5.  The applicant was born in 1927 and lives in Zagreb.
6.  On 24 May 1961 the applicant’s husband was granted a specially protected tenancy in respect of a flat in Zagreb by the Yugoslav People’s Army (the “YPA”). The applicant, as his spouse, was also a holder of a specially protected tenancy of that flat.
7.  On 3 June 1991 Parliament enacted the Protected Tenancies (Sale to Occupier) Act (Zakon o prodaji stanova na kojima postoji stanarsko pravo – hereinafter “the Sale to Occupier Act”), which regulated the sale of socially-owned flats previously let under a specially protected tenancy (see paragraph 19 below). However, State-owned flats were excluded.
8. On 3 October 1991 the Government adopted a decree (Uredba o preuzimanju sredstava JNA i SSNO na teritoriju Republike Hrvatske u vlasništvo Republike Hrvatske) whereby it took all the YPA’s property in Croatia into State ownership.
9.  In 1995 the Act Amending the Sale to Occupier Act (Zakon o izmjenama i dopunama Zakona o prodaji stanova na kojima postoji stanarsko pravo – hereinafter “the APTSO”) allowed the sale of State-owned flats as well (see paragraph 22 below). The time-limit for lodging a request to purchase such a flat was set at sixty days.
10.  On 29 January 1997 the Constitutional Court abrogated some of the provisions of the APTSO, including the one stipulating the time-limit for lodging a purchase request (see paragraph 23 below)
11.  The applicant’s husband died on 15 April 2006.
12.  On 7 June 2006 the applicant lodged with the Ministry of Defence a request to purchase the flat she was occupying. The request was denied on the ground that it had been lodged outside the prescribed time-limit, which had expired on 31 December 1995.
13.  On 19 March 2008 the applicant brought a civil action in the Zagreb Municipal Court seeking a judgment in lieu of a sale contract. She relied on several decisions of the Constitutional Court ruling that there was no time-limit in respect of a holder of a specially protected tenancy lodging a request to purchase the respective State-owned flat (see paragraphs 24-26 below).
14.  In its judgment of 24 June 2008 the Zagreb Municipal Court held that there was no dispute between the parties that the applicant, as a former holder of a specially protected tenancy of the flat that she occupied, had the right to purchase that flat under favourable conditions. The only issue to be resolved was whether there was a time-limit that the applicant had to observe when lodging her request to purchase that flat – and if so, whether she had complied with it. The Municipal Court dismissed the applicant’s claim on the ground that the applicant had lodged her purchase request outside the accepted time-limit, which had been 31 December 1995.
15.  The applicant lodged an appeal, arguing that the time-limit under the APTSO for lodging a request to purchase a State-owned flat had been abrogated by the Constitutional Court and that no new time-limit had been fixed. The fact that there was no prescribed time-limit in place should not have been interpreted to the detriment of a plaintiff. She also relied on the opinion of the Constitutional Court that the very purpose of the Sale to Occupier Act was to enable holders of specially protected tenancies in respect of socially and State-owned flats to purchase such flats (see paragraph 22 below).
16.  The first-instance judgment was upheld by the Zagreb County Court on 12 October 2010. The relevant part of the second-instance judgment reads:
“As regards the decisions of the Constitutional Court relied on in the [plaintiff’s] action, it is to be noted that these decisions exceptionally recognised the right of certain parties to purchase flats [they occupied] in particular circumstances (such as their having had no clearly regulated status of holder of a specially protected tenancy before that date – for example in decision no. U-3551/02 of 25 May 2005) ... even though a request to purchase a flat had not been lodged before 31 December 1995. In such particular cases the Constitutional Court has adopted decisions based on particular circumstances. The Constitutional Court in all decisions recognising the right to purchase flats [they occupied] of persons who had not lodged a request in that respect before 31 December 1995 has accepted that there were objective circumstances preventing those persons from taking all relevant steps within the prescribed time-limits. In the case at issue the plaintiff did not even argue [that there were any] such circumstances, but insisted that she could bring an action for the purchase of the flat [that she occupies] at any time and that there were no time-limits in that respect.
The view of this court is that the holders of specially protected tenancies of State-owned flats were obliged to lodge a request for purchasing these flats before 31 December 1995 (with the exception that in certain circumstances it was possible to claim that a party was prevented from lodging such a request within that time-limit on objective grounds).”
17.  The applicant’s subsequent constitutional complaint was dismissed on 20 February 2013. The relevant part of that decision reads:
“The Constitutional Court notes that the competent courts dismissed the applicant’s civil action on the grounds that she had not proved that any objective circumstances had prevented her from lodging a request to purchase the flat in issue within the prescribed time-limit. The Constitutional Court considers that the impugned decisions contain reasons acceptable from the standpoint of the constitutional law and that therefore they cannot be seen as arbitrary or unreasonable.”