FIFTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 51924/14
Leonid Ivanovych LAVRENOV
against Ukraine
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 16 January 2018 as a Committee composed of:
André Potocki, President,
Mārtiņš Mits,
Lado Chanturia, judges,
and Anne-Marie Dougin, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 15 September 2014,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr Leonid Ivanovych Lavrenov, is a Ukrainian national, who was born in 1944 and lives in Kryvyi Rih. He was represented before the Court by Mr O.V. Umrikhin, a lawyer practising in Kryvyi Rih.
A. The circumstances of the case
2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
3. On 17 June 2011 the applicant lodged a claim against pension authorities seeking an increase in his pension based on the rise in the average wages in the country since his retirement.
4. On 22 July 2011 the Kryvyi Rih Saksagansky District Court ruled in the applicant’s favour, ordering an increase of his pension. The court examined the case according to the rules of abridged administrative procedure and, accordingly, sat in camera.
5. On 28 March 2014 the Dnipro Administrative Court of Appeal (“the Court of Appeal”), also sitting in camera, allowed the pension authorities’ appeal, quashed the judgment and dismissed the applicant’s claim for pension increase finding that it was not warranted under the pension legislation in force. No further appeal lay against that decision.
B. Relevant domestic law
6. Article 183-2 of the Code of Administrative Justice of 2005 provides:
“1. Abridged proceedings shall be used in administrative cases concerning:
...
2) claims from individuals against decisions, acts or inaction of public authorities concerning award, calculation, recalculation of pensions...;
...
4. The judge shall examine the case sitting in a single-judge formation without summoning the parties. Where the court considers that information submitted by the parties is insufficient to adopt a lawful and reasoned decision, the court shall examine the case under the general rules of procedure and issue a ruling to this effect.
...
8. ...Appeals in cases referred to in sub-paragraph... 2 of paragraph 1 of this article shall be examined by the Courts of Appeal in a written procedure without holding a hearing.
...
10. Where a judgment is appealed against, the ruling of the Court of Appeal shall be final.”
7. Articles 189 and 190 of the Code provide that when a new case arrives at an appellate court, it shall be allocated to a judge rapporteur. The judge, once he or she has decided to open appeal proceedings, must send the parties within ten days a copy of the ruling opening the proceedings together with a copy of the appeal, and set a time‑limit for replying to the appeal.
COMPLAINTS
8. The applicant complained under Article 6 of the Convention that his right to a public hearing had been breached and that proceedings in his case had been unreasonably lengthy, under Article 13 of the Convention that he had not been informed about the date of the hearing in his case by the Court of Appeal and so could not present his objections and under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 that the dismissal of his claim for pension recalculation constituted a breach of that provision.
THE LAW
9. As to the applicant’s complaint that he was not informed about the date of the Court of Appeal’s hearing in his case, the Court considers that it is to be examined under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. It notes that the applicant’s case concerned social benefits and it was examined at first instance in camera, according to the rules of abridged procedure. In such circumstances the Court of Appeal conducted no “hearings” and examined appeals in such cases in camera without the parties (see paragraph 6 above). Accordingly, the applicant should have been aware that his case would be examined in the same way, in camera, on appeal, as domestic law provided. In other words, there was to be no “hearing” and, accordingly, no hearing date which the applicant had to be aware of.
10. To the extent that the applicant can be understood to argue that he needed to know the date of examination of his appeal in camera, the Court does not perceive the relevance of that date as such for the defence of his interests, which lay solely in being able to comment on the adverse party’s appeal in writing. Domestic law provided for a specific procedure which was meant to ensure that the applicant effectively could do so: once the appeal proceedings had been opened, the Court of Appeal judge had to send the applicant a copy of the ruling opening appeal proceedings together with a copy of the appeal and to set a time-limit for him to reply (see paragraph 7 above). He does not allege that that was not done preventing him from commenting in writing (contrast Viktor Nazarenko v. Ukraine, no. 18656/13, § 23, 3 October 2017).
11. To the extent that the applicant complained that no public hearing had been held in his case, the Court notes that it has already examined a similar complaint in Ustimenko v. Ukraine (no. 32053/13, § 41, 29 October 2015) and declared it manifestly ill-founded since the pension adjustment dispute involved in that case was technical and could accordingly be better dealt with in writing than in an oral argument. The applicant’s case falls within the same category and there is no reason to reach a different conclusion in the present case.
12. As to length of proceedings, the Court, having examined all the materials submitted to it and having regard to its case-law on the subject (see, for example, Lammersmann v. Germany (dec.), no. 55899/00, 25 April 2002, and Ritter v. Germany (dec.), no. 31102/04, 20 November 2007), considers that the applicant’s complaint under this head is likewise ill‑founded since the length of the proceedings was not excessive or unreasonable, in particular in view of the subject-matter of the case.
13. Finally, concerning the applicant’s complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, the Court reiterates that no “legitimate expectation” for the purposes of this provision can be said to arise where there is a dispute as to the correct interpretation and application of domestic law and the applicant’s submissions are subsequently rejected by the national courts (see Béláné Nagy v. Hungary [GC], no. 53080/13, § 75, ECHR 2016 and, for example, Sukhanov and Ilchenko v. Ukraine, nos. 68385/10 and 71378/10, § 35, 26 June 2014). There is no evidence that in this case the interpretation of the domestic law by the national courts was arbitrary in any way. Therefore, the applicant has not made out a case that he had a “legitimate expectation” to an increased pension.
14. It follows that the application is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 8 February 2018.
Anne-Marie DouginAndré Potocki
Acting Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy