FIFTH SECTION  CASE OF CHORNENKO v. UKRAINE(Application no. 59660/09)    JUDGMENT    STRASBOURG14 January 2021 This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.In the case of Chornenko v. Ukraine,The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of: Latif Hüseynov, President, Lado Chanturia, Mattias Guyomar, judges,and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,Having regard to:the application (no. 59660/09) against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by three Ukrainian nationals, Ms Tetyana Mykolayivna Chornenko (the first applicant), Mr Mykola Vasylyovych Chornenko (the second applicant) and Mr Kostyantyn Mykolayovych Chornenko (the third applicant), on 26 October 2009;the decision to give notice of the application to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”);the decision to reject the Government’s objection to the examination of the applications by a Committee;Having deliberated in private on 3 December 2020,Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:INTRODUCTION1. The present case concerns an allegation that the applicants were unlawfully and unfairly evicted from their room in a former State-owned hostel after it had been converted into a privately-owned block of flats. They raise complaints under Articles 8 and 6 of the Convention.THE FACTSBackground2. The first applicant, born in 1967, and the second applicant, born in 1968, are spouses and parents of the third applicant, born in 1991. They live in the village of Khudyaky. The applicants, who had been granted legal aid, were represented by Mr M. O. Tarakhkalo and Ms O. O. Protsenko, lawyers practising in Kyiv.3. The Government were represented by their Agent, Mr I. Lishchyna.4. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.5. In 1995 a State-owned company, Cherkasybudmaterialy, was converted into an open joint-stock company, Ch. (“the Corporation”) within the framework of Ukraine’s transition from a Soviet to a market economy.6. In 1996 the applicants’ family was allocated a room in a hostel located at P. street in Cherkasy. It appears from the case file that this hostel had initially belonged to the Cherkasybudmaterialy company and was intended to serve as its employees’ corporate residence. Within the framework of the company’s transformation into a privately owned Corporation, on an unspecified date ownership of the hostel was transferred to the latter.7. On 6 December 1996 the local department of the Ministry of Interior registered the hostel’s address as the applicants’ place of residence in their national passports.8. On 1 February 2002 the Corporation requested Cherkasy No. 21 Technical College (“the College”) to provide temporary accommodation to several families residing in the aforementioned hostel (including the applicants’ family), as it wished to carry out renovation work in the hostel building. In exchange for that service, the Corporation promised assistance in renovating the College’s student hostel.9. By September 2002 the applicants’ family had moved into the College’s hostel on the basis of a one-year temporary lease contract negotiated by the Corporation with the College. The applicants remained registered as residents at their previous address, in the Corporation’s hostel.first set of eviction proceedings and accompanying events10. In February 2003 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 by the Ministry of Interior as its residents. The Corporation submitted in that respect that in 2002 the applicants had moved out of its hostel of their own free will and that their current whereabouts were uncertain.

Article of the Convention at issue: Article 8
Outcome: violation