European Court of Human Rights

FIRST SECTION

DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 2408/06
by Anna Mikhaylovna BELCHIKOVA
against Russia

The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting on 25 March 2010 as a Chamber composed of:

          Christos Rozakis, President,
          Nina Vajić,
          Anatoly Kovler,
          Elisabeth Steiner,
          Khanlar Hajiyev,
          Dean Spielmann,
          Sverre Erik Jebens, judges,
and Søren Nielsen, Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 5 December 2005,

Having regard to the decision to grant priority to the above application under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court,

Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Ms Anna Mikhaylovna Belchikova, is a Russian national who was born in 1933 and lives in the city of St Petersburg. She was represented before the Court by Mr A.A. Shumilov, a legal specialist practising in that city.

The Russian Government (“the Government”) were represented by Ms V. Milinchuk, former Representative of the Russian Federation at the European Court of Human Rights.

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

On 22 April 2000 the applicant’s sister passed away. According to her will, the sister bequeathed her apartment to the applicant. It appears that at that time the applicant resided in the apartment on the basis of a rent agreement dated 14 February 2000 and valid for a term of one year.

Thereafter the applicant was involved in court proceedings against other members of her family over the validity of the will and rights to the apartment.

A.  Court proceedings in respect of the apartment

By first instance judgment of 29 May 2002 the Pushkinskiy District Court of the city of St Petersburg (“the District Court”), composed of judge M. and lay assessors K. and T., declared the sister’s will invalid on the ground of her insanity.

The judgment was taken on the basis of oral evidence given by the parties and nine witnesses, including the doctors of the applicant’s sister, as well the sister’s medical records and two medical examination reports.

On 12 November 2002 the St Petersburg City Court (“the City Court”) upheld the judgment on appeal.

The applicant did not question the court composition in her case either before the first instance or on appeal.

B.  Eviction and subsequent enforcement proceedings

On 2 February 2005 the District Court examined the eviction request of the applicant’s relatives and decided to evict the applicant.

The court referred to the judgment of 29 May 2002 and the rent agreement of 14 February 2000 and noted that the agreement expired on 14 February 2001 and that the applicant did not have any right to live in the apartment any longer. The court also noted that the owner of the apartment and his family had not owned any other apartments and had the intention of residing in the apartment themselves and that the applicant was not in need of a residence, since she owned a house in the Crimea, and had until 2002 owned an apartment in the town of Kola in the Murmansk Region and then sold it. Having regard to the above considerations, the court considered that the eviction order requested by the plaintiffs had been an appropriate and necessary measure which had been justified by the interests of the owner of the apartment.

This judgment was upheld on appeal on 14 June 2005.

On 6 July 2005 the bailiffs commenced enforcement proceedings in respect of the judgment of 2 February 2005.

It is not clear whether the applicant has been evicted.

C.  Proceedings concerning the applicant’s request to reopen the judgment of 29 May 2002

In June 2005 the applicant made a request to the President of the District Court about the powers of lay assessors T. and K.

By letter of 2 August 2005 the President of the District Court responded to the applicant’s request, having provided her with copies of documents confirming the powers of lay assessors T. and K.

The applicant considered that the lay assessors in her case had been incompetent to take part in the proceedings and applied for review of the judgment of 29 May 2002 on the ground of new or newly discovered evidence.

By decision of 13 December 2005 the District Court rejected her request for review, having noted that the alleged incompetence of the lay assessors in her case was not new or newly discovered circumstance which would enable it to reopen the case.

On 9 February 2006 the Regional Court upheld the decision of 13 December 2006 on appeal.

COMPLAINTS

  In respect of the proceedings concerning the validity of her sister’s will, the applicant complained that lay assessors K. and T. were not competent to take part in the court composition, that the domestic courts erred in assessing the evidence in her case and that, more generally, the outcome of these proceedings was wrong. The applicant relied on Article 6 of the Convention in this connection.

  Under Articles 6, 8 and 13 of the Convention the applicant complained about the outcome of the eviction proceedings against her.

THE LAW

1.  Under Article 6 of the Convention the applicant complained about a number of defects in the assessment of her civil case concerning the validity of her sister’s will. In particular, she complained that lay assessors K. and T. had been incompetent to take part in the civil proceedings, that the courts had made a wrong assessment of evidence in the case and that the outcome of the proceedings had not been satisfactory. In its relevant parts, this provision reads as follows:

“In the determination of his civil rights and obligations ... everyone is entitled to a fair ... hearing ... by a ... tribunal established by law.”

The Government submitted that the case raised no issues under the Convention, as the lay assessors in question had been duly competent to examine the applicant’s civil case.

The Court observes that the domestic case at issue ended with the appeal decision of 12 November 2002, whilst the application has only been introduced on 5 December 2005, which is more than six months later. It follows that the applicant failed to comply with the six-month time-limit laid down in Article 35 § 1 of the Convention in respect of her complaints about the outcome of the case and the assessment of evidence by the domestic courts.

In so far as the applicant complained about the allegedly unlawful composition of the first instance court, the Court notes that applicant failed to mention it during the main set of proceedings. The Court finds that nothing precluded the applicant from raising it during the main set of the proceedings and in such circumstances the procedure for reopening of the case used by the applicant in June 2005 was not a remedy to be exhausted with the meaning of Article 35 § 1 of the Convention. Given that her request for reopening remained unsuccessful, it follows that the applicant failed to exhaust the domestic remedies in respect of this grievance.

It follows that this part of the application must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.

 

  Relying on Articles 6, 8 and 13 of the Convention, the applicant complained about the domestic courts’ decision to evict her from the contested flat. The provisions in question provide as follows:

Article 6

“In the determination of his civil rights and obligations ... everyone is entitled to a fair ... hearing ... by [a] ... tribunal ...”

Article 8

“1.  Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

2.  There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”

Article 13

“Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in [the] Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.”

As regards the applicant’s Article 8 grievances, the Court observes that the loss of one’s home is a most extreme form of interference with the right to respect for the home. Any person at risk of an interference of this magnitude should in principle be able to have the proportionality and reasonableness of the measure determined by an independent tribunal in the light of the relevant principles under Article 8 of the Convention, notwithstanding that, under domestic law, his or her right of occupation has come to an end (see McCann v. the United Kingdom, no. 19009/04, § 50, 13 May 2008, and Paulić v. Croatia, no. 3572/06, §§ 43-45, 22 October 2009). On the facts, the Court notes that in taking the decision to evict the applicant from the contested apartment the domestic courts specifically weighed the conflicting interests of the applicant and the plaintiffs. Having regard to the fact that the plaintiffs were the owners of the apartment, had the intention of residing in the apartment at issue and had no other housing, whilst the applicant did not have any right under the domestic law to remain in that apartment and moreover owned a house elsewhere, the courts decided that in the circumstances of the case the applicant’s eviction had been an appropriate and justified measure. Having regard to this, the Court finds that the interference with the applicant’s Article 8 rights in the form of the eviction order was compatible with the requirements of the second paragraph of Article 8 of the Convention in that it was lawful and necessary in a democratic society for the protection of the interests of the plaintiffs.

Furthermore, in so far as her complaints about the fairness of the proceedings under Article 6 of the Convention and the alleged lack of an effective remedy within the meaning of Article 13 are concerned, the Court finds nothing in the case file to suggest that either the decisions of the domestic courts were in any way unreasonable or arbitrary. Having heard both parties, the domestic courts at two instances established and considered the facts of the case, taking due account of various relevant factors. Having regard to the facts as submitted by the parties, the Court has not found any reason to believe that the proceedings in this respect did not comply with the requirements of those Convention provisions.

It follows that this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Declares the application inadmissible.

   Søren Nielsen                                                                    Christos Rozakis
       Registrar                                                                              President