Language: English
Date of the decision: 14 January 2021
Country: Ukraine
Jurisdiction: European Court of Human Rights (Chamber judgment)
Legal basis: Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Right to respect for private and family life)
Subject: Eviction
The Fifth Section of the Court has found that the Ukrainian authorities have violated Article 8 of the ECHR by evicting the applicants unlawfully and unfairly from their room in a former State-owned hostel after it had been converted into a privately-owned block of flats.
The three applicants were a couple and their daughter that moved to the hostel in 1996. In 2002 the corporation owning the hostel requested to a College to provide temporary accommodation to the applicants because the corporation wanted to renovate the hostel building. The applicants’ family moved into the College’s hostel, but they remained registered as residents at their previous address, in the corporation’s hostel.
A few months later, the corporation lodged a civil claim against the applicants seeking a declaration that they had lost the right to occupy its hostel and should therefore be deregistered as its residents. In 2005, the applicants and other families broke into the corporation’s hostel and installed themselves in their former rooms that in the meantime had become private flats.
The corporation amended its civil claim lodged against them previously with a demand that they be evicted. The District Court decided that they should be evicted.
The applicants appealed the Courts’ decision alleging that the eviction would render them homeless and that they had a permanent contract with the corporation. The Court of appeal followed the applicants’ argumentation and found that the eviction was unlawful.
In 2008, the renovation had been terminated and the corporation lodged a new claim against the applicants, seeking to remove them from the reconstructed building as illegal occupants who did not have any lease agreement.
This time the District Court allowed the corporation’s claim and ordered the applicants’ eviction. It found that the previous dispute had concerned the applicants’ occupancy of a hostel under reconstruction, whereas the present one concerned their eviction from a privately-owned flat.
The applicants appealed this decision, but first the Court of appeal and then the Supreme Court of Ukraine declined the applicants’ and the prosecutor’s appeals in cassation.
In December 2009, the applicants were evicted from the former corporation’s hostel that had been converted into the block of flats.
ECtHR
The applicants seized the ECtHR complaining that the Ukrainian court order for their eviction had amounted to unlawful and unfair interference with their right to respect for home, violating their rights stemming from Article 8 of the Convention.
The Government’s view
The Government argued that Article 8 was not applicable in the applicants’ case, as the disputed accommodation had not been their “home”. In 2002, the applicants had willingly moved into the College’s student hostel and had established their home there. According to the Government, they had therefore lost their ties with their previous residence.
The applicants’ view
The applicants stated that their links to the corporation’s hostel had been continuous and significant throughout the entire period of their occupancy (1996-2009). Their relocation to the College’s student hostel in 2002 had been a temporary measure requested by the corporation on the pretext of the need to renovate their habitual residence.
Admission of the case
The Court admits the case as they admit the applicant’s argumentation that the flat, they have been evicted from, constituted their home. According to the Court, nothing in the case file indicates that the applicants planned to abandon the previous accommodation at that time.
Merits
When it comes to the merits of the case the Court reiterates that the loss of one’s home is a most extreme form of interference with the right to respect for the home guaranteed by Article 8 of the Convention. Such interference constitutes a violation unless it is “in accordance with the law”, pursues one or more of the legitimate aims referred to in paragraph 2 and furthermore is “necessary in a democratic society” to achieve the aim.
The Court refers to the historical context to be able to evaluate the lawfulness of the eviction. The Ukrainian transition from the Soviet model of resource management to a free-market economy led to an increase in private-sector housing options and required a major reassessment of the relevant policies and accompanying legal framework.
In rejecting the eviction claim against the applicants in the first set of proceedings, the domestic courts decided, in their final judgments, that the applicants’ tenancy was, inter alia, covered by Articles 100-102 of the Ukrainian Housing Code. According to these findings, neither the applicants’ temporary resettlement nor the reconstruction of the former hostel extinguished their occupancy rights.
The Court’s main assessments
55. Examining the circumstances of the present case in the light of the aforementioned principles, the Court notes that the existence of an interference with the applicants’ Convention rights is not in dispute between the parties. It considers that, notwithstanding that the eviction order in the present case was taken in favour of a privately incorporated entity, its issuance constituted State action amounting to an interference with the applicants’ right to respect for their home.
63. In view of the apparently contradictory holdings of the domestic courts and, moreover, having regard to the failure of the Supreme Court to explain why it declined to hear the arguments raised by the applicants and the prosecutor’s office in their appeals, the applicants’ eviction cannot have been compatible with the rule of law and free of arbitrariness. It cannot thus have met the requirement of lawfulness under Article 8 of the Convention.
64. This finding obviates the need to examine any other arguments raised by the parties.
65. There has accordingly been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention in the present case.
Conclusion
What is particularly interesting in this case is that the Court has made use of Art. 8 in a relation between two private parties. Indeed, the hostel the applicants were evicted from had initially belonged to a public company and was intended to serve as its employees’ corporate residence. Within the framework of the company’s transformation into a privately owned corporation, the ownership was transferred to it and hence, privatised.
This case is an example of the impact of post- Soviet privatisations on the housing market and evictions in Ukraine.
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