European Court of Human Rights

FIRST SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 29764/06
by Svetlana Pavlovna KHMEL
against Russia

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

Christos Rozakis, President,
Nina Vajić,
Anatoly Kovler,
Elisabeth Steiner,
Khanlar Hajiyev,
Giorgio Malinverni,
George Nicolaou, judges,
and Søren Nielsen, Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 20 May 2006,

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

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mrs Svetlana Pavlovna Khmel, is a Russian national who was born in 1942 and lives in Voronezh. The Russian Government (“the Government”) were represented by Mr G. Matyushkin, the Representative of the Russian Federation at the European Court of Human Rights.

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

On 4 October 2000 the Sovetskiy District Court of Voronezh ordered a local welfare authority to pay the applicant 6,400.39 Russian roubles in respect of child benefits. On 16 October 2000 the judgment became final. On 30 June 2008 the amount awarded was paid to her in full.

COMPLAINT

The applicant complained under Article 6 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 about non-enforcement of the judgments in her favour.

THE LAW

On 30 March 2009 the Court received the following declaration signed by the Government and the applicant:

“The authorities of the Russian Federation and the applicant, Mrs Khmel Svetlana Pavlovna, application no. 29764/06, 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 1,500 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 the Russian Federation also guarantee to recover the sums of taxes that the applicants will pay when they 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). In view of the above, it is appropriate to strike the case 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