NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

After the judgment became enforceable, it remained unenforced for more than a year and nine months. The Court, therefore, ruled that by failing for months to comply with the enforceable judgment in the applicant company’s favour, the domestic authorities prevented it from receiving the money it could reasonably have expected to receive. Accordingly, its right to peaceful enjoyment of property was breached. The applicant in the case of East West Alliance Limited v. Ukraine, 1164 was the Dublin based Irish company with a representative office in Ukraine, East/West Alliance Ltd. The case concerned the seizure of fourteen of the company’s commercial airplanes during the course of criminal investigations into the management of another company belonging to the same consortium as the applicant company. Several of the airplanes were even sold to third parties while the judicial proceedings concerning the title to those airplanes were pending. The domestic court finally ruled that the airplanes had to be returned to the applicant company, but the decision was not executed. The Court therefore concluded that the authorities’ behaviour was arbitrary and abusive and that it resulted in the applicant company being deprived of its possessions in breach of all the safeguards of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. In the case of Centro Europa 7 S.R.L. and di Stefano v. Italy, 1165 an Italian limited liability company, Centro Europa 7 S.r.l., complained of an infringement of its right to the peaceful enjoyment of its possessions due to non-enforcement of an official decision. The applicant company submitted that, for nearly ten years, it had been unable to exercise its rights under the licence it had been granted for nationwide television broadcasting. The company obtained compensation, but it believed that the sum awarded to it by the domestic courts did not reflect the full value of its ‘possession’. The Court observed that, in view of the licence terms and the legislative framework in place at the time, the applicant company could reasonably have expected the authorities to regulate its terrestrial broadcasting activities within 24 months of granting the licence. Consequently, it could be considered a ‘legitimate expectation’. Given that it had been unable to start broadcasting for a number of years, the Court found that the Italian authorities had interfered with the peaceful enjoyment of Centro Europa’s possessions. The Court already held, in the context of Article 10, that the authorities’ interference with Centro Europa’s rights had not had a sufficiently foreseeable legal basis. 1166 It reached the same conclusion in relation to its complaint related to its property, and ruled that there had been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. An applicant company also complained of the failure by the authorities to fully enforce a final judgment in its favour in the case of S.C. Prodcomexim SRL v. Romania . 1167 The applicant company here was a joint stock company based in Ploieşti. In 2000, it brought proceedings against the Ariceştii Rahtivani town council seeking payment for damages allegedly resulting from a contract they had entered into. The contract concerned repairs that had to be carried out by the applicant company to the 1164 East West Alliance Limited, cited above, § 1. 1165 Centro Europa 7 S.r.l., cited above. 1166 MENDEL, Toby. Tuning into development: international comparative survey of community broadcasting regulation . Paris: UNESCO, 2013, p. 19. 1167 S.C. Prodcomexim SRL v. Romania , no. 35877/05, 27 October 2009.

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