European Court of Human Rights

FIRST SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 38186/06
by Petar BUJ
against Croatia

The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting on 4 December 2008 as a Chamber composed of:

Christos Rozakis, President,
Nina Vajić,
Khanlar Hajiyev,
Dean Spielmann,
Sverre Erik Jebens,
Giorgio Malinverni,
George Nicolaou, judges,
and Søren Nielsen, Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 4 September 2006,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr Petar Buj, is a Croatian national who was born in 1946 and lives in Jelsa. The Croatian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mrs Š. StaZnik.

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

The applicant’s mother died on 1 May 1994. Subsequently, inheritance proceedings (ostavinski postupak) were opened before the Stari Grad Municipal Court (Općinski sud u Starom Gradu).

On 8 June 1999 the Municipal Court issued a decision distributing the property between the applicant and his brother. The second point of the operative part of that decision reads:

... the land registry division of this court shall register the ownership of the heirs [listed above], once [that part of the decision] becomes final...

Subsequently, the applicant’s representative lodged an appeal against that decision complaining about the ruling on the costs of the proceedings.

On 12 April 2002 the Split County Court (Zupanijski sud u Splitu) declared the appeal inadmissible.

The applicant’s ownership of the property at issue was registered in the land register on 27 June 2006.

COMPLAINTS

The applicant complained under Articles 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 thereto that the unreasonable length of the proceedings had prevented him from freely using his property.

THE LAW

By letter dated 20 February 2008 the Government’s observations were sent to the applicant, who was requested to submit any observations together with any claims for just satisfaction in reply by 2 April 2008.

By letter dated 12 August 2008, sent by registered post, the applicant was notified that the period allowed for submission of his observations had expired on 2 April 2008 and that no extension of time had been requested. The applicant’s attention was drawn to Article 37 § 1 (a) of the Convention, which provides that the Court may strike a case out of its list of cases where the circumstances lead to the conclusion that the applicant does not intend to pursue the application. The applicant received this letter on 20 August 2008. However, no response has been received.

The Court considers that, in these circumstances, the applicant may be regarded as no longer wishing to pursue his application, within the meaning of Article 37 § 1 (a) of the Convention. Furthermore, in accordance with Article 37 § 1 in fine, the Court finds no special circumstances regarding respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols which require the continued examination of the case. In view of the above, it is appropriate to strike the case out of the list.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

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

Søren Nielsen Christos Rozakis
Registrar President