Communicated on 4 September 2017
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 37996/14
Lyudmila Yevgenyevna BAYKOVA
against Russia
lodged on 17 April 2014
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Ms Lyudmila Yevgenyevna Baykova, is a Russian national, who was born in 1946 and lives in St Petersburg.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
On 3 November 2006 the applicant’s car, a Toyota RAV-4, was stolen in St Petersburg. The police opened a criminal case and put the car on the federal register of stolen cars.
On 21 April 2007 a Mr P. registered a Toyota RAV‑4 in the Kurgan Region. On 13 June 2007 the federal police instructed the local police to perform an expert examination of that car suspecting that its identification numbers had been changed. The Kurgan Region police asked Mr P. to bring the Toyota RAV-4 for examination. By that moment Mr P. had already sold the car to a Mr Po. It appears that after the experts examined the car, they returned it to Mr Po. On 7 August 2007 the experts concluded that the car was the one stolen from the applicant. From 16 to 27 August 2007 the Kurgan Region police performed an inquiry and on 27 August 2007 they sent the results of the inquiry to the St Petersburg police. On 5 May 2008 the St Petersburg police requested the Kurgan policemen to impound the car. By that moment Mr Po. had sold the car to a Mr R. Police were unable to locate Mr R. or the car.
The applicant’s requests to open a criminal case against the Kurgan Region policemen who had failed to impound her car were unsuccessful. She did not appeal those refusals before the national courts, but requested a court to declare unlawful the failure of the Kurgan Region policemen to impound her car. The applicant also submitted a separate civil suit for damages from the Kurgan Region police department.
On 31 March 2011 the Kurganskiy Town Court of the Kurgan Region found no evidence of the policemen’s negligence. It held, in particular, that the applicant’s requests to open criminal cases against the policemen had been refused and that the applicant had not challenged them before the national courts.
On 25 April 2011 the Town Court rejected the applicant’s claim for damages again relying on the refusals to open criminal proceedings against the policemen. The applicant did not appeal against that judgment seeing no prospects of success unless the courts found negligence in policemen’s actions. She, therefore, appealed against the judgment of 31 March 2011.
On 2 August 2011 the Kurgan Regional Court upheld the judgment of 31 March 2011. On 20 February 2012 a judge of the Kurgan Regional Court dismissed the applicant’s first cassation complaint. On 22 January 2014 the Supreme Court of Russia refused the applicant’s second cassation complaint.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that the police’s failure to impound the car deprived her of her property. She further complains about impossibility to obtain damages caused by negligent actions of policemen.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Did the State comply with its positive obligations under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention to establish a domestic legal system sufficiently protecting property rights and to ensure the effective functioning of that system (see, for instance, Blumberga v. Latvia, no. 70930/01, § 67, 14 October 2008)? Were the police’s actions and/or failure to act in the present case in breach of the applicant’s enjoyment of her property as guaranteed by Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention?
2. Did the applicant had at her disposal an effective domestic remedy for her complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, as required by Article 13 of the Convention?
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