European Court of Human Rights

FIFTH SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 39928/05
Yuriy Vasylyovych ZHELIKHOVSKYY against Ukraine
and 5 other applications
(see list appended)

The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 22 May 2012 as a committee composed of:

Mark Villiger, President,
Karel Jungwiert,
André Potocki, judges,
and Stephen Phillips, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above applications lodged on various dates,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicants are Ukrainian nationals whose details are specified in the table attached below. The Ukrainian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agents, Ms Valeria Lutkovska and Mr Nazar Kulchytskyy, of the Ministry of Justice.

In application no. 39928/05 on 21 October 2002 the Ternopil Court ordered the State-owned company to provide the applicant’s house with the telephone connection. That judgment became final but remains unenforced. On 11 May 2011 the State sold all of its shares in the above company and it became a private entity.

In application no. 17783/06 on 3 July 2002 the Krasnoarmiysk Court ordered a private individual to pay the applicant certain pecuniary amounts. On 11 November 2005 it ordered the Bailiffs to pay the applicant certain amounts in damages for non-enforcement of the above judgment. The former judgment was enforced in September 2009 and the latter in September 2010.

In the remaining cases the domestic courts ordered the State authorities to pay various pecuniary amounts to the applicants. Those judgments became final, but the authorities delayed their enforcement.

COMPLAINTS

The applicants complained about the delayed enforcement of the judgments given in their favour. Some of them also raised other complaints.

THE LAW

The Government invited the Court to strike the applications out of the list of cases and suggested that the declarations might be accepted by the Court as “any other reason” justifying the striking out of the cases of the Court’s list of cases, as referred to in Article 37 § 1 (c) of the Convention.

The compensation sums were to cover any pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage as well as costs and expenses, would be free of any taxes that might be applicable and would be converted into the national currency of the respondent State at the rate applicable on the date of settlement. They would be payable within three months from the date of notification of the decision taken by the Court pursuant to Article 37 § 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In the event of failure to pay these sums within the said three-month period, the Government undertook to pay simple interest on them from expiry of that period until settlement, at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points. This payment would constitute the final resolution of the cases.

In reply, the applicants agreed with the declarations, even though some of them doubted that the Government would comply with their terms.

In light of the above, the Court considers that the parties have actually reached a friendly settlement in respect of these parts of the applications. Therefore, they should be struck out of the list in accordance with Article 39 § 3 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Decides to join the applications;

Decides to strike them out of its list of cases in so far as they concern the complaints covered by the Government’s declarations in accordance with Article 39 § 3 of the Convention;

Declares the remainder of the applications inadmissible.

Stephen Phillips Mark Villiger
Deputy Registrar President

APPENDIX