Published on 19 February 2024

FIFTH SECTION

Applications nos. 18451/20 and 28541/20 Valentyna Stepanivna YASTRUB against Ukraine and Zybiy Prokopovych BILOUS against Ukraine lodged on 13 April 2020 and 11 June 2020 respectively communicated on 30 January 2024

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASES

The applications concern the revocation of the applicants’ titles to the land plots which they acquired in good faith from the local authorities years before the revocation.

Between 2005 and 2008, following the decisions taken by local councils, the applicants acquired official property titles to plots of land which had allegedly been in their and their families’ use for decades.

However, upon the claims of the State Railways company submitted in 2014 and 2017 respectively, their titles were invalidated as the land plots at issue were fully or in part located in the railways protection zone and thus could not have been transferred by the local authorities into private property. The final judgments in the applicants’ cases were delivered on 16 October 2019 and 18 December 2019 respectively.

The applicants complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that that they had been unlawfully and disproportionately deprived of the land they had obtained in good faith.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Has there been an interference with the applicants’ peaceful enjoyment of their possessions, within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, on account of the invalidation of their titles to the land plots which they had acquired and possessed in good faith?

2. If so, was that interference in the public interest, in accordance with the conditions provided for by law and did it impose an excessive individual burden on the applicants, within the meaning of that provision?