Published on 3 January 2022
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 20544/19
Nikolay Pavlovich PRAVDIN
against Russia
lodged on 10 April 2019
communicated on 6 December 2021
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The applicant is a military serviceman. The domestic courts allowed the claim lodged in July 2017 by the Federal Budgetary Institution “United Accounting Centre of Ministry of Defence of Russia” (Федеральное казенное учреждение «Единый расчетный центр Министерства обороны Российской Федерации») against the applicant and recovered the supplement to salary received by him between March 2012 and September 2016 (between 1.4 % and 25 % of the total applicant’s income for respective periods, in total RUB 984,000) as unjust enrichment caused by a calculation mistake owing to a software bug. According to Article 1109 § 3 of the Civil Code, salary, similar payments and other funds provided as subsistence means (средства к существованию) cannot be reclaimed save in the event of a calculation mistake and bad faith of the recipient. The courts ruled that the applicant had acted in bad faith, as he had been supposed to discover the overpayment, considered a software bug to be a calculation mistake and counted the limitation period from the date of an internal audit in September 2016. The Supreme Court endorsed the findings of the lower instances but considered at the same time that the issues of bad faith and calculation mistake had been irrelevant, as the supplement in question had not represented the “subsistence means” and could have been recovered in any event. The application concerns deprivation of possessions acquired on the basis of the decision of the State authorities without any fault on the applicant’s part.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
Was the recovery of the salary supplement from the applicant in conformity with the requirements of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention?
(a) Was the interference “subject to the conditions provided for by law”?
(b) Did the interference serve a legitimate public (or general) interest, within the meaning of the mentioned Article?
(c) Did the interference strike a fair balance between the demands of the general interest and the interests of the applicant? In particular:
(i) Did the authorities act in good time and in an appropriate and consistent manner (see, mutatis mutandis, Moskal v. Poland, no. 10373/05, § 72, 15 September 2009; Čakarević v. Croatia, no. 48921/13, § 84, 26 April 2018; and, for a recent example, Casarin v. Italy, no. 4893/13, § 68, 11 February 2021)?
(ii) Did the applicant contribute to the receipt of benefits beyond his legal entitlement by false submissions or other acts which would not have been in good faith (Čakarević, cited above, § 82; Casarin, cited above, § 59; and compare with B. v. the United Kingdom, no. 36571/06, § 39, 14 February 2012)?
(iii) Did the recovered amount represent a significant part of the applicant’s income (see, mutatis mutandis, Moskal, cited above, § 74, and compare with Iwaszkiewicz v. Poland, no. 30614/06, § 57, 26 July 2011)?