Date: 17 December 2019
Jurisdiction: Euroean Court of Human Rights
Article: rticle 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property)
Subject: The applicants, Lali Khizanishvili and Giorgi Kandelaki, Georgian nationals, were born in 1963 and 1955 respectively. Ms Khizanishvili died in 2017 and her application has been pursued by her mother. Mr Kandelaki lives in Tbilisi.
The case concerns their complaint that they did not receive sufficient compensation for the demolition of a building in which they had shares.
The applicants owned shares in a building of commercial premises located in central Tbilisi, near the Gotsiridze metro station. The building was demolished in January 2007 on the orders of the mayor’s office. Media coverage indicated that the demolition was part of a campaign to remove buildings which had been unlawfully constructed or which were unsightly.
The courts found that the building had been demolished illegally and that the city had to compensate the applicants. The first-instance court ordered compensation of about 80,000 euros to the first applicant and roughly EUR 62,000 to the second for their share of the building, based on an expert assessment of market values and excluding the value of the land, which they had retained.
On appeal, the compensation award was reduced to approximately EUR 1,100 for the first applicant and EUR 617 for the second, based on another expert report. The applicants appealed, arguing that that report had valued the market price of the demolished material rather than the building’s. The Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal on points of law by the applicants in September 2011.
Relying on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) to the European Convention on Human Rights, the applicants complain that they were not given sufficient redress for the unlawful demolition of their property.
In the Chamber judgment, the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been: a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) to the European Convention on Human Rights.
The case concerned the applicants’ complaint that they had not received sufficient compensation for the demolition of a building in central Tbilisi in which they had shares.
The domestic courts had found that the building had been demolished illegally and awarded the applicants compensation. The first-instance court based the award on the building’s market value, while the appeal court effectively referred to the price of the material left after the demolition. The applicants’ compensation was thus considerably reduced.
The Court found in particular that the appeal court had not sufficiently justified or explained its change in approach, despite there being an obvious difference between the value of a functional building and that of the rubble left after its demolition. As a result, the applicants had not been awarded the full compensation which they could quite reasonably have expected, given that there had been a flagrant disregard of their property rights.
English
Jurisdiction:
Article 1 Protocol 1 - Protection of property
Subject:
Right to property
