European Court of Human Rights

FIRST SECTION

DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Applications nos. 13473/07, 51343/07, 30015/08 and 7989/09
by Oleg Anatolyevich KRIVOPISHIN and Others

against Russia

The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting on 25 November 2010 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 applications lodged on the dates specified in the Annex,

Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations submitted by the applicants in reply,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicants are four Russian nationals, whose names and dates of birth are shown in the Annex. The Russian Government (“the Government”) are represented by Mr G. Matyushkin, 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. The applicants sued the State authorities in domestic courts for payment of various monetary sums due under the Russian law. The courts held for the applicants and ordered the authorities to pay various amounts in the form of lump sums and/or of periodic payments to be upgraded in line with the inflation in the country. These judgments became binding but the authorities delayed their enforcement.

COMPLAINTS

The applicants complained about the delayed enforcement of the judgments and submitted that their efforts to obtain the enforcement of the judgments by domestic means proved ineffective.

Mr Umakhanov further complained under Articles 5 § 5, 6 and Article 3 of Protocol No. 7 that the amount of the compensation awarded to him by the judgment of 9 November 2007 had been insufficient.

THE LAW

Article 6 § 1

“In the determination of his civil rights and obligations ..., everyone is entitled to a fair ... hearing ... by [a] ... tribunal...”

Article 1 of Protocol No. 1

“Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. 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.

The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of a State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties.”

The Government argued that the complaints were inadmissible because the domestic judgments had been enforced within a reasonable time. The applicants maintained that the delay of execution had been unreasonable, without challenging the Government’s account of facts.

The Court reiterates at the outset that as from 4 May 2009, the date on which the judgment in the case of Burdov v. Russia (no. 2) became final, it adjourned the adversarial proceedings on all applications lodged with the Court in which the applicants complained of non-enforcement or delayed enforcement of domestic judgments ordering monetary payments by State authorities pending the adoption of domestic remedial measures. However, such adjournment is without prejudice to the Court’s power at any moment to declare inadmissible any such case (see Burdov v. Russia (no. 2), no. 33509/04, § 146, 15 January 2009).

The Court considers that the applications are inadmissible for the following reasons.

The Court reiterates that an unreasonably long delay in the enforcement of a binding judgment may breach the Convention (see Burdov v. Russia, no. 59498/00, ECHR 2002-III). To decide if the delay was reasonable, it will look, first, at how long it took the authorities to execute the judgment and also how complex the enforcement proceedings were, how the applicant and the authorities behaved, and what the nature of the award was (see Raylyan v. Russia, no. 22000/03, § 31, 15 February 2007).

In the present four applications, the periods of enforcement were less than one year. Having regard to this fact and taking into account the other circumstances of the case, the Court considers that these periods complied with the requirements of the Convention (see, for example, Belkin and Others v. Russia (dec.), no. 14330/07 et al., 5 February 2009).

It follows that the non-enforcement complaint raised by the applicants is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

“Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in [the] Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.”

The Government argued that this grievance was inadmissible because the applicants did have at their disposal several effective remedies. The applicants maintained their complaint.

The Court reiterates that Article 13 requires domestic remedies only with regard to complaints arguable in the terms of the Convention (see Boyle and Rice v. the United Kingdom, 27 April 1988, § 52, Series A no. 131). Since the Court has found above that the applicants’ complaint about the delayed enforcement is manifestly ill-founded, Article 13 has no application in the present case.

It follows that this complaint is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

However, in the light of all the material in its possession, and in so far as the matters complained of are within its competence, the Court finds that they do not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms set out in the Convention or its Protocols.

It follows that this part of the application by Mr Umakhanov is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Decides to join the applications;

Declares the applications inadmissible.

Søren Nielsen Christos Rozakis Registrar President

A N N E X

Applicants and final judgments in their favour