FIRST SECTION
DECISION
Applications nos. 17395/04, 39398/04, 6277/05, 3516/06, 10416/06, 34803/06, 8051/07, 8066/07, 24915/07, 27539/07, 41722/07 and 41726/07
by Vladimir Monyevich MAIZEL and Others
against Russia
The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting on 14 December 2010 as a Chamber composed of:
Christos Rozakis, President,
Nina Vajić,
Anatoly Kovler,
Khanlar Hajiyev,
Dean Spielmann,
Giorgio Malinverni,
George Nicolaou, judges,
and Søren Nielsen, Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above applications,
Having regard to the decision to apply the pilot-judgment procedure taken in the case of Burdov (no. 2) v. Russia (no. 33509/04, ECHR 2009-...),
Having regard to the declarations submitted by the respondent Government requesting the Court to strike the applications out of its list of cases and the applicants' replies to those declarations,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicants are Russian nationals whose names and years of birth are tabulated in the annex. The Russian Government (“the Government”) were represented by Mr G. Matyushkin, the Representative of the Russian Federation at the European Court of Human Rights.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
The applicants obtained final and enforceable domestic judicial decisions awarding to them various monetary sums, payable by the State or from the State funds. The authorities delayed the full enforcement of those binding judgments.
COMPLAINTS
The applicants complained mainly about the delayed enforcement of the final and enforceable domestic judgments rendered in their favour.
THE LAW
1. Following the pilot judgment in Burdov (no. 2), cited above, the Government informed the Court of the payment of the domestic court awards in the applicants' favour and submitted unilateral declarations. They acknowledged the excessive length of the enforcement of the final and enforceable judgments in the applicants' favour. They also declared their intention to pay the applicants monetary sums, tabulated in the annex, as just satisfaction in this respect. They went on to invite the Court to strike the cases out of its list of cases. The remainder of their declarations read as follows:
“The sum referred to above, which is to cover any pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage as well as costs and expenses, will be free of any taxes that may be applicable. It will be payable within three months from the date of notification of the decision taken by the Court pursuant to Article 37 § 1 of the [Convention]. In the event of failure to pay this sum within the said three-month period, the Government undertake to pay simple interest on it 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 will constitute the final resolution of the case”.
The applicants disagreed claiming the amount of monetary just satisfaction offered insufficient.
The Court reiterates that under Article 37 § 1 (c) it is empowered to strike a case out of its list if:
“for any other reason established by the Court, it is no longer justified to continue the examination of the application”.
The Court recalls that it ordered the Russian Federation to grant redress to all victims of non-payment or unreasonably delayed payment by State authorities of a judgment debt in their favour who had lodged their applications with the Court before 15 January 2009 (Burdov (no. 2), cited above, §§ 144-145).
Having examined the terms of the Government's declarations, the Court understands them as intending to give the applicants redress in line with the Burdov (no. 2) pilot judgment.
The Court is satisfied that the excessive length of the enforcement of the final judgments in the applicants' favour is acknowledged by the Government. It also notes that the compensation offered is comparable with Court awards in similar cases.
The Court therefore considers that it is no longer justified to continue the examination of the applications; it is also satisfied that respect for human rights as defined in the Convention (Article 37 § 1 in fine) does not require it to continue the examination of the present applications (see Sobol and Others v. Russia (dec.), nos. 11373/03 et al., 24 June 2010).
Accordingly, the present applications should be struck out of the Court's list of cases.
As regards the question of implementation of the Government's undertakings, the Committee of Ministers remains competent to supervise this matter in accordance with Article 46 § 2 of the Convention (see the Committee's Interim Resolution CM/ResDH(2009)158 of 3 December 2009). In any event the Court's present ruling is without prejudice to any decision it might take to restore, pursuant to Article 37 § 2 of the Convention, the present applications to its list of cases (see Sobol and Others, cited above).
2. Some of the applicants raised some additional complaints with reference to various Articles of the Convention and its Protocols.
In light of all the material in its possession and in so far as the matters complained of are within its competence the Court finds that those complaints do not disclose any appearance of violations of the rights and fundamental freedoms set out in the Convention and its Protocols.
It follows that the applications in this part are manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Decides to join the applications;
Decides to strike the applications out of its list of cases in so far as the non-enforcement complaints are concerned;
Declares the remainder of the applications inadmissible.
Søren NielsenChristos Rozakis
RegistrarPresident
ANNEX
No.
Surname
First name and patronymics
Year of birth
Amount of compensation offered by the Government
17395/04
MAIZEL
Vladimir Monyevich
1950
EUR 2,690
39398/04
LEVIN
Aleksandr Fedorovich
1955
EUR 2,250
6277/05
CHEPOVOY
Vasiliy Ivanovich
1947
EUR 892
3516/06
NIKODIMOVA
Valentina Tikhonovna
1927
EUR 2,950
10416/06
KOBELEV
Nikolay Alekseyevich
1955
EUR 1,950
34803/06
KULNEVA
Tatyana Semenovna
1938
EUR 2,550
8051/07
PLUZHNIKOVA
Lidiya Vladimirovna
1960
EUR 3,200
8066/07
MALYUGINA
Yekaterina Timofeyevna
1947
EUR 3,200
24915/07
SAKOVA
Yelena Yevgenyevna
1947
EUR 3,600
27539/07
KONOVALOV
Viktor Nikolayevich
1964
EUR 600
41722/07
VOLODINA
Vera Petrovna
1953
EUR 790
41726/07
CHAYKA
Lyudmila Ilyinichna
1948
EUR 800
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy