5.  The applicant was born in 1946 and lives in Ljubljana. 6.  The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows. 7.  After divorcing his wife in 1986, the applicant moved in with his sister and after a while he began looking for other accommodation. 8.  In spring 1990, A.Z., an eighty-six-year-old widower at the time and the father of the applicant’s friend, invited the applicant to live with him. He thus moved into the one-room apartment A.Z. was renting from the Ljubljana-Šiška Municipality. 9.  On 29 May 1992 the applicant registered his permanent residence at A.Z.’s address. A.Z. declared on the back of the registration form that the applicant lived with him in order to provide him with daily care. 10.  On 9 June 1992 a new contract of lease was made in A.Z.’s name. The applicant’s name was included in the contract as one of the persons allowed to use the apartment. 11.  On 9 April 1993 A.Z. died. 12.  Further to the applicant’s inquiries, on 17 February 1995 the Ljubljana-Šiška Municipality informed him that the 1991 Housing Act (Stanovanjski zakon) was not applicable to the relationship established between the applicant and A.Z., since he was not a member of A.Z.’s close family. Therefore, he was not entitled to take over the tenancy and was requested to vacate the apartment within three months. 13.  On 24 February 1995 the applicant instituted proceedings in the Ljubljana Local Court (Okrajno sodišče v Ljubljani), seeking the right to succeed to the tenancy following A.Z.’s death. The claim was directed against the Ljubljana Municipality, which had taken over the ownership of the apartment at issue from the Ljubljana-Šiška Municipality following a reform of the city administration. 14.  On 4 April 1996 the Ljubljana Local Court requested the applicant to complete his action, which he did on 16 April 1996. 15.  On 22 October 1999 the Ljubljana Municipality lodged a counterclaim, seeking the applicant’s eviction. On 7 November 1999 the applicant lodged a response. 16.  During this period, the applicant continued to live in the apartment, paid rent and in 1998 and 1999 refurbished the apartment. 17.  At the hearing held on 9 November 1999, the Ljubljana Local Court allowed the counterclaim lodged by the Ljubljana Municipality. 18.  Another hearing was held on 11 January 2000, at which the Ljubljana Local Court enlarged the claim to include all other successors of the previous municipalities that had formed the city of Ljubljana, without specifying them. In his submissions of 18 January 2000, the applicant enumerated eleven communities and municipalities which had replaced the former Ljubljana municipalities. 19.  After a hearing held on 4 July 2000, the Ljubljana Local Court dismissed the applicant’s claim. The court held that under Section 56 of the 1991 Housing Act (“Section 56”) the applicant was not entitled to continue the contract of lease with the Ljubljana Municipality since he was neither the deceased’s “spouse”, nor a person forming a “long-lasting life community” with him, nor a close relative. 20.  Since the notion of a “person having lived with the tenant in a long-lasting life community” was not defined in Section 56, in the court’s view it had to be understood as an alternative to the notion “spouse” and interpreted in accordance with Section 12 of the Marriage and Family Relations Act defining an “extramarital relationship” (zunajzakonska skupnost). The latter provision limiting the notion of a “long-lasting life community” to a person of the opposite sex, the relationship between the applicant and A.Z. could only be described as an “economic community”, which did not oblige the owner to conclude a new contract of lease. 21.  By the same judgment, the court upheld the Ljubljana Municipality’s counterclaim and ordered the applicant to vacate the apartment and to pay the costs of the proceedings. On 13 September 2000 the judgment was served on the applicant. 22.  On 25 September 2000 the applicant appealed to the Ljubljana Higher Court (Višje sodišče v Ljubljani) contesting the first-instance court’s interpretation of a “long-lasting life community.” 23.  On 28 March 2001 the Ljubljana Higher Court dismissed the appeal on the ground that Section 56 limited the circle of persons eligible to take over the lease from the deceased to members of the tenant’s close family, including an “extramarital partner”. A person having formed only an “economic community” with the deceased did not belong to this circle, however close that community might be. It considered that a “long-lasting life community” was the equivalent of an “extramarital relationship”. Finally, the court observed that the first-instance court had not dismissed the applicant’s claim due to his gender but because he did not belong to the circle of close family as defined by Section 56, and concluded that he could not have been discriminated against on this ground. 24.  On 11 May 2001 the applicant requested the Ljubljana Public Prosecutor’s Office (Državno tožilstvo v Ljubljani) to lodge a request for protection of legality (zahteva za varstvo zakonitosti) with the Supreme Court (Vrhovno sodišče) against the second-instance court’s decision. The request was rejected on 6 June 2001. 25.  On 11 June 2001 the applicant lodged a constitutional appeal with the Constitutional Court, which was declared admissible on 21 January 2002. In addition, the Constitutional Court stayed the execution of the second-instance judgment until its final decision. 26.  On 20 February 2003 the Constitutional Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal. It held that the lower courts had rejected the applicant’s claim on two grounds and that in order to succeed before the Constitutional Court the applicant should have shown that both grounds had been incompatible with the provisions of the Constitution. 27.  As to the first ground, it was not excluded that the lower courts’ position that a “long-lasting life community” in Section 56 was tantamount to an extramarital relationship as defined in Section 12 of the Marriage and Family Relations Act, that is a community of a man and a woman, was contrary to the Constitution. It could reasonably be conceived that the principles of equality before the law and prohibition of discrimination embodied in Article 14 of the Constitution suggested that there was no reasonable ground for distinction between opposite and same-sex partnerships as far as the legal consequences of the death of the tenant in the realm of housing law were concerned. In doing so, the Constitutional Court relied on the decision on admissibility in the Karner v. Austria case, where the applicant and the deceased tenant were partners living in a homosexual relationship (Karner v. Austria (dec.), no. 40016/98, 11 September 2001). 28.  However, the lower courts had eventually found that the applicant and A.Z. had lived merely in an “economic community” and that the purpose of their life community was the assistance the applicant provided to A.Z. Moreover, the applicant had not contested these findings and had not adduced evidence in support of a “long-lasting life community” with A.Z. It was not discriminatory if this type of community, be it constituted of persons of the opposite or of the same sex, could not be qualified as a “long-lasting life community” for the purposes of Section 56. 29.  On 18 March 2003 the Constitutional Court’s decision was served on the applicant. 30.  On 27 January 2004 the applicant attended a meeting at the Ljubljana Municipality. He proposed a settlement by which he would remain a tenant of the apartment for the next fifteen years and continue to pay the full rent, and in exchange he would not request the reimbursement of the expenses he had incurred in the refurbishment of the apartment, which was at that time more than seventy years old. His proposal was rejected and he was requested to vacate the apartment. On 24 February 2004 he reiterated his request in writing, which was rejected on 10 March 2004. 31.  On 22 April 2004 the applicant instituted proceedings against the Ljubljana Municipality in the Ljubljana Local Court seeking reimbursement of the expenses he had incurred by refurbishing the apartment in 1998 and 1999 in the amount of 1,680,000 Slovenian tolars (SIT) (approximately 7,000 euros (EUR)) with interest. 32.  On 16 September 2008 the Ljubljana Local Court dismissed his claim. Since he did not appeal, the decision became final. 33.  Further to the Constitutional Court’s decision of 20 February 2003, on 23 March 2004 the Ljubljana Municipality instituted enforcement proceedings against the applicant in the Ljubljana Local Court. 34.  On 23 April 2004 the court allowed the enforcement and ordered the applicant to vacate the apartment. This decision was served on the applicant on 10 May 2004. 35.  The following day the applicant requested a deferral of the enforcement pending the outcome of the second set of proceedings 36.  On 16 September 2004 the Ljubljana Local Court rejected the applicant’s request. The applicant lodged an appeal. 37.  On 16 March 2005 the Ljubljana Higher Court dismissed the appeal. 38.  On 20 June 2005 the applicant asked the Ljubljana Municipality for a deferral of the enforcement proceedings pending the outcome of the proceedings before the European Court for Human Rights. 39.  On 17 March 2006 the bailiff ordered him to vacate the apartment on 11 April 2006. 40.  On 30 March 2006 the Ljubljana Municipality asked the bailiff to postpone the eviction pending the outcome of the proceedings before the Court. 41.  At the request of the Ljubljana Municipality, on 29 April 2008 the Ljubljana Local Court decided to stay the enforcement proceedings pending the outcome of the proceedings before the Court.