SPROĢE v. LATVIA
Inadmissible
Armen Harutyunyan;Branko Lubarda;Carlo Ranzoni;Johannes Silvis;Luis López Guerra;Mārtiņš Mits
1. The applicant, Ms Natalija Sproģe, is a Latvian national, who was born in 1980 and lives in Riga. She is represented before the Court by Mr W. Bowring, a lawyer practising in London. 2. The Latvian Government (“the Government”) are represented by their Agent, Ms K. Līce. 3. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows. 4. In the 1940s, following a nationalisation process (for more detailed historical background see Liepājnieks v. Latvia (dec.), no. 37586/06, 2 October 2010) , the applicant’s predecessors settled in an apartment in Čaka street, Riga, which was later rented by the applicant’s father. The applicant and her family lived in the apartment until 2002. 5. In February 1992 the dwelling house was denationalised and taken over by a private person. The new owner requested the applicant’s family to leave the apartment, alleging that it was unfit for occupation and required urgent repair. The dispute over the right to rent the apartment resulted in several sets of court proceedings between the applicant’s family and the landlord. 6. In 2000 the landlord brought a claim for eviction of the applicant’s family, without providing alternative accommodation. 7. On 29 January 2001 Judge T. of the Riga Centre District Court upheld the claim. On the basis of the parties’ statements and case materials, the court found that: (1) even in the absence of a written rental agreement between the parties, the applicant had been renting the contested apartment; (2) the apartment needed renovation and the plaintiff had proved his intention to carry out the necessary work, and therefore the condition for terminating the rental agreement had been met; (3) the plaintiff had warned the tenants about the termination of the rental agreement in accordance with a procedure provided by law. 8. On 14 March 2002 an appeal by the applicant was dismissed by the Riga Regional Court, which on 27 March 2002 issued an execution order. 9. The decision became final in August 2002 when the Senate of the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal on points of law by the applicant. 10. While the above proceedings were pending, in 2001 the landlord brought a claim against the applicant and her family asking the court to order the tenants to give him access to the apartment. He argued that certain parts of the apartment were in a critical condition and required urgent repair owing to the fact that the wooden construction between the floors was decayed and risked collapsing. 11. On 21 August 2001 Judge T. of the Riga Centre District Court, in the absence of the applicant and her family, upheld the claim. The applicant and her family were duly informed of the proceedings. 12. The judgment was subject to appeal. Owing to its urgent nature, the lower court ordered the immediate execution of the judgment. 13. The applicant and the other defendants appealed and refused to implement the judgment. Following the bailiff’s report that execution of the judgment was impossible, Judge T. on 10 September and 16 October 2001 imposed a fine of 50 lati (LVL) (70 euros (EUR)) and LVL 500 (EUR 700) on each of the three defendants, including the applicant. Upon appeal by the applicant, the Riga Regional Court quashed the decisions in a final ruling on 29 January 2002. 14. Meanwhile, the Administrative Commission of the Riga Municipality Centre District had on various occasions imposed fines on the applicant and her family for failing to allow the landlord to enter the apartment, in breach of the Administrative Offences Code in force at the time. On at least one occasion in January 2002 Judge T. had made a decision relating to an administrative fine imposed on one of the applicant’s family members; in the decision she had identified shortcomings in the administrative offence proceedings and discontinued them. The decision was final. 15. It appears that on 16 October 2002 a bailiff attempted to carry out the eviction in accordance with the order issued on 27 March 2002. The applicant and her family allegedly refused to leave the apartment, arguing that the eviction was unlawful. The landlord therefore proceeded to have the doors of the apartment opened by force, but it was discovered that the entrance was blocked with furniture and it was impossible to enter. An incident arose between the workers assigned by the bailiff and the people who were at the apartment during the eviction. 16. On 27 January 2003 the landlord brought a civil claim for damages against the applicant and her family for the broken apartment door and for damage to belongings of other people involved in the incident. 17. On 30 June 2003 the lower court, in the absence of the defendants, upheld the claim and ordered the defendants to pay LVL 1,979 (around EUR 2,830) in damages. 18. The applicant appealed, arguing that opening the doors by force had not been necessary, and that the court had failed to establish a causal link between the actions of each of the defendants and the alleged damage. 19. On 25 April 2005 the Riga Regional Court, sitting as a panel of three judges, examined the applicant’s appeal, with Judge T. as one of the judges. At the beginning of the hearing the applicant challenged Judge T.’s impartiality, arguing that she had evicted her family from the apartment and that therefore she might have an interest in the case. 20. The court dismissed the objection and since there were no other requests received by the parties, continued to examine the appeal on the merits. In a judgment of 9 May 2005 the court partly upheld the claim. It observed that the applicant’s family had been evicted from the apartment in accordance with a valid court judgment and that witness statements had established that on 16 October 2002 the defendants had objected to the request by the court bailiff. In the court’s opinion there was no doubt that the plaintiff had sustained damage and that the lower court had correctly found that the damage had been caused by the applicant and her family because the eviction concerned all of them. 21. In an appeal on points of law the applicant noted that she had raised objections against Judge T., listing all the decisions the judge had previously made. 22. On 8 August 2005 a Senate preparatory meeting refused leave to appeal on points of law and the cassation proceedings were discontinued. The decision did not address the allegations of a lack of impartiality. 23. Section 14 of the Law on Judicial Power provides that a judge does not have the right to participate in the adjudication of a case if he or she, personally, directly or indirectly, has an interest in the outcome of the case, or if there are other circumstances creating well-founded reasons to question the judge’s impartiality. In such cases a judge must withdraw from the case. If a judge or a lay judge has not withdrawn from the case, anyone participating in the proceedings may request such a withdrawal according to a procedure prescribed by law. 24. Sections 17 and 19 of the Civil Procedure Law contain similar provisions to those stated above. It also provides that any such requests must be accompanied by sufficient reasons.