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The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Photo: EPA-EFE/PATRICK SEEGER
The European Court of Human Rights, ECHR in Strasbourg ruled on Thursday that Croatia violated the rights of a Croatian Serb war refugee whose property was taken over and damaged by another family while he was out of the country, and ordered the state to pay him compensation.
“The court finds that the responsibility for the loss resulting from the damage to and the looting of the applicant’s house rests not only with the direct perpetrator but with the state as well,” the ECHR said in its ruling.
It said that Croatia violated Article 1 of Protocol Number 1 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, concerning the right to the peaceful enjoyment of possessions.
It ordered Croatia to pay to the plaintiff, Nikola Dabic, 3,200 euros in damages and another 833 euros for court costs and expenses.
Dabic fled Croatia in August 1995 during the military’s Operation Storm against Serb rebel forces.
A year later, the Croatian authorities allowed another man and his family, refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina, to temporarily use his house in the village of Sunja in central Croatia.
The decision was possible because in September 1995 a new law entered into force allowing for property belonging to people who had left Croatia after October 1990 was to be sequestrated and taken over by the state. The law also authorised local authorities to temporarily accommodate other people in such property.
In 2000, Dabic applied to recover possession of his house and the application was accepted, but he noted that all the property in the house, as well as some vehicles and livestock, had been stolen and that parts of the house had been badly damaged.
In 2003, he brought a civil action at Sisak Municipal Court against the state, the municipality and the man who lived in his home, seeking damages for his stolen and destroyed property.
Croatia’s courts dismissed Dabic’s action on the grounds that there was no legal basis for holding the state liable in such circumstances.
During Operation Storm, Croatian forces retook 18 per cent of Croatian territory which had been controlled by rebel Serbs since 1991, practically ending the war in the country.
During and in the aftermath of the operation, some 600, mostly elderly Serb civilians were killed, while around 200,000 Serbs left Croatia.
After Operation Storm, Croatia gave Serbs who lived in the country 90 days to make a claim to have their seized property returned, while at the same time imposing visa obstacles to ensure that they could not come back to the country and claim what was theirs.
