FIRST SECTION
CASE OF DE GREGORIO AND CAMMARATA v. ITALY
(Application no. 6899/10)
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
20 June 2024
 
 
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of De Gregorio and Cammarata v. Italy,
The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Péter Paczolay, President,
 Gilberto Felici,
 Raffaele Sabato, judges,
and Liv Tigerstedt, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 6899/10) against the Italian Republic lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 23 December 2009 by two Italian nationals, Mr Giacomo De Gregorio (“the first applicant”) and Ms Rosa Cammarata (“the second applicant”), who were born in 1942 and 1918 respectively, live, or lived, in Palermo and were represented by Mr G. Greco, a lawyer practising in Palermo;
the decision to give notice of the complaints concerning Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention to the Italian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Mr. L. D’Ascia, and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated in private on 28 May 2024,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns the expropriation of a plot of land and the award of compensation based on the “average agricultural value” of the land. 2. In 1999 a portion of the land at issue was occupied by A.M.A.P. s.p.a., a company delegated by the Palermo Municipality, for the purposes of building a road and two water reservoirs. 3. In January 2002 the first applicant, who was the owner of the land, and the second applicant, who was the usufructuary of the land, brought an action for damages before the Regional Public Water Court arguing that there had been a de facto dispossession without a formal expropriation order having been issued. 4. In March 2002 an expropriation order was issued with respect to the land. 5. In October 2006 the Regional Public Water Court found that the expropriation order had not been issued in a timely manner. As the land had been irreversibly altered by the public structures erected on it, the land was transferred to the authorities pursuant to the constructive-expropriation rule. The court held that both applicants had the right to obtain damages for the dispossession of the portion of the land on which the public works had been built (amounting to 12,825 square metres). As to the quantification of damages, the court found that the amount due in connection with the dispossession had to be based on the market value of the land. However, it stated that it could not rely on the valuation carried out by the independent expert it had appointed, as it found that the expert’s conclusions were not supported by concrete and objective elements. It also considered that the estimate did not take into account the limited possibilities of exploitation, even for agricultural purposes, of the land in question, given the existence of constraints both from a hydrogeological point of view and from a forestry and landscape point of view. It therefore took some elements from the expert valuation and proceeded with a fresh calculation of what it considered to be the most probable market value at the date of the dispossession (21 December 2001). In this connection, it awarded the applicants, jointly, 36,562.79 euros (EUR) to be increased by a sum reflecting inflation adjustment and statutory interest on the capital progressively adjusted, running from the date of the dispossession. 6. In February 2008 the Higher Public Water Court overturned the first-instance judgment. It found that the Regional Public Water Court had erred in considering that the formal expropriation order had been issued in an untimely fashion, a determination which had led the latter court to conclude that the transfer of the property had occurred by means of constructive expropriation. It found instead that the expropriation of the applicant’s land had been carried out in accordance with the law, as the applicable timeframes had been complied with. On the issue of compensation, it held that compensation for the expropriation had to be based not on the property’s market value but, rather, on the “average agricultural value”. It fixed the amount due to the applicants, jointly, as expropriation compensation at EUR 3,649. The sum was to be increased by statutory interest. 7. In October 2009 the Court of Cassation dismissed the appeal on points of law lodged by the applicants. 8. The applicants complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention of the disproportionate interference with their property rights on account of the amount of expropriation compensation that was awarded to them, which was not reasonably related to the property’s market value. 9. The applicants further complained, under the same Article, about the establishment of an easement on the remaining land and the allegedly inadequate amount of compensation awarded by the authorities.

Outcome for Article P1-1: violation