European Court of Human Rights Rules Forfeiture of Wrongfully Acquired Property did not Violate Applicant’s Right to Protection of Property (May 12, 2015) [1]
On May 12, 2015, a Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) ruled [3] in Gogitidze and Others v. Georgia that a court-imposed confiscation of property from a government official in the autonomous republic of Ajaria in Georgia did not violate Article 1 (protection of property) of Protocol No. 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights [4]. The Ajarian Supreme Court entered a judgment against the applicants after they were charged with abuse of authority and extortion, among other charges, and ordered the confiscation of property after they failed to refute the claims. According to the press release [5], “[t]he Court found that a fair balance had been struck between the means employed for forfeiture of the applicants’ assets and the general interest in combatting corruption in the public service. The applicants had not been denied a reasonable opportunity of putting forward their case and the domestic courts’ findings had not been arbitrary.”