TrustHLT/LaCour huggingface dataset:
AP1 (Applicant): Namely, the court stated that Perepyolkins and Vistinch were entitled to receive rent for a three-year period amounting to 421,000 lats, which corresponds to approximately 600,000 euros, or about 2% of cadastral value.
AP1 (Applicant): At the time of launching litigation between the applicants and Riga Free Harbor, the law on eminent domain provided that in the case if the owners of the land not being satisfied with the amount offered by the state, then the amount of compensation should be determined by the court.
AP1 (Applicant): There were no restrictions that would stipulate that the amount of compensation might depend on the way the property was acquired.
AP1 (Applicant): This is why we are of the opinion that there has been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol 1 of the Convention, which states that expropriation is provided by law.
AP1 (Applicant): Formally, a separate law on expropriation of properties owned by Perepyolkins and Vistinch was adopted.
AP1 (Applicant): But at the same time, it should be considered that this separate law was based on the legislative amendments which were adopted in the law on procedure by which the law on eminent domain takes effect during the course of litigation between my clients versus Riga's Free Harbor.
AP1 (Applicant): These amendments provided that regarding expropriation of the real estate from the persons who have acquired the real estate on the basis of donations from persons who have retrieved their property as a result of land reform, the prices of 1940 shall be applied.
AP1 (Applicant): Thus, the amount of compensation was not allowed to be determined by the court.
AP1 (Applicant): And thus, compensation for the expropriated land plots of my clients was only 1,000th of its cadastral value.
AP1 (Applicant): We have no objections to the rights of the state to provide expropriation of property.
AP1 (Applicant): However, it's unacceptable if the state applies self-advantageous conditions towards an expropriation property which is already an object of civil law-based free circulation by linking the possible amount of compensation with the prices as at 1940.
AP1 (Applicant): Neither Peripjalkins nor Vistinch nor their relatives had been connected to these properties in 1940.
AP1 (Applicant): And it is unlawful if their rights to just compensation are being restricted due to the status of the former owners of the land.
AP1 (Applicant): Moreover, it's unlawful taking into account that at the time of donations taking legal effect, there were no indications that any restrictions of that kind would be applied.
AP1 (Applicant): Had the parties been aware of such provisions of the expropriation law, they, under the Latvian law, would have concluded a purchase agreement, both by naming the price for which the state should have bought out the property.
AP1 (Applicant): In addition, the amount to be paid by a named purchaser might have been considerably lower since Latvian civil law provides a friendship purchase when the subject matter is sold below its actual value.
AP1 (Applicant): However, we believe that even in such case, the state would have also applied the price of 1940 regarding this kind of friendship purchase.
AP1 (Applicant): Because as I mentioned before, the law was changed after the deals took place.
AP1 (Applicant): Taking into account the above mentioned, we are fully convinced that the only goal of adoption of this law, which prohibited the competence of the court to determine the amount of compensation provided by the general law, was to ensure the expropriation of the land plots owned by Perepiolkins and Vistinj under the above mentioned discriminatory conditions.
AP1 (Applicant): This was confirmed by the fact that the land in the territory of Riga Free Harbor was owned and still is owned by several individuals who have obtained it as a result of land reform.
AP1 (Applicant): Indeed, they have not been deprived of their land property, which is more inexplicable.
AP1 (Applicant): The Riga City municipality has bought out a land plot for the price amounting to 60% of the current cadastral value from the same person from whom Perepiolkins had acquired one of the land plots.
AP1 (Applicant): Needless to say that this transaction was in no way linked with or restricted in any way by the prices of 1940.
AP1 (Applicant): I would like to stress that there has been no single other person in Latvia, except for my clients, who had acquired the property by donation and who was later deprived of his property according to the prices of 1940.
AP1 (Applicant): Unfortunately, there will be nobody else, as on 4th of October, 2010, the new law on the expropriation of the movable property for public interest was adopted, which provides no restrictions with regard to prices of 1940.
AP1 (Applicant): It follows that the provision of the law that violated the rights of Perepiolkins and Vistinj existed for 13 years, till this litigation lasts, and was applied regarding only two persons in all the country, and which is important, it didn't exist at the time when they acquired their properties.
AP1 (Applicant): Thus, we believe that paragraph 1 of Article 1 of the Convention, which states that expropriation shall be carried out under the conditions provided for by the law, implies a set of provisions which shall be applied to all members of society, not only to particular individuals.
AP1 (Applicant): Otherwise, it shall be considered discrimination and violation of the rights of individuals under Article 14 of the Convention, which was conducted by the state.
AP1 (Applicant): The government, in its submissions, referred numerous times to the specificity of the conditions of a country in transition.
AP1 (Applicant): I could not agree more with this statement.
AP1 (Applicant): In order to better understand the situation in Latvia at the end of 1990s, when the above mentioned law was adopted, it should be noted that cooperation between political parties and economic groups was a widely accepted practice.
AP1 (Applicant): It took various forms.
AP1 (Applicant): Among them was the adoption of laws according to the business interests of particular individuals.
AP1 (Applicant): However, the most common practice was to adopt seemingly unimportant, minor, and well-hidden in terms of their true goal and impact amendments to the law, which immediately after their adoption were used for the benefit of specific interests.
AP1 (Applicant): Our state has paid for most of them with its economic downfall.
AP1 (Applicant): In this concrete case, the land plots which were expropriated from my clients, after expropriation, were immediately leased to two limited liability companies.
AP1 (Applicant): These companies have among their owners such prominent persons as, for example, the former head of chancellery of the President of Republic of Latvia, as well as the former Minister of Justice.
AP1 (Applicant): Afterwards, the rent for their companies was set at 1.5% of cadastral value of the land.
AP1 (Applicant): At the same time, the cadastral value was reduced to approximately 1 5th of the cadastral value on the date of expropriation.
AP1 (Applicant): As land tax is also in amount of 1.5% of cadastral value,
AP1 (Applicant): then it means that rent received from these companies is used only to cover the tax expenses.
AP1 (Applicant): It means no income for public needs at all.
AP1 (Applicant): The only beneficiaries from this expropriation are these two companies paying rent in the amount of tax.
AP1 (Applicant): Amazing.
AP1 (Applicant): We also consider, as manifestly unfounded, the explanation which was provided by the state in its memorial stating that there had been different legal circumstances regarding expropriation of the land for the needs of building the Latvian National Library for market value prices.
AP1 (Applicant): Precisely this case involving National Library was the right one in which to discuss the interests of the state and society, but not our case, which involves business activities at the harbor carried out by many different private entities.
AP1 (Applicant): Furthermore, we consider unfounded the explanation of the state that expropriation for the needs of the construction of Latvian National Library was provided outside the framework of the land reform because legal status of land reform in Riga generally is the same as it was when expropriation of land of my clients took place.
AP1 (Applicant): The only difference was the identity of the individuals entitled to receive compensation.
AP1 (Applicant): This is why we claim the violation of our rights and breach of Article 14 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol 1 and plead a compensation for damages caused to us.
AP1 (Applicant): In the letter received from Grand Chamber, it was advised to focus also on a few principles established by the court in its case law and applicability of these principles to the present case.
AP1 (Applicant): I would like my colleague, Mr. Goromov,
AP1 (Applicant): to speak about these questions.
Nicolas Bratza (JudgeP): Thank you, Mr. Radziņš, Mr. Gromovs.
AP2 (Applicant): Thank you very much.
AP2 (Applicant): Honorable President, distinguished members of the court, I would like to continue the arguments of our clients and address the following points.
AP2 (Applicant): Firstly, applicability of the land reform concept to the present case.
AP2 (Applicant): As mentioned before, our clients were in possession of the property which was not subject to the land reform legislation anymore and is object of the civil law-based recirculation.
AP2 (Applicant): If despite the mentioned fact, the court will choose to examine the issues related to the land reform as a statewide discretion in this regard, we would like to stress the following.
AP2 (Applicant): In its submissions, the government refers to the judgment of the court related to property reforms in other countries, such as the case Jan versus Germany, while describing the wide margin of appreciation which is afforded by the state in the course of the changing state's regime, including the property reform processes.
AP2 (Applicant): Based on this judgment, the government concluded with the argument that the different treatment of applicants, if any, had an objective and reasonable justification in the instant case.
AP2 (Applicant): Now, it's well recognized in academic literature that Latvia, as well as Lithuania and Estonia, should be deemed as a category in themselves by analyzing the cases of the post-communist regime institution.
AP2 (Applicant): And this is because, unlike in the rest of the cases, Germany, Poland, and other countries, the eradication of private property in Latvia took place in the conditions of Soviet occupation of the whole country.
AP2 (Applicant): Now, in Germany, the Federal Constitutional Court stated that compensation in institution cases is not based on the right to property, but the extent of principles on fairness, justice, and the social state.
AP2 (Applicant): Consequently, there was no obligation to afford the full compensation.
AP2 (Applicant): The main principle of compensation in Germany was declared to be equal treatment, but the financial situation of the state and other obligations arising from reunification were to be taken into consideration, too.
AP2 (Applicant): The joint statement of the two German states regarding solving the property issues, which subsequently was made part of the reunification treaty, spoke about necessity of finding a socially acceptable balance between competing interests, while taking into account the need for legal certainty and clarity in order to protect the right to property.
AP2 (Applicant): In Latvian case, the main goal of the restitution system and the property reform legislation was to ensure the reparative justice.
AP2 (Applicant): And this is rectification of past wrongs without mentioning any related social aims.
AP2 (Applicant): Thus, the reform was conducted by means of the renewal of property rights for the former owners.
AP2 (Applicant): And such interpretative approach was also confirmed by the Latvian Constitutional Court in 1999.
AP2 (Applicant): Therefore, we conclude this point by saying that the arguments of government about the situation of our clients and governmental actions as conducted in specific situation of the country in the process of land reform are unsubstantiated.
AP2 (Applicant): On the second point, the issues of proportionality, it follows from submissions of the government that the amount of compensation for Mr. Peripertin and Vistinch,
AP2 (Applicant): when they were to be paid less than 1,000 of the cadastral value of his possession for Mr. Vistinch
AP2 (Applicant): and 1,350 of cadastral value of possession for Mr. Peripertin
AP2 (Applicant): should be considered fair and reasonable.
AP2 (Applicant): Now, the government referred for numerous times to the land reform in its submissions.
AP2 (Applicant): One of the main goal of this reform was to restore historic justice in case when in 1940, the people were deprived fully of their property and most frequently on the basis of their status in Latvian society, also using such non-political criteria of their status as their wealth, including the possession of removable property.
AP2 (Applicant): Now, firstly, we would like to underline that in light of the court judgments in Pinsala and Pins versus Czech Republic, where the compensation amounting to 1 50s of the taken property market value was found unacceptable, the court found that the fair balance is generally achieved where the compensation paid to the person whose property has been taken and reasonably related to the market value, as determined by the time of expropriation.
AP2 (Applicant): Secondly, the amount of compensation for our clients was also justified by the government based on, among other reasons, by the personal and social situation, or in other words, the wealth of our clients.
AP2 (Applicant): Should their wealth plays a decisive role during assessment of amount of compensation for the expropriated property?
AP2 (Applicant): If you follow directly this logic, the same social injustice is proposed as in 1940, when some of the former owners of the nationalized property were allowed to live in and use their former properties, but already as their tenants who paid the rent to the state.
AP2 (Applicant): Now, certainly, the government's arguments about lack of investments into possessions of our clients are ill-founded and not related to the claims of our clients.
AP2 (Applicant): Our clients didn't claim that they enhanced the value by means of their commercial operations, because such operations will be restricted by the place and nature of the company on the territory of which the property was located, Riga Free City Harbor.
AP2 (Applicant): Any argument put forward by the government that our clients should have invested further in their property means that the investment could only be done within the scope of activities of the mentioned harbor.
AP2 (Applicant): Such commercial activity would have been very much restricted to the specificity of work of the harbor, and its linkage to the compensation should not be considered fair and well-founded.
AP2 (Applicant): Now, firstly, we would like to point out that the amount asked by our clients as a just satisfaction is not even remotely close to the market value at the time, but this is based on the state-approved cadastral value of the land in 1997.
AP2 (Applicant): At that time, in Riga, as capital of Latvia, such cadastral value as a rule was much lower than any market value.
AP2 (Applicant): Distinguished court, we truly believe that the right for reasonable compensation for expropriated possession should not depend on the amount of income of the landowners.
AP2 (Applicant): As such approach may lead to the situation when it may be declared that the person in issue does not need any financial compensation at all, or that the amount of this compensation should be just symbolic one.
AP2 (Applicant): This would also amount to discriminatory treatment of different categories of persons who enjoy the right to possession.
AP2 (Applicant): Therefore, the amount of compensation which was provided by the state to our clients should be deemed as disproportionately and unfairly low.
AP2 (Applicant): Now, assert on the lawfulness of the expropriation procedure.
AP2 (Applicant): In its submissions, the government went to great lengths, meticulously and repetitiously describing its view on the reason, Latvian legislative procedure, and adopted legislation on expropriation.
AP2 (Applicant): In order to found their arguments, then the expropriation took place in accordance with the law, and also quoting certain judgments of the Court of Human Rights.
AP2 (Applicant): We would like to point out that the principle of legality is not limited to the compliance of actions of the government with the national law.
AP2 (Applicant): In Carbonara and Ventura versus Italy, the court stated that the requirement of lawfulness means that rules of domestic law must be sufficiently precise and foreseeable.
AP2 (Applicant): The predictability criteria is clearly missing in the case of our clients, and the legislator adopted the amendments to the law and procedure by which the law on eminent domain takes effect during the course of litigation between our clients and Ringa III Harbor.
AP2 (Applicant): No doubt, such lack of predictability facilitated the whole process of successful expropriation of property from our clients.
AP2 (Applicant): But at the same time, it damaged greatly the whole concept of lawfulness of this process.
AP2 (Applicant): Such approach by the state to the adoption and application of the necessary legislation, which was applicable to our case, could be compared to the situation when the person would be convicted as guilty of crime, but the actions of this person were identified as the criminal ones because the law changing the definition of crime on the issue was adopted during the course of the trial.
AP2 (Applicant): Now, lastly, on the other arguments of the government.
AP2 (Applicant): When assessing the efforts which were made by the government in order to prove the legality of expropriation of our client's property, we find it even more appalling that the government proposed to the court as one of the options for the final decision to reject our application by applying Article 35, Paragraph 3b, and Paragraph 4 of the convention.
AP2 (Applicant): The provisions of Article 35, Paragraph 3b, as the government is well aware of, are not applicable to any applications declared admissible before entering the force of the Protocol 14 to the convention.
AP2 (Applicant): We would like to conclude that our clients truly believe that there was a violation of their rights, of the peaceful enjoyment of possessions, as guaranteed by Article 1 of the Protocol 1 and Article 14 of the convention, and their application is well-founded.
AP2 (Applicant): It was also declared admissible by the Grand Chamber.
AP2 (Applicant): Therefore, it's not clear for us why it's suggested to the court by other parties that there is a possibility to breach the legal provisions of convention and to apply non-applicable provisions of conventions to the present case.
AP2 (Applicant): Finally, we would like to stress that our clients maintain their previous respective claims for just satisfaction.
AP2 (Applicant): Having said that, I would like to thank the Honorable Court for the possibility to speak and to present the arguments of our clients before you.
Nicolas Bratza (JudgeP): Thank you very much, Mr. Gromovs.
Nicolas Bratza (JudgeP): Then I give the floor to Mrs. Reine on behalf of the government.
Nicolas Bratza (JudgeP): Mrs. Reine.
GR1 (Government): Mr. President of the Court, distinguished judges,
GR1 (Government): ladies and gentlemen, the present case has been referred to the Grand Chamber by a decision of the panel of five judges dated 15th September, 2011.
GR1 (Government): Interestingly enough, this decision and today's hearing comes almost 15 years after the national authorities have adopted the impugnant decision, and almost 11 years after the present application has been lodged with the Strasbourg Court.
GR1 (Government): In few moments, I will explain the relevance of these dates in the context of the present case and strongly invite the distinguished judges to keep them in mind when examining the case.
GR1 (Government): In the present address, I will provide replies to questions posed by the Court insofar as they have not yet been answered in the government's written submissions.
GR1 (Government): In doing so, I may not necessarily follow the order in which the questions were posed.
GR1 (Government): I will also use the opportunity to provide other relevant information that has not been included in the government's previous submissions.
GR1 (Government): Should the Court deem it necessary, documents supporting my statements will be submitted to the Court after today's hearing.
GR1 (Government): I will now proceed with our submission.
GR1 (Government): May I recommend the distinguished judges to keep a pen nearby, as you may very well need it.
GR1 (Government): In 1994, that is almost 18 years ago, less than four years after the restoration of Latvia's independence, and less than three years after the beginning of the land reform in Latvia's cities, the applicants signed a contract of donation for the plots of land located on the Iceland used for harbor purposes.
GR1 (Government): Altogether, five plots of land were donated.
GR1 (Government): The first applicant, Mr. Janis Vistinj,
GR1 (Government): acquired one plot of land upon which a part of the free port construction was located.
GR1 (Government): The second applicant, Mr. Gennadis Perpilkis,
GR1 (Government): acquired four plots of land upon which a part of free port construction was located.
GR1 (Government): The chamber, in its judgment, has very discreetly described the events surrounding the donation contracts concluded by the applicants.
GR1 (Government): I will allow myself to be more straightforward in describing these events, which provide good contextual background for the present case.
GR1 (Government): In the chamber, in its judgment, described the deal as donations made in return for certain personal services that the applicants had rendered to the donors.
GR1 (Government): One may only guess as to the true nature of services rendered by the applicants to the donors.
GR1 (Government): Therefore, I will mention only well-known objective facts that may not be challenged.
GR1 (Government): The territory of the Kunzinsala, Iceland started to be developed for the harbor purposes by the Soviet regime in the late 1970s.
GR1 (Government): Before that time, there was absolutely nothing on the land plots later acquired by the applicants.
GR1 (Government): Only wheat grew.
GR1 (Government): The exact place for the harbor was chosen, amongst other factors, given the depth of the Daugava River in the area and the Iceland's convenient location closely to the Daugava River mouth, the Riga city, and the Riga shipyard located in the Sarkan Daugava district, which is exactly behind the Kunzinsala, Iceland.
GR1 (Government): Development of the harbor included, amongst other, construction of a wharf, installing ship loaders, and developing transport infrastructure system.
GR1 (Government): The history remains silent as to the exact amount of investment made.
GR1 (Government): What is known, however, is that between the moment of restoration of Latvia's independence and the expropriation of the plots of land belonging to the applicants, that is during the period of a bit over six years, national authorities invested in the harbor more than 9.5 million euros,
GR1 (Government): which for the then economic and budget situation was an enormous amount of money.
GR1 (Government): Shortly following the restoration of Latvia's independence in 1991, the Seima adopted the law on land reform in the cities of the Republic of Latvia, which unfortunately, and due to the obvious error by the legislator, did not contain any limitations to restoration of property rights to strategically important objects.