On 20 January, the Chamber of Civil Cases of the Supreme Court satisfied pleadings of the plaintiff and the respondent in the case filed against the Republic of Latvia in person of the Ministry of Transport with the third party “Starptautiskā lidosta Rīga”” SJSC regarding compensation and recovery of interest for plot of land alienated in some day from the claimant for needs of the airport “Rīga”. Parties expressed such pleading grounding on statement filed to the court by Latvian Association of Property Estimators regarding compliance of estimations performed in the case with Latvian standards of estimation of real property. The court determined the next date of hearing the case on 26 March 2015.  

In August 1994, the plaintiff corroborated title to property in land book department of Riga city Marupe parish to real estate, which consisted of two plots of land of total area of 20.22 ha. On 5 February 1997, the Saeima (Parliament) of the Republic of Latvia adopted the law “On alienation of land properties for needs of the State at the territory of the State Airport Company “Rīga””, which envisaged to alienate land properties of former owners and their heirs of total area of 242.6467 ha. Real property of the plaintiff of 12.6573 ha was included in the list of lands to be alienated and reimbursement for land to be alienated was determined in amount of 1811.26 LVL unilaterally. When determining this amount of compensation, amendments of 19 December 1996 to the decision by the Supreme Council “On forced alienation of real property for needs of the state or the public” of 15 December 1992 were applied. Item 2 Part 2 of these amendments states that, when alienating real estate necessary for needs of the state or public, and former owner’s title to real property was restored during land reform, amount of compensation must be determined in monetary expression, but it must not exceed estimation of real property in a land book or cadastral documents compiled before 22 June 1940 and in which estimation of a real property is indicated. The plaintiff believes that the State infringed her property rights by not paying just compensation for alienated real property, acting inconsistently and violating principle of legal certainty.  

Both the first instance court and the appellate instance court rejected the claim.

When reviewing the case under cassation procedure on 5 June 2013, the Department of Civil Cases of the Senate of the Supreme Court abolished the judgement of the appellate instance court and transferred the case for new examination in the Chamber of Civil Cases of the Supreme Court. The cassation instance court recognised that at the moment, when the case was reviewed in the appellate instance court, judgement of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in the case „Vistins and Perepjolkins v. Latvia” was not rendered yet.  The judgement provides extended assessment regarding property and land reform in Latvia and property rights to a concrete plot of land restored to particular individuals. The cassation instance court recognised that conclusions expressed in the judgement by the European Court of Human Rights in the judgement “Vistins and Perepjolkins v. Latvia” on criteria of amount of just compensation and assessment of proportionality, which are applicable in both disputes of similar nature, serve as a ground to assess application of these conclusions also when reviewing claim filed by the plaintiff.  


Information prepared by Baiba Kataja, the Press secretary of the Supreme Court
Telephone: 67020396; e-mail: baiba.kataja@at.gov.lv