European Court of Human Rights

FIRST SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 2259/04
Pavel Ivanovich LEVASHKO against Russia
and 15 other applications
(see list appended)

The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting on 6 December 2011 as a Committee composed of:

Peer Lorenzen, President,
Elisabeth Steiner,
Julia Laffranque, judges,
and André Wampach, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above applications,

Having regard to the decision to apply the pilot-judgment procedure taken in the case of Burdov (no. 2) v. Russia (no. 33509/04, ECHR 2009 ...),

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicants are sixteen Russian nationals whose names and dates of birth are tabulated in the appendix to the present decision. 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.

The domestic courts found in the applicants’ favour against various State bodies, and their judgments became binding and enforceable.

In the cases of Mr Kartavtsev (application no. 23897/08), Ms Orlova (application no. 41921/08) and Mr Visitskiy (application no. 32215/08), after the judgments entered into force the State applied to the courts that had ruled on the cases seeking amendment of the enforcement method due to the State’s inability to enforce the judgments as they stood for various reasons. The proceedings for examination of such applications lasted from four to seven months.

The judgments in the applicants’ favour were subsequently enforced.

The names of the courts that issued those judgments, the dates when they became final and the dates of their enforcement are listed in the appendix.

Mr Litvinov (application no. 58519/08) and Ms Litvinova (application no. 34646/09), who considered that the Pension Fund was not applying the regional coefficient of 1.7 to their pensions in accordance with the earlier judgments to this effect, brought a complaint to court. By a judgment of 9 February 2010 the Neryungri Town Court of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutiya) dismissed their action, deciding that the applicants’ pension was de facto paid with account of the sought regional co-efficient. That judgment was upheld on appeal by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutiya) on 12 April 2010.

COMPLAINTS

THE LAW

Article 6

“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 this complaint was inadmissible as the period of the delay in the enforcement of the judgments in the present cases had been reasonable, the judgments had been enforced in full and the way they had been enforced had complied with the requirements of the law.

The applicants maintained their complaints. Some applicants expanded their applications by complaining about non-enforcement of newer judgments. Several applicants contested the fact of the full enforcement of the judgments or argued that the way of their enforcement had been unlawful.

With regard to the complaints concerning newer judgments, the Court notes that these complaints were made after the communication of the applications to the Government and hence fall outside the scope of the present case.

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, the Court will look at 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).

The Court observes that in fourteen of the present applications the period of enforcement of the judgments lasted up to one year. Having regard to its well-established case-law (see, among others, Belkin and Others v. Russia (dec.), nos. 14330/07 et al., 5 February 2009), the Court considers that these periods complied with the requirements of the Convention.

In three of the present applications where the State applied for amendment of the enforcement method, the period of enforcement lasted over one year but no longer than one year and seven months. The Court accepts that by applying for such amendment the State acted in good faith with a view to enable enforcement of the judgments and considers that in these circumstances the delays in the enforcement were also not in breach of the requirements of the Convention.

In so far as Mr Litvinov and Ms Litvinova contest the fact of the enforcement of their judgments in the part concerning calculation of their pension, the Court observes that the subsequent court decisions established that the applicants’ pension was de facto calculated in accordance with the previous judicial rulings on this subject and that the applicants suffered no disadvantage. The Court sees no reason to depart from the findings of the domestic courts in this case.

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

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Decides to join the applications;

Declares the applications inadmissible.

André Wampach Peer Lorenzen
Deputy Registrar President