FIRST SECTION
CASE OF MATTEO v. ITALIE
(Application no. 24888/03)
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
26 March 2020
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Matteo v. Italie,
The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Tim Eicke, President,
 Jovan Ilievski,
 Raffaele Sabato, judges,
and Renata Degener, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application 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”) by an Italian national, Mrs Maria Cristina Matteo (“the applicant”), on 3 February 2000;
the decision to give notice of the application to the Italian Government (“the Government”);
the parties’ observations;
the decision to reject the Government’s objection to examination of the application by a Committee;
Having deliberated in private on 3 March 2020,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
INTRODUCTION
The case concerns the expropriation of the applicant’s land and the length of the related domestic proceedings. THE FACTS
1. The applicant was born in 1936 and lives in Castelpagano. The applicant was represented by Mr L. Crisci, a lawyer practising in Benevento. 2. The Italian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their former Agent, Ms E. Spatafora, and their former co‑Agent, Ms P. Accardo. 3. The applicant was the owner of a plot of land in Castelpagano. The land in issue was recorded in the land register as Folio no. 30, Parcel no. 365. 4. On 6 September 1989 the Alto Tammaro Mountain Municipalities Authority (comunità montana Alto Tammaro – hereinafter “the Mountain Authority”) approved a plan to construct a road on the applicant’s land. 5. On 23 October 1989, the company T., which had been awarded the construction project by the Mountain Authority, took physical possession of 708 square metres of the applicant’s land, having been given authorisation to do so by the applicant’s husband. 6. On 10 May 1990 the Castelpagano Municipality issued an order formally authorising the Mountain Authority to occupy the applicant’s land in order to begin the construction of the road. 7. On 14 February 1992, the Mountain Authority paid the applicant an advance on the compensation payable for the expropriation in the amount of 1,260,000 Italian lire (ITL). 8. On 27 June 1995 the Castelpagano Municipality issued an expropriation order in respect of the portion of the land that had been materially occupied (see paragraph 5 above). Proceedings lodged in connection with the expropriation
9. On 14 September 1992 the applicant brought an action for damages against the Mountain Authority before the Benevento District Court. She argued that the occupation of her land had not been in accordance with the law on account of the fact that it had begun before the order formally authorising it had been issued (see paragraphs 5 and 6 above). She sought an award of damages to compensate her for the loss of ownership of her property, which she contended had been de facto transferred to the local authority. She further requested a sum for the loss in value to the remainder her land as well as for the destruction of the crops that had been growing on it. 10. In a judgment of 22 December 2004, filed with the registry on 10 February 2005, the Benevento District Court found that the compulsory‑purchase order had not been issued in a timely manner. It found that the order ought to have been issued within a five-year period starting from the beginning of the occupation of the applicant’s land, which the court identified as coinciding with the date the authorities took physical possession of the land on 23 October 1989 (see paragraph 5 above). Accordingly, pursuant to the constructive-expropriation principle (occupazione appropriativa), the applicants were no longer the owners of the land, which had become the property of the Mountain Authority. The court further accepted that the applicant was entitled to damages for the loss of her property but dismissed her other claims on account of a failure by the applicant to provide adequate supporting evidence. 11. On 25 April 2005, the Mountain Authority appealed against the first‑instance judgment to the Naples Court of Appeal. 12. By a judgment of 28 March 2008, filed with the registry on 28 May 2008, the Naples Court of Appeal overturned the Benevento District Court’s judgment and held that the expropriation of the applicant’s land had been carried out in accordance with the law. The Court of Appeal found that the District 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 conclude that the transfer of the property had occurred by means of the application of the constructive-expropriation principle. At the outset, the court made a finding to the effect that the applicant had failed to provide evidence that the duration of the period of lawful occupation in the case at hand had been set for a time-frame inferior to the five-year period prescribed by the relevant legislation in force at the time. The appellate court went on to note that, as it considered the occupation to have commenced on the date the authorities first took physical possession of the land in on 22 October 1989 (see paragraph 5 above) – which was the date referred to by the first-instance court (see paragraph 10 above) – the period of lawful occupation of the land should have expired on 23 October 1994. However, the court pointed out that, on the basis of the legislation applicable at the time, five-year lawful occupation periods were to be considered automatically extended for a further period of two years. It followed that the deadline for the issuing of an expropriation order had been extended until 23 October 1996. Accordingly, the court concluded that the expropriation order had been issued in a timely fashion, that is to say within the period of lawful occupation. 13. The applicant did not lodge an appeal with the Court of Cassation against the judgment of the Naples Court of Appeal. “Pinto” proceedings
14. On 17 April 2002 the applicant lodged an application with the Rome Court of Appeal under Law no. 89 of 24 March 2001, known as the “Pinto” Act, complaining of the excessive length of the above-described proceedings. The applicant asked the court to rule that there had been a breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and to order the Italian Government to pay compensation for the non-pecuniary damage sustained, which he assessed as being 18,550 EUR. 15. In a decision of 17 March 2003, filed with the registry on 17 April 2003, the Court of Appeal found that the reasonable time for proceedings had been exceeded. It awarded the applicant EUR 1,400 in compensation for non-pecuniary damage and EUR 500 for costs and expenses incurred in connection with the domestic proceedings and EUR 700 for costs and expenses incurred in connection with the proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights. 16. The decision of the Rome Court of Appeal was served on the local authorities on 26 May 2003 and became final 26 July 2003. RELEVANT LEGAL FRAMEWORK
17. The domestic law and practice concerning constructive expropriation are to be found in Guiso-Gallisay v. Italy ((just satisfaction) [GC], no. 58858/00, §§ 18-48, 22 December 2009). 18. The domestic law and practice concerning Law no. 89 of 24 March 2001, known as the “Pinto Act”, are set out in the Cocchiarella v. Italy judgment ([GC], no. 64886/01, §§ 23-31, ECHR 2006‑V). THE LAW
ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 1 OF PROTOCOL No. 1 TO THE CONVENTION
19. The applicant complained that she had been unlawfully deprived of her land on account of the application, by the domestic courts, of the constructive-expropriation principle (occupazione acquisitiva, occupazione appropriativa or accessione invertita). She submitted that this had breached her rights under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, which provides:
“Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law. 20. The Government contested that argument. Admissibility
The parties’ submissions
(a)   The Government
21. The Government argued that the complaint was premature as the case was still being examined by the domestic courts. They noted that an appeal had been lodged against the judgment of the Benevento District Court and the proceedings were ongoing and that the appellate court had been called upon to review the question of whether or not the expropriation had been carried out in accordance with the law, a determination upon which a finding of a violation by the Court depends. Should the Court of Appeal decide that the expropriation had been lawful, there would be no grounds on which to find a violation of the Convention. 22. In the event that the Court decided to examine the case before the conclusion of the domestic proceedings, the Government argued that the expropriation had been lawful under domestic law and carried out in conformity with the Convention, as the expropriation order, according to the local authority, had been issued in a timely manner. They thus invited the Court to declare the complaint inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded. If, on the contrary, the Court were to find that the expropriation had not been carried out in accordance with the law, they acknowledged the Court’s well-established case-law concerning the application of the constructive‑expropriation principle, referred to their observations lodged in connection with numerous cases on this subject matter, and left the matter to the Court’s discretion. (b)   The applicant
23. The applicant reiterated that the first-instance court had confirmed that ownership of her property had been transferred to the local authority via the application of the constructive-expropriation principle. She submitted that the local authority had been able to profit, in this manner, from its own unlawful conduct. In this regard, she made lengthy observations to the effect that the constructive-expropriation principle was incompatible with the principle of lawfulness and counter to Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. She highlighted that, despite the unlawfulness of the property deprivation, she had not been able to obtain the return of her land but only an award of damages. This too, in her view, had constituted a breach of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.

Outcome for Article 6: violation