issued by the Registrar of the Court  
ECHR 333 (2018)  
09.10.2018  
Taking property off charity foundation despite bona fide purchase led to  
property rights violation  
In today’s Chamber judgment1 in the case of Batkivska Turbota Foundation v. Ukraine (application  
no. 5876/15) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:  
a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) to the European Convention on  
Human Rights.  
The case concerned the applicant organisation being deprived of its ownership of parts of a  
sanatorium which it had bought from the property arm of Ukraine’s Federation of Trade Unions in  
2002. The Federation itself had gained control of the premises through a process which had begun in  
the Soviet era and its ownership of the assets had been confirmed in a 1997 court ruling.  
However, in 2011 a prosecutor claimed the property for the State. The domestic courts ultimately  
ruled that the Federation had had no right to sell the premises as the sanatorium had remained  
State property and annulled the applicant organisation’s title.  
The Court found in particular that there was no clear law on who owned such Soviet-era properties –  
the Federation and its property arm or the State – and that domestic case-law was inconsistent in  
this respect. The State had also imposed a disproportionate burden on the applicant organisation by  
depriving it of its property. The Court therefore found that there had been a violation of its rights.  
Principal facts  
The applicant, Batkivska Turbota Foundation, is a charity organisation which was registered in 1999.  
In 2000 the applicant organisation founded a social rehabilitation centre to help young people. In  
August 2002, it bought parts of a sanatorium owned by UPO, an entity which had been created by  
the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine to manage its properties. The applicant organisation  
subsequently registered its title to the property.  
However, in August 2011, a prosecutor acting on behalf of the State applied to a court to annul the  
purchase contract. He argued that the premises that had been sold were State property and had  
never been transferred from the State to UPO.  
The first-instance court upheld the prosecutor’s claim.  
It found that in 1960 the Soviet Ukrainian State had transferred sanatoria and other recreational  
facilities, including the property in question, to trade unions for their use, but not into their  
ownership. When UPO had been created in 1991, the premises had therefore still belonged to the  
State. The court dismissed UPO’s reference to a 1997 judgment which had given it ownership of such  
Soviet-era assets.  
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.  
The applicant organisation appealed, stating that it was a bona fide purchaser and had spent about  
five million hryvnias on renovating the premises. The appeal court found for the applicant  
organisation in April 2014, rejecting the State’s claim to ownership, but that decision was overturned  
by the Higher Commercial Court of Ukraine in July 2014. The Supreme Court rejected an application  
by the applicant for a review of the case in October of the same year.  
The State’s title to the property was registered in April 2018. The applicant organisation is still using  
the facility and has children from “difficult” families there, as well as internally displaced people.  
Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court  
Relying on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) to the Convention, the applicant  
organisation complained of a breach of its property rights.  
The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 23 January 2015.  
Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:  
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Portugal), President,  
Ganna Yudkivska (Ukraine),  
Vincent A. De Gaetano (Malta),  
Iulia Antoanella Motoc (Romania),  
Carlo Ranzoni (Liechtenstein),  
Marko Bošnjak (Slovenia),  
Péter Paczolay (Hungary),  
and also Marialena Tsirli, Section Registrar.  
Decision of the Court  
The Court noted that any interference with property rights, as had occurred in the present case, had  
to be lawful in order to conform to the European Convention. Lawful meant that any measure had to  
have a base in domestic law and that the law had to be accessible and foreseeable as to its effects.  
It noted that the domestic case-law on UPO properties was inconsistent as there were significant  
differences between the findings made by the courts in this case and others similar to it. This was  
largely because there was no law dealing with the legal status of property in Ukraine that had  
belonged to Soviet Union civic organisations, such as trade unions.  
Such facts meant that the Court had serious doubts as to whether the interference with the  
applicant organisation’s rights had met the Convention’s quality of law requirement.  
The Court also found that the State’s actions had led to the imposition of a disproportionate burden.  
The applicant organisation had bought the property in 2002, several years after the 1997 court  
decision confirming the UPO’s ownership, but the prosecutor had not lodged a claim over it until  
2011. The State knew or ought to have known long before then about the purchase of the premises.  
The applicant organisation’s title had also been duly registered by the authorities. If there had been  
a mistake in the process, it was the State which had to bear the consequences, unless there was a  
clear public interest justifying the interference. However, the Government had not made convincing  
arguments in that regard. The Government had made only general statements about the restoration  
of the State’s rights over the property, without showing why it needed that property for any  
particular and compelling reason. Indeed, it had taken until 2018 for the State to register its title to  
the sanatorium.  
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The Court held that the interference with the applicant organisation’s property rights raised serious  
doubts about the lawfulness of the measure and had imposed a disprortionate burden on the  
applicant, thus violating Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.  
Just satisfaction (Article 41)  
The Court found that it was not ready in the circumstances of the case to decide on the application  
of this provision and it reserved the question to a later date, when any subsequent procedure would  
take due regard of any friendly settlement between the parties.  
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.  
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