Resolution CM/ResDH(2012)87[1]
Execution of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights
Kokkinis and Reveliotis against Greece
(Applications No 45769/06 and 48775/06, judgments of 6 November 2008 and of 4 December 2008,
final on 6 February 2009 and on 4 March 2009)
The Committee of Ministers, under the terms of Article 46, paragraph 2, of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which provides that the Committee supervises the execution of final judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter “the Convention” and “the Court”);
Having regard to the judgments transmitted by the Court to the Committee once they had become final;
Recalling that the violations of the Convention found by the Court in these cases concern the applicants’ right to respect for their property due to the way in which the Audit Court interpreted and applied national law in determining the date from which they could receive retroactive payment of their pension rights (violations of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1) (see details in Appendix);
Having invited the government of the respondent State to inform the Committee of the measures taken to comply with its obligation under Article 46, paragraph 1, of the Convention to abide by the judgments;
Having examined the information provided by the government in accordance with the Committee’s Rules for the application of Article 46, paragraph 2, of the Convention;
Having satisfied itself that the respondent State paid the applicants the just satisfaction under conditions accepted by them (see details in Appendix),
Recalling that a finding of violations by the Court requires, over and above the payment of just satisfaction awarded in the judgments, the adoption by the respondent State, where appropriate, of
- individual measures to put an end to the violations and erase their consequences so as to achieve as far as possible restitutio in integrum; and
- general measures preventing similar violations;
Recalling that the Committee of Ministers’ decisions under Article 46, paragraph 2, of the Convention are entirely without prejudice to the Court’s consideration of other cases currently pending before it;
DECLARES, having examined the measures taken by the respondent State (see Appendix), that it has exercised its functions under Article 46, paragraph 2, of the Convention in these cases and
DECIDES to close the examination of these cases.
Appendix to Resolution CM/ResDH(2012)87
Information on the measures taken to comply with the judgments in the cases of
Kokkinis and Reveliotis against Greece
Introductory case summary
The cases concern the violation of the applicants’ right to respect for their property due to the way in which the Audit Court interpreted and applied national law in determining the date from which they could receive retroactive payment of their pension rights. In 2002 the Court of Audit found that the amounts claimed by the applicants were due for a retroactive period of three years. This period should have started from the time when the Court of Audit’s judgment was issued and not from the time when the administrative authorities had unlawfully rejected the applicants’ request for payment of their pension rights. The Court noted that the application of such a criterion, which made the payment dependant on the administrative courts’ own activity, appeared random and likely to lead to contradictory and poorly justified results (violations of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1).
I.Payments of just satisfaction and individual measures
a) Details of just satisfaction
Name and application number
Pecuniary damage
Non-pecuniary damage
Costs and expenses
Total
KOKKINIS
12 200 EUR
-
1 500 EUR
13 700 EUR
Paid on 07/05/2009
REVELIOTIS
15 500 EUR
-
1 500 EUR
17 000 EUR
Paid on 02/06/2009
The just satisfaction has been paid in conditions apparently accepted by the applicants.
b) Individual measures
The just satisfaction in respect of pecuniary damage awarded included the additional amounts that the applicants would have received if the starting point of the retroactive period of reassessment of their pension had been that of the publication of the final decision of the supervisory committee of the Public Accounting Department, overturned by the Court of Audit. Default interest of 6% per annum was further added by the European Court.
Consequently, no other individual measure was considered necessary by the Committee of Ministers.
II.General measures
The Court’s judgments, translated into Greek, were sent out to the Court of Audit through the Ministry of Justice; they were also published on the website of the Legal Council of the State ().
The Court noted that nothing in its case-law suggested that the setting of time limits is in itself incompatible with the requirements of the Convention (paragraph 31 of the judgment in Kokkinis). In this case it was the way that the Court of Audit determined the starting point of the measure under dispute which led to a violation of the applicants’ right under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (paragraph 40 of the judgment).
The authorities indicated that, although the case-law of the Court of Audit had appeared contradictory for some time, it has now fully endorsed the European Court’s findings: the Plenary Session of the Court of Audit concluded that the approach previously followed was contrary to several constitutional provisions and to Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. The Court of Audit considered that when pension rights are rejected by the administration and then granted by subsequent judicial proceedings, the starting-point for the time-limit for retroactive payment should be the final decision of the competent administrative authorities rejecting the claim in violation of national law (see judgment No. 26/2010 with reference to the Convention and the cases Kokkinis and Reveliotis).
III.Conclusions of the respondent State
The government considers that the measures adopted have fully remedied the consequences for the applicants of the violation of the Convention found by the European Court in these cases, that these measures will prevent similar violations and that Greece has thus complied with its obligations under Article 46, paragraph 1, of the Convention.
[1] Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 6 June 2012 at the 1144th Meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies.
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