European Court of Human Rights

FIRST SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 5584/04
by Margarita Vasilyevna MORINA
against Russia

The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting on 19 March 2009 as a Chamber composed of:

Christos Rozakis, President,
Nina Vajić,
Anatoly Kovler,
Elisabeth Steiner,
Khanlar Hajiyev,
Dean Spielmann,
Sverre Erik Jebens, judges,

and Søren Nielsen, Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 13 December 2003,

Having regard to the formal declarations accepting a friendly settlement of the case,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Ms Margarita Vasilyevna Morina, is a Russian national who was born in 1939 and lives in Vologda. The Russian Government (“the Government”) were represented by Ms V. Milinchuk, their former representative at the European Court of Human Rights, and subsequently by Mr G. Matyushkin, their representative at the Court.

The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.

By judgments of 24 March 2003 and 8 July 2003 the Vologda Town Court ordered the Ministry of Finance to pay the applicant compensation for unlawful criminal proceedings against her and her late husband. On 20 June 2003 and on 29 August 2003, respectively, the Vologda Regional Court upheld the above judgments on appeal.

The award of 24 March 2003 was enforced in full on 15 August 2006 and the judgment of 8 July 2003 on 7 April 2004, respectively.

COMPLAINT

The applicant complained under Article 6 and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 about non-enforcement of the judgments in her favour. She also invoked Articles 5 and 6 complaining about length and unfairness of the criminal proceedings against her and her husband.

THE LAW

On 13 January 2009 the Court received the following declaration signed by the Government and the applicant:

“The authorities of the Russian Federation and the applicant, Mrs Morina Margarita Vasilyevna, application no. 5584/04, have now reached the following settlement [ ...]: (a) due to humanitarian considerations and interests of respect of human rights, the authorities of the Russian Federation will pay to the applicant the sum of 1,800 euros. It will be payable within three months after the notification of the decision taken by the Court pursuant to Article 39 of the Convention. The authorities of Russian Federation also guarantee to recover the sums of taxes that the applicant will pay when she will receive the sum. [...] (b) The applicant declares that, subject to the fulfilment of what is stated under (a), she has no further claims against the Russian Federation based on the facts of the application filed by her with the European Court of Human Rights.”

The Court takes note of the friendly settlement reached between the parties. It is satisfied that the settlement is based on respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols and finds no public policy reasons to justify a continued examination of the application (Article 37 § 1 in fine of the Convention). Accordingly, the case should be struck out of the list.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases.

Søren Nielsen Christos Rozakis
Registrar President