Facts
On May 22, 2000, Germany terminated the Swiss-German agreement of 1984 on arrivals and departures to and from Zurich Airport over German territory. As a result, new eastern approaches were introduced, leading to increased noise emissions for the surrounding property owners. Numerous property owners then filed compensation claims with Flughafen Zürich AG, which forwarded them to the Federal Appraisal Commission (ESchK).
The ESchK rejected the claims of those property owners who had acquired their property after January 1, 1961 and were not affected by direct overflights. A total of 37 appeals with 1,093 appellant parties were filed with the Federal Administrative Court (BVGer) against 17 of these 29 decisions.
The BVGer upheld the appeals, insofar as the ESchK had rejected the compensation claims for noise emissions. It referred the matter back to the ESchK with the instruction to consider the cut-off date of May 23, 2000 for the question of foreseeability.
Regarding the compensation claims for direct overflights, the BVGer largely upheld the appeals, as the ESchK had not sufficiently explained the legal situation regarding the horizontal and vertical description of the overflights. It set aside the contested decisions and referred the matter back to the ESchK for re-assessment.
However, the BVGer did not enter into the appeals of some parties, as they had only asserted in the reply that, contrary to the findings of the ESchK, they were directly and in a manner not excluding compensation overflown.
Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court considers the decision of the BVGer to be an interim decision within the meaning of Art. 93 BGG. It is of the opinion that in this complex, time-consuming and multi-party procedure, it would be legally unacceptable to refer the appellants to challenging the final decision. Therefore, it enters into the appeal.
Th…