūris, Frédéric Krenc , judges , and Dorothee von Arnim, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the application (no. 50831/19) against the Republic of Lithuania lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 17 September 2019 by a Lithuanian national, Ms Bronė Lozovskienė (“the applicant”), who was born in 1956, lives in Vilnius and was represented by Ms I. Bagdonaitė-Zarembienė, a lawyer practising in Vilnius;

the decision to give notice of the complaint concerning Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention to the Lithuanian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms K. Bubnytė-Širmenė, and to declare the remainder of the application inadmissible;

the parties’ observations;

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

1. The case concerns the applicant’s complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that the authorities unfairly refused to restore her property rights to land which had belonged to her ancestors.

2. In 1991 the applicant’s uncle lodged a request for restitution of property rights to land which had belonged to the applicant’s grandfather, D. In the request it was indicated that D. had been the son of S. The applicant’s father was included in that request as one of the candidates to receive land.

3 . In 1997 the applicant’s father transferred the right to the restitution of two plots of land – a plot of 1.3 hectares in the village of Martinava and a plot of 3.29 hectares in the village of Geidukonys – to the applicant, stating that they had belonged to her grandfather, D. In 2006 she was informed by the authorities that her father had made a mistake when referring to the land in Geidukonys as having belonged to D. because that land had in fact belonged to S.

4 . On several occasions between 2003 and 2006 the authorities confirmed to the applicant that she had the right to receive the 1.3 hectares of land in Martinava which had belonged to D. and the 3.29 hectares of land in Geidukonys which had belonged to S. They also confirmed that they had all the documentation necessary to restore her property rights, including documents showing that she was related to D. and S.

5 . According to the Government, and undisputed by the applicant, in February 2007 she was informed orally by the authorities that they did not have sufficient documents proving that she was related to S.: although there were documents indicating that her grandfather D. had been the son of someone named S., it was not clear from those documents that that had been the same S. who had owned the land in Geidukonys.

6 . The applicant lodged two complaints with the Seimas Ombudsperson in which she submitted that the authorities had still not restored her property rights. In decisions adopted in August and November 2007 the Ombudsperson stated, among other things, that the applicant’s property rights had not been restored because of insufficient documentation to prove that D. had been related to S. The Ombudsperson recommended that the authorities take certain steps to speed up the restitution process.

7 . In May 2011 the National Land Service (hereinafter “the NLS”) informed the applicant in writing that her property rights to the land in Geidukonys could not be restored because there were no documents proving that she was related to S.

8 . The applicant complained to the Seimas Ombudsperson and the prosecutor that the authorities were procrastinating in the restitution of her property rights and that they had displaced or forged the relevant documents, but her complaints were dismissed.

9 . In October 2012 the NLS restored the applicant’s property rights to the 1.3 hectares of land in Martinava (see paragraph 3 above).

10 . In July 2014 the applicant contacted the NLS, asking it to explain why her property rights to the land in Geidukonys had still not been restored. The NLS replied in August 2014, informing her that that land had belonged to S. and that neither she nor her father had ever lodged a request for their rights to S.’s land to be restored; moreover, they had not provided the authorities with any documents proving that they were related to S. The NLS stated that, under the relevant law, requests for restitution of property rights had had to be lodged before 31 December 2001 and documents proving the relationship to the previous owner had had to be submitted before 31 December 2003. Those time-limits could however be extended by a court if they had been missed for good reason.

11 . In May 2015 the NLS informed the applicant that taking any further steps with a view to restoring her property rights would be possible only if:

(1) a court extended the time-limit for her to lodge a request to have her property rights to S.’s land restored and to provide documents proving that she was related to S; and

(2) she lodged such a request and provided the necessary documents within the new time-limit.

12 . On 8 September 2015 the NLS adopted a decision refusing to restore the applicant’s property rights to the land which had belonged to S. She was notified of that decision on 14 September 2015.

13 . Under domestic law, an appeal against the aforementioned decision could be lodged with the administrative courts within thirty days.

14 . The applicant lodged several complaints with the NLS, which replied to her on 30 September and 19 October 2015 informing her of the reasons why her property rights had not been restored (see paragraphs 10 and 11 above). The NLS also pointed out that she had the right to appeal to a court against the decision of 8 September 2015.

15 . On 13 November 2015 the applicant lodged a complaint with the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court in which she asked it to annul the NLS’s letter of 19 October 2015 (see paragraph 14 above) and to restore her property rights to the entirety of the land which had belonged to her grandfather.

16 . On 22 November 2016 the applicant corrected her complaint: she additionally asked the court to extend the time-limit for her to appeal against the NLS’s decision of 8 September 2015 (see paragraphs 12 and 13 above), to annul that decision, and to extend the time-limit for her to submit documents proving her relationship to S. She submitted that she had missed the thirty-day time-limit for appealing against the decision of 8 September 2015 because she had had serious health problems and had been hospitalised multiple times. Moreover, the procedure for lodging an appeal had not been specified in the decision she wanted to appeal against, and after receiving it she had contacted the Chancellor of the Government for more information. She also argued that she had had a legitimate expectation to have her property rights restored because the authorities had confirmed on several occasions that they had all the necessary documents (see paragraph 4 above), and that they had informed her about the lack of documents only after the time-limit for submitting them had already expired (see paragraph 10 above).

17 . On 5 December 2016 the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court refused to accept the corrected complaint. It noted that the applicant’s health problems had not precluded her from contacting the Chancellor of the Government and that, moreover, she could have lodged a complaint in time through a lawyer. There were therefore no grounds to extend the time-limit for her to appeal against the NLS’s decision of 8 September 2015. Furthermore, the court considered that the applicant’s request for an extension of the time-limit for submitting the missing documents was derived from her other requests and also had to be refused. On 8 February 2017 the Supreme Administrative Court upheld the lower court’s decision.

18. On 2 May 2017 the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court examined the applicant’s complaint concerning the NLS’s letter of 19 October 2015 (see paragraph 15 above) and dismissed it, finding that the NLS had provided the applicant with detailed information and could not have replied in any other way because by then the decision refusing to restore her property rights had already been adopted. It also held that the applicant’s property rights to her grandfather’s land had been restored (see paragraph 9 above) and that there was no evidence that he had owned any more land. On 20 March 2019 the Supreme Administrative Court upheld the lower court’s decision. It stated, in particular, that the fact that in the past the administrative authorities had erred when assessing the documents in their possession could not lead to them being obliged to restore to the applicant more land than she had the right to receive.

19. The applicant complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that the authorities had misled her into believing that her property rights would be restored and that she had been made to bear the burden of their mistakes.

THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT

20. The Government submitted that the applicant had failed to exhaust effective domestic remedies. In particular, she had not asked the domestic courts to renew the time-limit for her to provide documents proving that she was related to S., despite having been informed about the possibility of doing so (see paragraphs 10 and 11 above).

21. The general principles concerning the requirement to exhaust effective domestic remedies have been summarised in Vučković and Others v. Serbia ((preliminary objection) [GC], nos. 17153/11 and 29 others, §§ 69 ‑ 77, 25 March 2014, and the cases cited therein). In particular, the complaints intended to be made subsequently in Strasbourg should have been made to the appropriate domestic body in compliance with the formal requirements and time-limits laid down in domestic law (ibid., § 72).

22. In the present case, the Court observes that for a significant period of time – at least until the end of 2006 – the applicant could not have been expected to provide the domestic authorities with any additional documents showing her relationship to S. since those authorities had confirmed on several occasions that they had all the documents necessary for restoring her property rights to S.’s land (see paragraph 4 above). However, in February 2007 and May 2011 the authorities informed her that they now considered the documents in their possession insufficient to prove her relationship to S. (see paragraphs 5 and 7 above). In her observations before the Court, the applicant questioned that assessment, but it is not the Court’s role to determine whether she fulfilled the relevant criteria to have her property rights restored – that determination was the prerogative of the domestic authorities and courts (see, mutatis mutandis , Beinarovič and Others v. Lithuania , nos. 70520/10 and 2 others, § 136, 12 June 2018). While the applicant lodged complaints with the Ombudsperson and the prosecutor (see paragraphs 6 and 8 above), she did not challenge before the domestic courts the decisions of the administrative authorities in which they had deemed the documents previously submitted by her to be insufficient, although such a possibility was provided in the Law on Administrative Proceedings (see the relevant provision in Paliutis v. Lithuania , no. 34085/09, § 21, 24 November 2015). She thereby precluded the domestic courts from examining whether those decisions had been well ‑ founded or whether the authorities had erred in their assessment.

23. Moreover, in 2014 and 2015 the authorities expressly informed the applicant of the steps she needed to take in order for the restitution of her property rights to proceed, including lodging a request with the courts for an extension of the time-limit for her to submit the missing documents (see paragraphs 10 and 11 above). The Court accepts that the applicant could not be faulted for having missed that time-limit since the authorities had informed her that the documentation was allegedly insufficient after it had already expired. At the same time, the Court is mindful that it is not its role to determine the best way for States to correct errors made by public authorities in the process of restoring property rights (see Beinarovič and Others , cited above, § 145). It notes that the impugned state of affairs could have been remedied by the submission of the necessary documents to the NLS. It considers that requiring the applicant to lodge a request with the courts asking them to extend the time-limit did not make that remedy ineffective or inadequate in the particular circumstances of the case (see Vučković and Others , cited above, §§ 73-74 and 77), despite the fact that the said time-limit had been missed as a result of the authorities’ actions. However, she did not lodge such a request until November 2016, by which time the NLS had already refused to restore her property rights and the submission of any new documents would no longer have been relevant. She did not therefore give the domestic courts an opportunity to rectify the mistakes made by the administrative authorities.

24. The applicant complained to the domestic courts for the first time only after the NLS’s decision of 8 September 2015 refusing to restore her property rights. While it appears that that decision did not specify the procedure for appealing against it, she was informed of that procedure by the NLS on 19 October 2015 (see paragraph 14 above). However, she lodged her appeal more than a year later, significantly exceeding the thirty-day time-limit laid down in domestic law, and the domestic courts found that she did not provide any reasons sufficient to justify the late submission; they therefore refused to extend that time-limit (see paragraph 17 above). In such circumstances, the Court finds that the domestic courts were precluded from assessing the lawfulness of the refusal to restore the applicant’s property rights as a result of her own lack of diligence.

25. The Court takes note of the applicant’s argument that the authorities themselves failed to act diligently in the restitution process and, in particular, that they misled her. Be that as it may, it observes that the authorities took action to correct their mistakes and informed the applicant of the steps to be taken by her in that regard, but that it was her own inactivity which precluded the situation from being rectified. In such circumstances, the Court concludes that the applicant did not do everything that could have been reasonably expected of her to exhaust domestic remedies (compare also D.H. and Others v. the Czech Republic [GC], no. 57325/00, § 116, ECHR 2007 ‑ IV).

26. The Government’s objection must therefore be allowed and the application must be declared inadmissible for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies, in line with Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Declares the application inadmissible.

Done in English and notified in writing on 1 June 2023.

Dorothee von Arnim Pauliine Koskelo Deputy Registrar President