MOSCOW, April 4 - RAPSI. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered Russia Thursday to pay 152,000 euros to compensate a Moscow couple who were evicted from their Central Moscow flat in 2005 to make room for an expansion of the Moscow State Art Gallery.

Claimants Viktor Tkachev and Elvira Tkacheva won their case against Russia on the merits in February 2012, but the ECHR only announced its decision on the issue of just satisfaction Thursday.

In February 2012, the ECHR held that the forced eviction had lacked a "convincingly demonstrated public interest."

The couple lived in a six-room apartment near the Kremlin in central Moscow. In 2001, the city government announced its plans to vacate the building in order to make room for an expansion of the art gallery. The Tkachevs challenged the eviction in court in 2003.

Shortly thereafter in August 2003, the municipal authorities deployed a public surveying agency to check the safety of the building. The agency reported that the building was on the verge of collapse.

Meanwhile, the government had proposed various alternative flats to the Tkachevs. All four were in Moscow, and two were in the very center. Each had either four or five rooms.

In April 2004, the city government declared the building unsafe and ordered that it would be converted for non-residential purposes. The claimants then hired a private surveying agency to assess their building for a second opinion. The second company found that the building was safe.

Moscow's Tverskoy District Court upheld the validity of the eviction order, citing in part the first agencys finding that the building was unsafe. The Moscow City Court then affirmed the lower courts judgment.

The claimants then refused a fifth property with six bedrooms in the city center but further from the Kremlin, finding that it was of a lower quality than their own flat.

They also voiced disinterest in moving to the new neighborhood.

In January 2005 the couple was evicted by order of the Khamovnichesky District Court. The Moscow City Court affirmed the lower courts judgment.
The couple moved to the six-bedroom flat in June 2005.

The Tkachevs turned to the ECHR, asserting a violation of their rights to peaceful enjoyment of their own possessions. According to Protocol 1, Article 1 of the European Convention of Human Rights (Convention), "No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law."

In February 2012, the ECHR held that "there had been a violation of that Article in that the expropriation of the applicants flat in downtown Moscow had lacked a convincingly demonstrated public interest."

The Court then adjourned to consider the fair amount of just satisfaction.

In considering appropriate forms of restitution, the Court noted that the ideal option in such a case would be to restore the claimants ownership of their original flat. However, the Tkachevs flat doesnt exist as such anymore.

An expert testified that when their old flat was expropriated, it was worth 142,000 euros more than the flat to which they relocated.

Although initially the couple had advanced claims for supplemental damages such as "commuting costs, settling-in expenses, cost of a telephone line, and stress reliever medicines totalling EUR 1,000," these claims were omitted from the final claim.

Thus the court awarded the couple 142,000 plus 10,000 euros in non-pecuniary damages for moral suffering, payable within three months.