The Handbook on case-law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in relation to the right to property (Article 1 Protocol 1) has been published. It will serve as a useful toolkit for legal practitioners in application at the national level of the standards developed in the practice of the Court in Strasbourg.

The Handbook is developed under the auspices of the activities aimed at harmonisation of the court practice, focusing on the interpretation of the human rights standards in the practice of the Constitutional and Supreme Court of Montenegro.

The recent case law of the ECtHR against Montenegro indicates that violations of the property rights do occur, in conjugation with violations of Articles 6 and 13 ECHR (see Kips d.o.o. vs Montenegro 2018). Moreover, the Assessment on influence of the decisions of the Constitutional Court on the work of the Supreme Court of Montenegro (2018) developed under the auspices of the HF I Action, has shown the inconsistence in the practices of the two superior court, when it comes to protection of the right to peaceful enjoyment of the property, specifically concerning the legitimate expectations of the parties in the cases of expropriation.

Targeting the issues of concern nationally, such as right to peaceful enjoyment of property, the Handbook contains the compilation of the extracts of the relevant ECtHR judgements.

It was jointly developed and published by the Council of Europe, within the joint EU and Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”, and AIRE Centre from London in the context of project activities supported by the British Embassy in Podgorica and aiming at further harmonisation of court practice, and its alignment with ECtHR standards.