EHRM, 12-05-2009, nr. 28456/03

After divorcing his wife in 1986, the applicant moved in with his sister and after a while he began looking for other accommodation.

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.

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.

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.

On 9 April 1993 A.Z. died.

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.

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.

On 4 April 1996 the Ljubljana Local Court requested the applicant to complete his action, which he did on 16 April 1996.

On 22 October 1999 the Ljubljana Municipality lodged a counterclaim, seeking the applicant's eviction. On 7 November 1999 the applicant lodged a response.

During this period, the applicant continued to live in the apartment, paid rent and in 1998 and 1999 refurbished the apartment.

At the hearing held on 9 November 1999, the Ljubljana Local Court allowed the counterclaim lodged by the Ljubljana Municipality.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.’

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

On 18 March 2003 the Constitutional Court's decision was served on the applicant.

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.

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.

On 16 September 2008 the Ljubljana Local Court dismissed his claim. Since he did not appeal, the decision became final.

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.

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.

The following day the applicant requested a deferral of the enforcement pending the outcome of the second set of proceedings

On 16 September 2004 the Ljubljana Local Court rejected the applicant's request. The applicant lodged an appeal.

On 16 March 2005 the Ljubljana Higher Court dismissed the appeal.

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.

On 17 March 2006 the bailiff ordered him to vacate the apartment on 11 April 2006.

On 30 March 2006 the Ljubljana Municipality asked the bailiff to postpone the eviction pending the outcome of the proceedings before the Court.

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.

The Act on the Protection of the Right to a Trial without undue Delay was enacted on 1 January 2007. Under its sections 1 and 2, the right to a trial within a reasonable time is guaranteed for a party to court proceedings, a participant under the Act governing non-contentious proceedings and an injured party in criminal proceedings.

Section 25 lays down the following transitional rules in relation to applications already pending before the Court:

On 14 October 2003 the new Housing Act (Stanovanjski zakon (SZ-1), Official Journal 69/2003) entered into force and replaced the 1991 Housing Act. In its Section 109, among other changes, the words ‘a person who lived with the tenant in a long-lasting life community’ were replaced by ‘a person who lived with the tenant in an extramarital relationship’.

In 2005 Slovenia adopted the Registration of Same-Sex Civil Partnership Act, which regulates in entirety partnerships of same-sex couples.

The Government pleaded non-exhaustion of domestic remedies, in particular after the adoption of the Act on the Protection of the Right to a Trial without undue Delay (the ‘2006 Act’).

Relying on the Lukenda v. Slovenia judgment (no. 23032/02, 6 October 2005) the applicant contested that argument, claiming that the remedies available were not effective.

The Court notes that section 25 of the 2006 Act explicitly refers to proceedings before international courts and provides for certain remedies in cases of domestic proceedings which had terminated before 1 January 2007. However, the Court found in the Grzinčič judgment that the conditions laid down in that section were not fulfilled as regards applications concerning terminated proceedings which had been notified to the Slovenian Government before 1 January 2007, such as the present one (see Grzinčič v. Slovenia, no. 26867/02, § 67, 3 May 2007).

The Court therefore notes that the present application is similar to that examined in the relevant part of the Grzinčič judgment (cited above, § 68), in which the Court dismissed the Government's objection of non-exhaustion of domestic remedies because it found that the legal remedies at the applicant's disposal were ineffective.

The Court finds that the Government have not submitted any convincing arguments which would require the Court to depart from its established case-law.

The Court further notes that this part of the application is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention. Nor is it inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible.

The Government stated that the applicant had moved into the apartment at issue at A.Z.'s request. The latter allegedly loved the applicant like his own son. Because of A.Z.'s advanced age, the applicant had provided a great deal of care, both economic and emotional, to A.Z. and remained with him until his death. Therefore, according to the applicant, they formed a ‘long-lasting life union’. Later, the applicant's request to take over the tenancy rights after A.Z. was denied, since the domestic courts had found that the relationship between the applicant and A.Z. could not be qualified as a ‘long-lasting life community’ under Section 56 of the 1991 Housing Act but merely as an ‘economic community’.

It was clear that the notion of a ‘long-lasting life community’ in the 1991 Housing Act was set as an alternative to a marriage, as interpreted by the lower courts, since both notions in its Section 6 were followed by ‘their children’. Therefore, a ‘long-lasting life community’ referred to such a type of a relationship as an ‘extramarital partnership’ under the domestic law, a life community such as between spouses, the existence of which depends on the actual circumstances such as a common residence, a household, an economic interdependence, a community and mutual interconnection, and desire to live together as a man and a wife.

The Government argued that the lower courts had rejected the applicant's claim not only because the applicant and A.Z. were of the same sex but principally because their community had insufficient substance. The applicant was neither A.Z.'s relative nor was he his partner under Slovenian law. The Constitutional Court ruled that the lower courts had not breached the principle of equality before the law protected by the Constitution.

It should be mentioned that in the Slovenian legal order an ‘extra-marital partnership’ was envisaged only for partners of the opposite sex. A community of same-sex partners was legally recognised and regulated first in 2005. Nor could it be said that the community existing between the applicant and A.Z. could fall under the Registration of Same-Sex Civil Partnership Act because of the fact that they were of the same sex. The circumstances of the case at hand could not be compared with those obtaining in the Karner v. Austria case (no. 40016/98, ECHR § 33, 2003-IX) where the applicant and the deceased tenant were partners living in a homosexual relationship.

In the Government's view, neither the applicant nor another person of the opposite sex who would have been taking care of a deceased tenant economically and emotionally would have been entitled under Slovenian law to take over the rights after him or her. Therefore, in the case at hand there was no discrimination under Article 14 of the Convention.

In any event, that provision did not have an independent existence since it had an influence only on ‘enjoying rights and freedoms’. In the Government's view, since the applicant himself could not claim to be a close family member of A.Z., the facts of the case did not even fall within the ambit of Article 8 of the Convention. Therefore, under the test the Court applied in cases where a violation of Article 14 was alleged, already the answer to the first question — whether the facts of the case fell within one of the meritorious provisions of the Convention — was negative.

The applicant contested the Government's arguments. He maintained that even though he was sharing his life with A.Z. and took care of the latter economically and emotionally, he could not succeed to a tenancy after his death on account of the fact they were of the same gender.

The applicant argued that Section 56 of the Housing Act was vague, in contrast with its Section 6 which clearly defined the immediate family members as a ‘spouse or a person who lived with the tenant in a long-lasting life community, their children, adopted children’, etc. If a ‘long-lasting community’ could be construed as an alternative to a marriage in Section 6 because of the words ‘their children’, then such an interpretation could not be valid for Section 56 which did not contain any reference to ‘children’ and which in his view attributed this right also to other persons with whom the tenant had lived in a ‘long-lasting life-community’.

The lack of clarity of the purpose of Section 56 was confirmed by the fact that the new Housing Act was adopted in 2003. The new provision no longer contains the notion of a ‘long-lasting life community’ but rather a concept of an ‘extramarital relationship’ which was already known to the legislature in 1991. Had the legislator had the intention of interpreting the notion of a ‘long-lasting community’ as an ‘extramarital relationship’, it would have done so in 1991. The linguistic explanation of this concept in Section 56 therefore provided for a possibility of an existence of a ‘long-lasting life community’ between partners of the same sex even though such a community was not legally recognised in 1991.

In 1995, when the applicant made his claim, there was practically no judicial practice interpreting Section 56. Only in the subsequent years was legal opinion formed to the effect that the legislator had had an ‘extramarital partnership’ in mind when referring to the concept of a ‘long-lasting life community’. Since this lack of clarity had led the applicant to a wrong interpretation of Section 56, his constitutional rights had been breached. This effect on the applicant was also discriminatory under Article 14 of the Convention. Finally, the vague definition of persons entitled to succeed to a tenancy interfered with the applicant's right to respect for private and family life under Article 8 of the Convention.

The Court reiterates that Article 14 of the Convention complements the other substantive provisions of the Convention and the Protocols. It has no independent existence since it has effect solely in relation to ‘the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms’ safeguarded by those provisions. The application of Article 14 does not necessarily presuppose the violation of one of the substantive rights guaranteed by the Convention. It is necessary but it is also sufficient for the facts of the case to fall ‘within the ambit’ of one or more of the Convention Articles (see Stec and Others v. the United Kingdom (dec.) [GC], nos. 65731/01 and 65900/01, § 39, ECHR 2005-X; Burden v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 13378/05, § 58, ECHR 2008; and Karner v. Austria, no. 40016/98, § 32, ECHR 2003-IX).

The Court has to consider therefore whether the subject matter of the present case falls ‘within the ambit’ of Article 8. The Court does not find it necessary to determine the notions of ‘private life’ or ‘family life’ because, in any event, the applicant's complaint relates to the manner in which the alleged difference in treatment adversely affected the enjoyment of his right to respect for his ‘home’ guaranteed under Article 8 of the Convention (see, mutatis mutandis, Larkos v. Cyprus [GC], no. 29515/95, § 28, ECHR 1999-I, and Karner, cited above, § 33). It is not disputed between the parties that the applicant had been living since 1990 in the flat that had been let to A.Z. and continued to do so after his death. The relevance of Article 8 cannot be denied in view of the judgment of the Ljubljana Local Court ordering the applicant's eviction, which judgment was subsequently upheld by all levels of jurisdiction, notwithstanding the fact that it has not yet been executed (see, mutatis mutandis, Stanková v. Slovakia, no. 7205/02, § 57, 9 October 2007). Therefore, Article 14 of the Convention applies.

As to the scope of the guarantee under Article 14, the Court reiterates that according to its established case-law discrimination means treating differently, without an objective and reasonable justification, persons in relevantly similar situations (see Marckx v. Belgium, judgment of 13 June 1979, Series A no. 31, § 33; D.H. and Others v. the Czech Republic [GC], no. 57325/00, § 175, ECHR 2007; and Burden, cited above, § 60). Such a difference of treatment is discriminatory if it has no objective and reasonable justification; in other words, if it does not pursue a legitimate aim or if there is not a reasonable relationship of proportionality between the means employed and the aim sought to be realised. Furthermore, very weighty reasons would have to be put forward before the Court could regard a difference in treatment based exclusively on the ground of sex as compatible with the Convention (see Smith and Grady v. the United Kingdom, nos. 33985/96 and 33986/96, § 94, ECHR 1999-VI; Fretté v. France, no. 36515/97, §§ 34 and 40, ECHR 2002-I; S.L. v. Austria, no. 45330/99, § 36, ECHR 2003-I; and Karner, cited above, § 37).

In the present case, the applicant claimed that his situation was relevantly similar or analogous to the one of a surviving partner of an opposite-sex tenant in a ‘long-lasting life community’ who would have qualified under Slovenian law as it stood at the material time to succeed to a tenancy after his or her partner's death. The Government, however, argued that there was no true analogy since the applicant's cohabitation with A.Z. could only be qualified as an ‘economic union’.

Before the domestic courts, the applicant sought to avail himself of the right under section 56 of the 1991 Housing Act, which he asserted entitled him as a person who had lived with the deceased tenant A.Z. in a ‘long-lasting life community’ to succeed to the tenancy. The court of first instance dismissed the applicant's action since he was neither A.Z.'s spouse nor a person having lived with him in a ‘long-lasting life community’, such a community being tantamount to an extramarital relationship of persons of the opposite sex, nor his close relative for the purposes of Section 56. The first instance court found that the relationship of the applicant and A.Z. could merely be qualified as an ‘economic community’. By the same judgment, the Ljubljana Municipality's counterclaim was upheld and the applicant ordered to vacate the apartment.

This judgment was subsequently upheld by the Ljubljana Higher Court and the Constitutional Court, the latter stating that the applicant's claim was dismissed since an ‘economic community’, whether constituted of persons of the same or of the opposite sex, could not be qualified as a ‘long-lasting life community’. In addition, referring to the decision on admissibility in the case Karner v. Austria, cited above, the Constitutional Court held that the lower courts' position that a ‘long-lasting life community’ for the purposes of Section 56 of the 1991 Housing Act could only be constituted of persons of the opposite sex might be contrary to the Constitution.

As to the relevant domestic legislation, the Court notes that Section 109 of the new Housing Act adopted in 2003 now gives the right to succeed to a tenancy to a spouse, a person who lived with the deceased tenant in an ‘extramarital relationship’, its existence depending on the actual circumstances of the partnership, or a close relative, which is essentially identical to the former Section 56 of the 1991 Housing Act as interpreted by the domestic courts. Moreover, since 2005 the Registration of the Same-Sex Civil Partnership Act gives the right to succeed to a tenancy to a same-sex partner of a deceased tenant.

The Court observes at the outset that it is not the applicant's contention that his relationship with A.Z. was of a homosexual nature or that he was discriminated against on the ground of his sexual orientation. His situation is thus clearly distinguishable from that of the applicant in the case of Karner. Moreover, although he maintains that he was unable to succeed to the tenancy because he and A.Z. were of the same sex, the Court considers that this assertion is based on a partial misconception of the reasons relied on by the domestic courts. In essence, those courts declined to recognise the applicant's right to succeed to the tenancy on the ground that his cohabitation with A.Z. amounted only to an ‘economic community’ and did not fall within any of the categories listed in Section 56 of the Housing Act, namely the tenant's spouse, a person who had lived with the tenant in a ‘long-lasting life community’ or one of the tenant's close family members. While it it true that the lower courts relied on an interpretation of the notion of ‘long-lasting life community’ which limited its scope to extramarital relationships between persons of the opposite sex — a position which the Constitutional Court found might be contrary to the Constitution — the applicant's claim was ultimately dismissed because his relationship with A.Z. was of a different nature from a ‘long-lasting life community’, being rather an ‘economic community’, and not because he and A.Z. were of the same sex. In that respect, the Constitutional Court expressly stated that an ‘economic community’ could not be equated with a ‘long-lasting life community’ irrespective of whether it was constituted of persons of the same sex or the opposite sex. In these circumstances, it does not appear that the applicant's sex was at all a decisive element in the rejection of his claim or that a person of the opposite sex would have been treated any differently. Consequently, the Court finds that the applicant has not been discriminated against on the grounds of either his sexual orientation or his sex.

The question remains whether the applicant's situation could nevertheless be regarded as relevantly similar or analogous to that of the categories listed in Section 56 of the Housing Act, as interpreted by the domestic courts, that is, whether the distiction made between those categories and an ‘economic community’ constitutes a difference in treatment amounting to discrimination prohibited by Article 14 of the Convention.

Firstly, in so far as the applicant seeks to compare his situation with that of a spouse, the Court recalls that it held in its recent Burden v. the United Kingdom, in the slightly different context of applicants who were cohabiting sisters, that the legal consequences of a marriage or of a homosexual civil partnership, which couples expressly and deliberately decide to incur, set these types of relationship apart from other forms of cohabitation (Burden, cited above, § 65). Therefore, distinguishing between different forms of cohabitation does not necessarily give rise to discrimination prohibited by Article 14. For similar reasons, the Court does not consider that the applicant's situation was comparable to that of a married couple and finds that there has been no discrimination in that respect.

Secondly, the Court observes that Slovenian law also recognises the right of unmarried persons who are in an extramarital relationship to take over a tenancy. However, it does not consider that the applicant's situation can be compared to such a relationship either. In this connection, the Court notes that an extramarital relationship is a legally recognised alternative to marriage in Slovenian law, by virtue of Article 12 of the Marriage and Family Relations Act, which provides that ‘[a] long-lasting community of a man and a woman who have not entered into [a marriage] shall have for them the same legal consequences … as if they had entered into a marriage’. Consequently, the relationship of long-term partners under Slovenian law may be readily equated to that of a married couple, being of the same nature, notwithstanding the absence of formal recognition through some form of registration. In that respect, the Court further notes that in Section 56 of the Housing Act the category of ‘a person who has lived with the tenant in a long-lasting life community’ immediately followed the expression ‘the tenant's spouse’ and, in accordance with the ejusdem generis principle, could reasonably be interpreted as being an extension of that specific status rather than as a wholly independent category of general application. Moreover, the fact that the lower courts limited their interpretation of the expression ‘long-lasting life community’ to heterosexual couples does not change that conclusion, since in the present case the distinction between heterosexual and homosexual couples is not at issue.

Thirdly, while Slovenian law also recognises the right of close family members to take over a tenancy, the Court does not consider that the applicant's relationship with A.Z., even if it may have borne certain similarities to that between father and son and even if it involved emotional ties beyond ‘economic community’, was such as to give rise to discrimination on account of the refusal to allow him to succeed to the tenancy. The Court considers that similar considerations to those relied upon in Burden are applicable to the distinction made between family members on the one hand and unrelated persons on the other. Notwithstanding the potentially close nature of the relationship between two unrelated people, the Court considers that the two situations are not comparable for the purposes of Article 14 of the Convention, since ties of filiation similarly entail specific rights and obligations in law, albeit not entered into voluntarily, which is not the case with the relationship between two unrelated people, irrespective of the intimacy of that relationship.

In any event, the Court recalls that the domestic courts concluded that the applicant's cohabitation with A.Z. amounted only to an ‘economic community’ which was not equivalent to a ‘long-lasting life community’. It further recalls that it is in the first place for the national authorities, notably the courts, to interpret and apply domestic law. According to Article 19 of the Convention, the Court's duty is to ensure the observance of the engagements undertaken by the Contracting Parties to the Convention. It is not its function to deal with errors of fact or law allegedly committed by a national court unless and in so far as they may have infringed rights and freedoms protected by the Convention (see Garcia Ruiz v. Spain, no. 30544/96, § 28, ECHR 1999-I). In the present case, the Court observes that the domestic courts examined the relevant facts of the case in depth and explained in detail why they considered that the applicant and A.Z. had lived in a merely ‘economic community’. The Court considers that the reasons on which the domestic courts based their decisions in question are sufficient to exclude the assumption that the way in which they established and evaluated the applicant's situation was unfair or arbitrary. In reaching this conclusion, the Court also takes into account that the Constitutional Court assessed the relevant facts in the light of the same criteria as the Court applies in similar cases.

In conclusion, the Court finds that the proceedings were ‘fair’ within the meaning of  Article 6§ 1 of the Convention and that the difference in treatment to which the applicant was subjected was not discriminatory within the meaning of Article 14 of the Convention in conjunction with Article 8 of the Convention.

It follows that these complaints are manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

The applicant claimed EUR 6,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.

The Government contested the claim.

The Court considers that the applicant must have sustained non-pecuniary damage. Ruling on an equitable basis, it awards him EUR 3.000 under that head.

The applicant also claimed EUR 862.87 for lawyer's fees and EUR 728.18 for costs and expenses incurred in the domestic proceedings. He did not specify the amount of costs and expenses incurred in the proceedings before the Court.

The Government argued that the only costs that could be recognised were those arising from the actual proceedings before the Court. In addition, he was granted free legal aid by the Court.

According to the Court's case-law, an applicant is entitled to reimbursement of his costs and expenses only in so far as it has been shown that these have been actually and necessarily incurred and are reasonable as to quantum.

The Court notes that the applicant was granted free legal aid in the amount of 850 EUR. Regard being had to the information in its possession and the above criteria, it appears that this sum adequately covers the costs incurred by the applicant in the proceedings before the Court.

The Court considers it appropriate that the default interest should be based on the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank, to which should be added three percentage points.