The parties in the proceedings explained before the 17-member Grand Chamber arguments previously submitted in writing, and the final decision is expected by the end of the year. Croatia was represented by the head of the Government's Office for Cooperation with the European Court of Human Rights, Stefica Staznik, and Lord Anthony Lester, an attorney from Great Britain.
The Croatian Justice Ministry said in a statement that the representatives of the Republic of Croatia repeated their arguments regarding the admissibility and justifiability of the request and called on the Grand Chamber to dismiss the request or find that Mrs. Blecic's rights were not violated. They said that her tenancy rights were terminated in concrete court proceedings in which all relevant facts were established and the substantive law in force at the time applied.
Tenancy rights in Croatia never had the characteristics of ownership, so the case cannot be considered to be about the violation of the right to the peaceful enjoyment of one's possessions, the Ministry said.
Toni Vukicevic, attorney representing the 79-year-old Kristina Blecic, said over the phone from Strasbourg he was encouraged by the hearing and questions asked by the judges, because they partly justified his client's claims.
At the beginning of the war in Croatia in 1991, Blecic went to stay with her daughter in Rome, and a war veteran with his family broke into her flat. The Municipal Court in Zadar terminated her tenancy, on the ground that she had been absent from the flat for more than six months without justification.
The Zadar County Court ruled that the Municipal Court did not take into account the war and the plaintiff's health condition, but the Supreme Court overturned that ruling, finding that the war did not prevent Blecic from returning to Zadar and using the flat. This ruling was confirmed by the Constitutional Court.
After she exhausted all remedies in Croatia, Blecic in 2000 appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
In 2004 the Court ruled in favour of Croatia, finding that termination of tenancy was a legitimate act of interfering with the plaintiff's right to home. The Court agreed with Croatia's position that an important aspect of tenancy rights was the factual use of the flat for accommodation purposes, finding that the termination of tenancy rights on the ground that the plaintiff was absent from the flat for more than six months was a legitimate measure against abuse of that right. If the Court's Grand Chamber decides after today's hearing to change this ruling in the plaintiff's favour, it would be an important precedent for dozens of thousands of people who lost their tenancy rights during the war in the former Yugoslavia.