European Court of Human Rights

FOURTH SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 1836/03
by Stanisław BUCZAŃSKI
against Poland

The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 30 September 2008 as a Chamber composed of:

Nicolas Bratza, President,
Lech Garlicki,
Giovanni Bonello,
Ljiljana Mijović,
Päivi Hirvelä,
Ledi Bianku,
Nebojša Vučinić, judges

and Fatoş Aracı, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 30 December 2002,

Having regard to the decision to apply Article 29 § 3 of the Convention and examine the admissibility and merits of the case together,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr Stanisław Buczański, is a Polish national born in 1915. The respondent Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr J. Wołąsiewicz of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

A.  The circumstances of the case

The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.

The applicant was a prisoner of war in a German POW camp from September 1939.

On an unspecified date the applicant submitted a request for compensation from by the Polish-German Reconciliation Foundation.

On 5 September 2002 the Foundation Verification Commission refused to pay him financial assistance. It explained that as a prisoner of war the applicant was not entitled to payment under the so called second compensation scheme.

The applicant appealed. He submitted that during his captivity as a prisoner of war he had been transferred to the penal unit, as a punishment for his refusal to waive his rights as a prisoner of war. Members of the unit had been forced to carry out forced labour outside the POW camp, together with other forced labour units in which prisoners of concentration camps worked.

On 20 October 2002 the Appeal Verification Commission informed the applicant that under Article 11 of the 2000 Law on the Creation of the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” he was not eligible for compensation. It further held that under Article 6 of the Agreement of 16 February 2001 between the Remembrance, Responsibility and Future Foundation and the Polish German Reconciliation Foundation no appeal was available against this decision.

In a letter of the same date, appended to this decision, the Appeal Commission observed that only persons who had been discharged from POW camps and transferred to forced labour units were entitled to compensation. In the absence of documents certifying that the applicant had been so discharged, he could not be considered as a forced labourer.

COMPLAINTS

The applicant complained about the refusal of payment and about lack of access to any court in order to appeal against the decision of the Foundation.

THE LAW

On 26 September 2005 the application was communicated to the respondent Government.

On 24 March 2006 the President of the Chamber granted leave to the German Government to intervene as a third party in the Court's proceedings under Article 36 § 2 of the Convention and Rule 44 § 2 of the Rules of Court.

On 3 May 2006 the Polish Government's observations on the admissibility and merits of the application were received. They were subsequently sent to the applicant's home address.

Letters sent to the applicant's address by registered post, dated 14 March and 20 July 2006 and 10 September 2007, which were served on the applicant's wife and daughter, remained unanswered. The applicant was advised that the failure to communicate with the Court might result in the applications being struck out of the Court's list of cases.

Given the impossibility of establishing any communication with the applicant or his heirs, as the case may be, the Court concludes that it is no longer justified to continue the examination of the application, that Article 29 § 3 of the Convention should no longer apply to the case and that the case should be struck out of the list in accordance with Article 37 § 1 (a) of the Convention.

The Court finds no reasons of a general character, as defined in Article 37 § 1 in fine, that would require to continue the proceedings by virtue of that provision.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases.

Fatoş Aracı Nicolas Bratza
Deputy Registrar President