Background
The Court jointly considered ten applications concerning plots of land in Sevastopol, Crimea. The applicants had obtained the land directly from the Sevastopol City Administration or purchased it from persons who had received it from that authority under Ukrainian law. Their titles were registered between 2010 and May 2014.
Russian authorities later brought proceedings alleging that the plots had been unlawfully privatised under Ukrainian law. Courts operating in Crimea under the Russian legal framework accepted those claims and cancelled the applicants’ titles. One applicant died while the proceedings were pending before the European Court; the Court allowed her son to continue her application.
The Court’s Holding
The Court unanimously held that Russia had violated Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. Relying on its Crimea case law, it concluded that extending Russian law to Crimea was contrary to the Convention, interpreted in light of international humanitarian law, and that Russian law therefore could not supply a lawful basis for the title cancellations. The decisions cancelling the titles and claiming the plots created a continuing deprivation of the applicants’ property.
For the applicants who raised the issue, the Court also found a violation of Article 6 § 1 because the courts operating in Crimea under the Russian legal framework were not tribunals “established by law.” It found no need to examine the remaining complaints concerning fairness, impartiality, and an effective remedy. The Court awarded €10,000 in damages to each applicant except Anna Valentinovna Lysenko, for whom the table records no damages award, and awarded €250 in costs in eight of the applications.
Key Takeaways
- Russia remained answerable under the Convention because the relevant events occurred before it ceased to be a Convention party on 16 September 2022 and because it exercised effective control over Crimea from 27 February 2014.
- The cancellation of the applicants’ land titles under Russian law lacked a lawful basis and amounted to a continuing deprivation of property.
- Courts operating in Crimea under the Russian legal framework were not tribunals “established by law” for purposes of Article 6 § 1.
Why It Matters
The judgment applies the Court’s established Crimea jurisprudence to individual land-title disputes. It confirms that property confiscations resting on the extension of Russian law to Crimea cannot satisfy the Convention’s lawfulness requirement.
It also illustrates the practical consequences of that conclusion: affected owners may obtain findings of both unlawful deprivation of property and, where raised, adjudication by a tribunal not established by law.