Published on 3 July 2023

FIFTH SECTION

Application no. 9953/16 Natalya Valeriyivna KOSMATSKA against Ukraine lodged on 12 February 2016 communicated on 15 June 2023

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the applicant’s deprivation of the land plot based on the courts’ judgments granting the prosecutor’s claim to have the land returned to the State.

In July 2008 the local authorities allocated land plots to several private persons who obtained titles to them. In October 2008 they sold their land plots to the applicant who, two months later, obtained a title to a consolidated land plot. In 2010, upon the prosecutor’s claim, the local authorities’ decision on the allocation of land were quashed by the courts, and that became a ground for the further invalidation of the titles of the initial owners as well as of the applicant’s title.

In the applicant’s case the prosecutor applied to the courts in April 2014 and the final judgment was adopted by the High Specialised Court for Civil and Criminal Cases on 12 August 2015.

Referring to Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 the applicant complains of an unlawful and disproportionate deprivation of property without compensation.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Has the applicant exhausted all effective domestic remedies, as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention, as regards her complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1? In particular, did she have a possibility to claim or otherwise obtain a compensation for the losses suffered?

2. Has there been an interference with the applicant’s peaceful enjoyment of possessions, within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1?

3. Was the interference in the public interest and in accordance with the conditions provided for by law, within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1? In particular, was the principle of legal certainty breached on account of the domestic courts’ approach to the application of the limitation period in the applicant’s case?

4. Did that interference impose an excessive individual burden on the applicant (see Immobiliare Saffi v. Italy , [GC], no. 22774/93, § 59, ECHR 1999-V?