issued by the Registrar of the Court

ECHR 279 (2022)

08.09.2022

Arbitrary eviction pending legal dispute over an apartment

In today’s Chamber judgment1 in the case of Jansons v. Latvia (application no. 1434/14) the
European Court of Human Rights held, by six votes to one, that there had been:
a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for the home) of the European Convention on Human
Rights, and
a violation of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention in conjunction
with Article 8.
The case concerned the applicant’s complaint that he had been forced out of an apartment he had
been living in in a residential building in Riga when his right to reside there had come into dispute. In
particular, the residential building had been sold in 2011 and the new owner had placed armed
security guards at the entrance to his apartment, blocking his access. Subsequently, a bailiff had
forced entry, changed the locks and removed the applicant’s belongings.
The Court found in particular that the legal system in Latvia had not effectively protected the
applicant from an arbitrary interference with his rights, owing to non-enforcement of the safeguards
set out in law. His eviction had been carried out without the courts ever having assessed the
arguments of the tenancy dispute and, despite repeated pleas to the police, they had refused to
intervene.
Indeed, according to a report by the Ombudsman, such passivity on the part of the police had been
common practice at the time. Guidelines have since been introduced for the police to ensure that
tenants can access their homes when faced with property owners’ unlawful actions.
A legal summary of this case will be available in the Court’s database HUDOC (link)

Principal facts
The applicant, Mārtiņš Jansons, is a Latvian national who was born in 1979 and lives in Riga.
In August 2009 the applicant signed an agreement on “the use of premises” for an apartment in a
residential building in Riga, which was extended on several occasions. The last signed contract stated
that it would run until 1 July 2011.
However, in February 2011 the residential building was sold at a public auction.
The new owner, a company, subsequently sent the applicant a letter requesting that he vacate the
apartment by 25 June 2012, and no longer accepted his payments for the use of the premises. When
he failed to move out, the company cut off the electricity and water supply.
On 8 November 2012 the company placed armed security guards at the entrance to the apartment.
The applicant called the police to the apartment, but they refused to intervene, considering it a
private dispute, and left. He made repeated further calls to the police to intervene, in vain, and
ultimately left the apartment in the early hours of the following morning to lodge a formal complaint

1. Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, this Chamber judgment is not final. During the three-month period following its delivery,
any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Court. If such a request is made, a panel of five judges
considers whether the case deserves further examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a final
judgment. If the referral request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day.
Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for supervision of its execution.
Further information about the execution process can be found here: www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution.
at the police station. While he was absent, the lock to the apartment was changed. The apartment
remained guarded over the following weeks and he was refused access.
On 12 December 2012, a bailiff went to the apartment to enforce the court-ordered transfer of
possession to the new owner. The bailiff forced entry, changed the locks and removed the
applicant’s belongings.
The applicant, who had arrived at the apartment during the procedure, told the bailiff that he was
the tenant and could prove it. The bailiff responded that this was not necessary and that he had to
carry out his duties.
The applicant called the police, but they again refused to intervene.
All the applicant’s legal efforts to defend his rights in respect of the apartment were unsuccessful.
A civil claim by the applicant against the new owner was dismissed in January 2014. The District
Court found that he no longer had the right to reside in the apartment as his lease had expired and
no new agreement had been concluded. It considered that the question of an unlawful eviction had
to be pursued via criminal proceedings and a claim for damages.
Civil proceedings brought against the bailiff were terminated because the applicant did not have
standing to lodge a complaint against his actions.
Criminal proceedings, instituted in respect of a property offence, were likewise discontinued in
August 2016 because he did not have a valid tenancy agreement (he was a “person using the
premises”).

Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court

Relying on Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life and the home), the applicant
complained that he had been unlawfully evicted from his home. He alleged a breach of his rights by
both the police, who had refused to intervene when the security guards had blocked access to his
apartment, and the bailiff, whose actions had been carried out without a court order. The applicant
also complained under Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the absence of effective domestic
remedies for the protection of his rights.
The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 26 December 2013.
Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:
Síofra O’Leary (Ireland), President,
Mārtiņš Mits (Latvia),
Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström (Monaco),
Lətif Hüseynov (Azerbaijan),
Arnfinn Bårdsen (Norway),
Kateřina Šimáčková (the Czech Republic),
Mykola Gnatovskyy (Ukraine),

and also Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar.

Decision of the Court

Article 8
First, the Court found that the applicant had had sufficient links with the apartment in Riga for it to
be regarded as his “home”. It was not in dispute that he had resided there for more than three years

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and that, when he had been forced out, a legal claim concerning his right to reside there had been
ongoing in the courts. Article 8 was therefore applicable to the complaint about his eviction.
The authorities had, however, failed to take appropriate measures to ensure that the applicant’s
right to respect for his home had been secured, despite his repeated pleas.
In particular, the police, called to the scene, had to have been aware from the outset that the
applicant had in all likelihood been living in the apartment. Yet they had neither given any order to
the new owner – who had been acting on its own without any legal authorisation – to stop blocking
the applicant’s access to the apartment, nor given any warning that no individual, even one
unlawfully occupying premises, could be evicted without a valid court order. Indeed, it should have
been evident to the police that a legal dispute could not be relied on to force a person out of his
home.
The police had also failed to take any steps at a later stage of the dispute, even though the applicant
had remained locked out of his home and criminal proceedings had been instituted.
The criminal investigation had offered no protection either: the decisions to discontinue had
included no analysis of whether the applicant had in fact lived in the apartment or whether it might
have constituted his “home”, meaning that the lawfulness of the new owner’s actions had not even
been assessed.
As for the bailiff, the Court likewise considered that it was not plausible that he had not known that
the applicant, who had introduced himself during the transfer of possession, had been living in the
apartment or that there had been an ongoing dispute on his tenancy rights. Despite that, he had not
suspended the procedure or reconsidered the situation.
Moreover, by removing the applicant’s belongings, the bailiff had directly involved himself in the
dispute, and had acted in the interests of the new owner without the arguments having been
assessed by a court.
The Court therefore concluded that the transfer of possession leading to the applicant’s eviction had
had no lawful basis. Furthermore, even though there had been procedural safeguards under
domestic law – namely that evictions could only be carried out on the basis of a court order and that
the police had to be present during the transfer of possession – they had served little purpose as
they had not been enforced and had failed to prevent an arbitrary interference with the applicant’s
rights.
There had therefore been a violation of Article 8.

Article 13 in conjunction with Article 8

The Court considered that no civil-law remedy had been available to the applicant: the civil
proceedings he had brought had only addressed his right to reside in the apartment, not the
unlawful eviction, considering that to be a matter for the criminal courts. A criminal-law remedy had
been available, but the resulting investigation had been limited in scope and had not provided
effective protection in a situation where tenancy rights had been in dispute.
Accordingly, the Court concluded that the applicant had not had an effective remedy for his
complaint about the interference with his right to respect for his home, in violation of Article 13 in
conjunction with Article 8.

Article 41 (just satisfaction)

The Court held, by six votes to one, that Latvia was to pay the applicant 8,000 euros (EUR) in respect
of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 5,316.47 in respect of costs and expenses.

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Separate opinion
Judge O’Leary expressed a dissenting opinion, which is annexed to the judgment.

The judgment is available only in English.

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The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe member
States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.