FIFTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 39928/05
Yuriy Vasylyovych ZHELIKHOVSKYY against Ukraine
and 5 other applications
(see list appended)
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 22 May 2012 as a committee composed of:
Mark Villiger, President,
Karel Jungwiert,
André Potocki, judges,
and Stephen Phillips, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above applications lodged on various dates,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicants are Ukrainian nationals whose details are specified in the table attached below. The Ukrainian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agents, Ms Valeria Lutkovska and Mr Nazar Kulchytskyy, of the Ministry of Justice.
In application no. 39928/05 on 21 October 2002 the Ternopil Court ordered the State-owned company to provide the applicant’s house with the telephone connection. That judgment became final but remains unenforced. On 11 May 2011 the State sold all of its shares in the above company and it became a private entity.
In application no. 17783/06 on 3 July 2002 the Krasnoarmiysk Court ordered a private individual to pay the applicant certain pecuniary amounts. On 11 November 2005 it ordered the Bailiffs to pay the applicant certain amounts in damages for non-enforcement of the above judgment. The former judgment was enforced in September 2009 and the latter in September 2010.
In the remaining cases the domestic courts ordered the State authorities to pay various pecuniary amounts to the applicants. Those judgments became final, but the authorities delayed their enforcement.
COMPLAINTS
The applicants complained about the delayed enforcement of the judgments given in their favour. Some of them also raised other complaints.
THE LAW
1. The Court considers that the applications should be joined, given their common factual and legal background.
2. On various dates (see the table below) the Government submitted several declarations with a view to settling the applicants’ cases. In respect of application no. 39928/05, the Government assumed responsibility for lengthy non-enforcement of the judgment of 21 October 2002 only until 11 May 2011, when the debtor had become a private entity. In respect of application no. 17783/06, the Government assumed responsibility only for the delayed enforcement of the judgment of 11 November 2005. As regards the remaining cases, the Government acknowledged the excessive duration of the enforcement of the applicants’ judgments and undertook to enforce the judgments that were still subject to enforcement. They also offered to pay all the applicants various compensation sums (see the table below).
The Government invited the Court to strike the applications out of the list of cases and suggested that the declarations might be accepted by the Court as “any other reason” justifying the striking out of the cases of the Court’s list of cases, as referred to in Article 37 § 1 (c) of the Convention.
The compensation sums were to cover any pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage as well as costs and expenses, would be free of any taxes that might be applicable and would be converted into the national currency of the respondent State at the rate applicable on the date of settlement. They would be payable within three months from the date of notification of the decision taken by the Court pursuant to Article 37 § 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In the event of failure to pay these sums within the said three-month period, the Government undertook to pay simple interest on them 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 would constitute the final resolution of the cases.
In reply, the applicants agreed with the declarations, even though some of them doubted that the Government would comply with their terms.
In light of the above, the Court considers that the parties have actually reached a friendly settlement in respect of these parts of the applications. Therefore, they should be struck out of the list in accordance with Article 39 § 3 of the Convention.
3. Having carefully examined the remainder of the complaints raised by some of the applicants in the light of all the material in its possession, and in so far as the matter complained of is within its competence, the Court finds that they do not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms set out in the Convention or its Protocols. It follows that these complaints are manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Decides to join the applications;
Decides to strike them out of its list of cases in so far as they concern the complaints covered by the Government’s declarations in accordance with Article 39 § 3 of the Convention;
Declares the remainder of the applications inadmissible.
Stephen PhillipsMark Villiger
Deputy RegistrarPresident
APPENDIX
No.
Application number,
applicant’s name
and date of birth
Date of introduction
Names of courts and dates of judgments about the lengthy non-enforcement of which the applicants complain
Date of the declaration,
sums offered by the Government (in euros)
1.
39928/05
ZHELIKHOVSKYY,
Yuriy Vasylyovych, 1959
28 October 2005
Ternopil Court, 21 October 2002
28 October 2011,
1,500
2.
5611/06
ANDREYEV,
Vasiliy Afanasyevich, 1947
15 January 2006
Dzerzhynsk Court, 9 January 2001
12 January 2012,
1,980
3.
17783/06
LAVSKA,
Lyubov Dmytrivna, 1934
21 April 2006
Krasnoarmiysk Court:
3 July 2002 and 11 November 2005
7 December 2011,
870
4.
9355/09
PERESTA,
Pavlo Mykhaylovych, 1958
20 January 2009
Tetiyiv Court, 18 March 2008
2 February 2012,
690
5.
30633/10
BORUKH,
Viktor Ivanovych, 1954
21 May 2010
Tetiyiv Court, 24 January 2008
2 February 2012,
705
6.
51443/10
SUPRUN,
Nataliya Fedorovna, 1954
25 August 2010
Svitlovodsk Court, 20 August 2009
2 February 2012,
435
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