GOGITIDZE AND OTHERS v. GEORGIA JUDGMENT 23 which thus could not be characterised as control of the use of property within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, but should be treated as de facto expropriation of their property. Maintaining that the confiscation measure in their case amounted to a criminal sanction, the applicants also complained that the amendments of 13 February 2004 to the Code of Administrative Procedure had been applied retroactively in their case, since the property confiscated had in reality been acquired between November 1997 and May 2004. In that connection they added that the amendments in question had not been sufficiently clear and understandable to them as persons without any meaningful legal education. 90. The applicants’ further submissions were aimed at calling into question the factual findings of the domestic courts. In particular they asserted, without submitting any evidence in that regard, that the majority of the confiscated property had in reality been financed from the personal savings of the first applicant’s wife, a Russian national, and her distant relatives living and doing business in Russia. They complained that those facts had not been taken into account by the Supreme Court of Georgia during the relevant cassation proceedings. As to the reasons for the first, third and fourth applicants’ failure to attend the court hearings, the applicants explained that the first applicant had by that time already fled from Georgia to Russia for fear of criminal prosecution, whilst the remaining two applicants had simply had no trust in the country’s judicial system. 3. The Court’s assessment (a) General observations 91. The subject matter of the applicants’ complaints is the compatibility of the so-called administrative confiscation procedure, under which some of their property was forfeited in favour of either third persons or the State, with the right to protection of property. Having regard to the relevant domestic legislative framework (see paragraphs 49-54 above) and comparing it with the relevant legal concepts employed by the international community (see paragraphs 55-64 above), the Court notes that the disputed procedure, despite the terminology used to describe it in domestic law, is far from being a purely administrative confiscation but, on the contrary, is linked to the prior existence of a criminal charge against a public official and thus represents by its nature a civil action in rem aimed at the recovery of assets wrongfully or inexplicably accumulated by the public officials concerned and their close entourage. (b) The applicable rule of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 92. The Court reiterates that Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, which guarantees in substance the right to property, comprises