The Court decided it has no jurisdiction in the case with 11 votes to six.
Blecic lodged her application over infringement of the right to respect for her home and the right to peaceful enjoyment of her possessions, regulated by the European Convention on Human Rights, on 6 May 2000.
The Court said that Blecic, 79, acquired tenancy of a flat in the central coastal city of Zadar in 1953, leaving it in 1991 when she went to see her daughter in Rome. Given that Zadar was being shelled, Blecic decided to stay in Rome and her Zadar flat was broken into. In February 1992 the Zadar municipality brought an action against Blecic for termination of her tenancy, on the ground that she had been absent from the flat for more than six months without justification.
Blecic claimed that she could not return to Zadar because of the war, but in 1994 the Zadar Municipal Court ruled to terminate her tenancy. The Supreme Court confirmed this ruling in February 1996.
The European Court of Human Rights established that the Supreme Court ruling had been decisive for the outcome of the proceedings in Croatia and that it was handed down before the Convention on Human Rights came into force in respect of Croatia.
The Croatian Justice Ministry recalled in a statement today that Blecic lodged her application in Strasbourg in 2000, that the European Court of Human Rights ruled in Croatia's favour in July 2004, establishing that the termination of tenancy for Blecic, who left the Zadar flat immediately before the war, constituted legitimate interference in the right to respect for home.
The Court on that occasion agreed with the Croatian government's position that actual use of the flat for living was a significant aspect of tenancy, so the termination of tenancy because the flat was not used constituted a legitimate measure against abuse of that right, the ministry said.
Blecic subsequently requested the Court in Strasbourg to re-examine the ruling. Lawyers for Blecic and Croatia presented their arguments before the Grand Chamber last September.
The European Court said in today's decision it did not take cognisance of the merits of the application as it did in its first ruling but, examining its jurisdiction in the case, ruled that it is not competent to take cognisance of the merits.
The Croatian government raised the issue of the Court's jurisdiction in the case given that Croatia ratified the Convention on Human Rights in 1997.