Winterstein and Others -v- France (application no. 27013/07)

The applicants are 25 French nationals acting on their own behalf and on behalf of their minor children.

The case concerned the eviction proceedings brought against a number of Traveller families who had been living in the same place for many years. The domestic courts had issued orders for the families’ eviction, on pain of penalties for non-compliance.

Relying in particular on Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life and home) of the European Convention on Human Rights, the applicants complained that the order requiring them to vacate the land they had occupied for many years amounted to a violation of their right to respect for their private and family life and their homes.

In its judgment on the merits of 17 October 2013 the Court held that there had been a violation of Article 8 in respect of all the applicants, in so far as they had not had the benefit, in the context of the proceedings for their eviction from the land they had been occupying in the locality of Bois du Trou-Poulet in Herblay, of an examination of the proportionality of the interference in compliance with the requirements of Article 8. It also held that there had been a violation of Article 8 in respect of those applicants who had applied for relocation on family plots, on account of the failure to give sufficient consideration to their needs. It had also decided that the issue of the application of Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the European Convention was not ready for examination and postponed its assessment of that issue to a later date.

For details of the awards of damages to the applicants that were handed down on 28 April 2016 see: http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng-press?i=003-5360943-6692378#{“itemid”:[“003-5360943-6692378“]}