The focus of another discussion held within Support to the Institutional Reforms of the Constitutional Court project was Decision 1699 of the Constitutional Court.
This decision was based on the application, authored by the human rights activist Artak Zeynalyan.According to Zeynalyan’s explanation, Decision 1699 of the Constitutional Court, dated November 7, 2023, addresses a constitutional dispute on whether the statute of limitations on applying for judicial protection under civil law shall extend to cases where a person has been deprived of their property on the grounds of overriding public interest.
According to Zeynalyan, “The facts were as follows. A governmental decree ruled that the people living in the apartments, recognized as public interest, should receive compensation and be evicted. Our clients were evicted from their apartment without receiving any compensation. For many years, this dispute had been in the examination of the state authorities, and at some point it was simply rejected.
15 years later, our clients went to court, trying to get an award of damages equivalent to the value of their property. The Government, involved as the Respondent, motioned to apply a statute of limitations to the claim. We held that the violation of this right had been continuous and that the three-year statute of limitations started to roll each and every moment. After taking this issue up to the Court of Cassation, we landed the dispute with the Constitutional Court, and based on its Decision 1699, alieniations under public interests until December 2005 may fall within the scope of the dispute,” Zeynalyan noted.
What is the legal significance of the Decision 1699 of the Constitutional Court for the protection of property from state interference? Who are the beneficiaries thereof? Can it prevent or reduce violations of property rights in the future, thereby affecting the flow of applications submitted to the ECtHR? These questions are being clarified by Judge Seda Safaryan of the Constitutional Court in a conversation with Lousineh Hakobyan, President of Europe in Law NGO.
According to Judge Seda Safaryan, this decision born from the individual application described above, provided a concrete solution to a person’s property rights alieniation on the basis of public interest, without adequate damages award, thus establishing pivotal guidelines for adjudicating such cases in court. The problem is that the list prescribed by Article 344 of the Civil Code does not provide for a statute of limitations for the protection of the rights of citizens, deprived of their property rights due to public interest as a result of the interference of the state. It turned out that the state failed to fulfill its obligations, meaning – it had not provided adequate initial compensation, but a statute of limitations was applied to a person’s claim, depriving them of the opportunity to receive an adequate award of damages as stipulated by the Constituent. Therefore, the Constitutional Court first defined the range of legal regulations and legal relations prior to October 1, 2006, and then set forth the subject composition, emerging in the relations between the state and citizens.
In this context, the Constitutional Court raised two issues.
- Can the guarantee of an adequate award of damages be limited by applying a statute of limitations thereto?
- Does the applied statute of limitations comply with the requirements of Article 60 Paragraph 5 of the Constitution, as per the proportionality formula established by the Constiutent, which is mandatory for all? Therefore, adherence to Article 60 Paragraph 5 of the Constitution is imperative and should unequivocally serve as a guiding principle for courts.
In 1998 and 2006, the Constitutional Court adopted two decisions that assessed numerous instances of unlawful interference with property rights by the state and the illegality of court proceedings. Nevertheless, the violations recorded in those decisions of the Constitutional Court were not closely scruitinized by the lower courts, and the same practice persisted concurrently. Consequently, the courts failed to guarantee the right to a fair trial, leaving property rights violations unresolved, particularly concerning initial and, notably, adequate damages awards. In Decision 1699, the Constitutional Court concluded this matter, affirming that violations of the law as noted by the European Court of Human Rights must be subject to mandatory examination and solution in our judicial system.
With this decision, the Court also recorded the imperative, set by the Constituent, on paying an adequate initial award of damages, failing at which the process of securing public interest would be deprived of legitimacy and legality. The Constitutional Court has also clarified the correlation between Paragraphs 3 and 5 of Article 60 of the Constitution, delineating the rules for the more intense versus the more cautious interference of the state. This decision also presents itself as a document of significant legal weight and emphasizes aspects worthy of serious consideration by our courts, which will consequently reduce the volume of applications to the European Court of Human Rights.”
