PEROVY A OSTATNÍ proti Rusku

THIRD SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 41792/05
Dmitriy Vladimirovich PEROV and
Viktoriya Vasilyevna PEROVA against Russia
and 6 other applications
(see list appended)

The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 8 March 2018 as a Committee composed of:

Luis López Guerra, President,
Dmitry Dedov,
Jolien Schukking, judges,

and Liv Tigerstedt, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above applications lodged on the various dates indicated in the appended table,

Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicants,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

FACTS AND PROCEDURE

The list of applicants and the relevant details of the applications are set out in the appended table.

The applicants’ complaints under Articles 6 § 1 and 13 of the Convention and Article 1 of the Protocol No. 1 concerning the non-enforcement or delayed enforcement of domestic decisions and the lack of any effective remedy in domestic law were communicated to the Russian Government (“the Government”).

THE LAW

A. Joinder of the applications

Having regard to the similar subject matter of the applications, the Court finds it appropriate to examine them jointly in a single decision.

B. Complaints under Articles 6 § 1 and 13 of the Convention and Article 1 of the Protocol No. 1

In the present applications, having examined all the material before it, the Court considers that for the reasons stated below, the applicants’ complaints about the allegedly lengthy non-enforcement of the judgments in their favour are inadmissible.

According to the Court’s consistent position, the reasonableness of a delay in the enforcement of a final judgment is to be determined having regard, in particular, to the complexity of the enforcement proceedings, the applicant’s own behaviour and that of the competent authorities, the amount and the nature of the award (see Raylyan v. Russia, no. 22000/03, § 31, 15 February 2007).

Admittedly, enforcement of a judgment concerning allocation of a flat or performance of certain actions, such as allocation of a land plot or reinstatement complicated by the liquidation of an employer, may take a longer time than payment of a sum of money (see, for instance, Shilov and Baykova v. Russia, no. 703/02, §§ 21-26, 29 June 2006).

The periods of enforcement in the applicants’ cases, save for Mr Merkushev in application no. 68090/14 (see appended table below) lasted for no more than just over twelve months which do not appear so long as to impair the essence of the applicants’ right to a court or represent a disproportionate interference with their property rights (see, for similar reasoning, Zheleznyakov and Zheleznyakova v. Russia (dec.), no. 3180/03, 15 March 2007).

As regards Mr Merkushev (application no. 68090/14), this is the second time the Court has to examine the situation with the alleged non-enforcement of one and the same judgment secured by the applicant on 20 November 2000. In the previous case brought by the applicant to the Court, it dismissed his complaint of the delayed enforcement of the judgment of 20 November 2000 as manifestly ill-founded, having concluded as follows:

“To date the enforcement has lasted for over seven years. But it is the applicant who is responsible for the bulk of this period. The State first offered him a flat as early as three months after the judgment, but he refused this and several subsequent offers. The applicant explains his refusal with the small size of the flat, but the Court notes that the judgment did not specify the size (it only required the flat to meet statutory norms), and the applicant’s interpretation of these norms has not been officially confirmed.” (see Merkushev v. Russia (dec.), no. 26761/03, 16 October 2008).

Turning to the circumstances of the present application no. 68090/14 and examining the period of the alleged non-enforcement of the judgment of 20 November 2000 after its previous decision on 16 October 2008, the Court still finds that the continued period of the non-enforcement is attributed entirely to the applicant’s behaviour. He continues to refuse the flats proposed to him by the authorities, while making no attempt to bring the alleged inconsistencies between the proposals and the judgment award to the attention of the domestic authorities.

The Court therefore finds that the applicants’ complaints of delays in the enforcement of the judgments in their favour are manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

Some applicants also complained under Article 13 of the Convention that they had no effective domestic remedy against the non-enforcement of the judgments.

The Court reiterates that Article 13 applies only where a person has an “arguable claim” to be the victim of a violation of a Convention right. Having regard to its finding above under Article 6 § 1 the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, the Court considers that the applicants had no arguable claim for the purposes of Article 13 (see Boyle and Rice v. the United Kingdom, judgment of 27 April 1988, Series A no. 131, § 52).

It follows that this complaint is also manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

Finally, the applicants in applications nos. 41792/05 and 40419/07 also raised other complaints under various Articles of the Convention.

The Court has examined the two applications and considers that, in the light of all the material in its possession and in so far as the matters complained of are within its competence, these complaints either do not meet the admissibility criteria set out in Articles 34 and 35 of the Convention or do not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Convention or the Protocols thereto.

It follows that this part of applications nos. 41792/05 and 40419/07 must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Decides to join the applications;

Declares the applications inadmissible.

Done in English and notified in writing on 29 March 2018.

Liv Tigerstedt Luis López Guerra
Acting Deputy Registrar President

APPENDIX

List of applications raising complaints under Article 6 § 1 and Article 13 of the Convention and Article 1 of the Protocol No. 1 (non-enforcement or delayed enforcement of domestic decisions and lack of any effective remedy in domestic law)