6 April 2011
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 52166/08
Aleksandr Mikhaylovich RYABKIN
and other applications against Russia
(see list appended)
ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Do the recurrent breaches of the Convention on account of quashing of final domestic judgments in the applicants’ favour by way of supervisory review constitute a systemic problem in the Russian judicial system and/or a practice incompatible with the Convention (see, mutatis mutandis, Bottazzi v. Italy [GC], no. 34884/97, § 22, ECHR 1999‑V, and Burdov (no. 2) v. Russia, no. 33509/04, §§ 134-135, ECHR 2009-...)? Reference is made to the Court’s judgments in hundreds of cases decided since 2003 (see Ryabykh v. Russia, no. 52854/99, ECHR 2003‑IX) finding repetitive and systematic violations of the right to a court by way of supervisory review notwithstanding the repeated reforms of this procedure in the Russian Federation.
2. Should the Court find the existence of such a problem and/or practice as referred above and decide to apply a pilot judgment procedure, how and within what time-frame the Russian authorities would be able to secure an effective comprehensive solution at the domestic level to several hundreds of similar cases on the Court’s list which have been or will be communicated to the Government? Reference is made to the Government’s experience of granting redress in hundreds of repetitive cases in response to the Burdov pilot judgment cited above. The Government are requested to envisage and to comment upon the most speedy and effective domestic ways to ensure that adequate and sufficient redress for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage be granted in line with the Court’s case-law to all those applicants who have well-founded complaints about unjustified quashing of the final judgments by way of supervisory review.
3. If the current operation of the supervisory review in courts of general jurisdiction is still found to be incompatible with the Convention, will the reform adopted by the Law no. 353-ФЗ of 9 December 2010 amend the procedure thoroughly enough to prevent new similar violations of the Convention as from January 2012? In particular, the Government are requested to comment in detail on how the latest reform is meant substantially to change the current procedure and to erase the uncertainties attached thereto, while the Law maintains the possibility of challenging binding and enforceable judgments at several consecutive levels of jurisdiction and preserves the discretionary powers of the President and Vice-President of the Russian Supreme Court to intervene in review proceedings (see Martynets v. Russia (dec.), no. 29612/09, ECHR 2009‑..., and compare with OOO Link Oil SPB v. Russia (dec.), no. 42600/05, 25 June 2009, and Kovaleva and Others v. Russia (dec.), no. 6025/09, 25 June 2009) ?
Appendix
File No
Case Name
1.
52166/08
RYABKIN v. Russia
2.
8174/09
SHEYMAN v. Russia
3.
8526/09
VOLOKITIN v. Russia
4.
10775/09
VASILYEVA v. Russia
5.
41760/09
KAPLAN v. Russia
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy