BYKOVA AND OTHERS v. LITHUANIA - 66042/10 (Judgment : Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 - Protection of property : Fourth Section Committee)

Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque, President, Egidijus Kūris, Iulia Antoanella Motoc, judges, and Andrea Tamietti, Deputy Section Registrar,

. On 19 August 2012 the second applicant died. The third applicant, her sister and legal heir, expressed the wish to pursue the proceedings on her behalf.

. The first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth applicants are siblings who were born in 1949, 1944, 1947, 1952, 1955 and 1954 respectively and live in Vilnius. The seventh applicant is the first applicant's daughter; she was born in 1968 and also lives in Vilnius.

. In 1991 the fifth applicant applied for restoration of his property rights to his late father's land, which had been nationalised by the Soviet regime. In that application he indicated that the first, second, third, fourth and sixth applicants, as well as their mother, P.M., and brother, N.M., were also possible candidates to have their property rights to that land restored.

. On 8 March 2004 the Vilnius County Administration (hereinafter "the VCA") restored the property rights of the first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth applicants, as well as P.M. and N.M., by giving them all joint ownership of 5.80 hectares of agricultural land and 3.20 hectares of forest in Naujakiemis, an area in the Vilnius city municipality. As P.M. and N.M. had died by then, the applicants inherited their share of the land.