Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 151
April 2012
Ilyushkin and Others v. Russia - 5734/08
Judgment 17.4.2012 [Section I]
Article 13
Effective remedy
Ineffectiveness of new remedy, introduced following pilot judgment of the European Court, in cases of non-enforcement of domestic judgments ordering authorities to provide housing: violation
Facts – The applicants are former members of the armed forces. At the end of their careers they obtained judgments in their favour ordering the military authorities to provide them with housing. Most of the judgments had not been fully enforced by the date of delivery of the present judgment by the Strasbourg Court. As a follow-up to the Court’s pilot judgment in the case Burdov (no. 2)*, Russia enacted a Compensation Act which introduced a new remedy in respect of excessively long judicial proceedings or delays in the enforcement of court decisions given against the State. Two of the applicants brought proceedings under the Act complaining of the failure to enforce the judgments in their favour. Their claims were dismissed on the ground that the new Act was not applicable to cases concerning the provision of housing.
Law – Article 13 in conjunction with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1: It was clear from both the wording of the Compensation Act and its interpretation by the Supreme Court that the new legislation applied only to non-enforcement of judgments establishing pecuniary obligations and not to those imposing obligations in kind. Accordingly, the Court could only note once again that there currently existed no effective remedy in Russian law – either preventive or compensatory – by which to expedite the enforcement of a judicial decision delivered against the State or obtain compensation for delayed enforcement, except in cases falling within the scope of the Compensation Act introduced in the wake of the pilot judgment. The Court, to its great regret, concluded that the problem of the lack of a domestic remedy, described in the pilot judgment as structural and persistent, continued with regard to a wide category of cases of the kind under consideration, with the result that the applicants were obliged to have recourse to the Strasbourg Court in order to secure effective defence of their rights.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
The Court also found a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 on account of the prolonged failure to enforce the judgments in the applicants’ favour.
Article 41: The Court awarded the applicants sums ranging from EUR 3,100 to EUR 9,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage. It also made awards to three of the applicants in respect of pecuniary damage.
* Burdov v. Russia (no. 2), no. 33509/04, 15 January 2009, Information Note No. 115.
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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