Source: http://echr.ketse.com/doc/52854.99-en-20020221/view/
Timestamp: 2020-02-23 07:27:28
Document Index: 262083127

Matched Legal Cases: ['Application no. 52854', '§ 1', '§ 1', '§ 1', '§ 1', '§ 62', '§ 70']

RYABYKH v. RUSSIA About Project
Application no. 52854/99
by Anna Ivanovna RYABYKH
The applicant brought proceedings against the Novooskolskiy Branch of the Savings Bank of Russia, the Savings Bank of Russia (Сберегательный банк Российской Федерации) and the State. She claimed that her personal savings, which she had deposited with the bank in 1991, had significantly dropped following economic reforms, and that the State had not properly discharged its obligation to revalue the deposits in the Savings Bank in order to offset the effects of inflation, even though it had assumed that obligation under the Law on Revaluation and Protection of the Savings of Citizens of the Russian Federation enacted on 10 May 1995 (Федеральный закон «О восстановлении и защите сбережений граждан Российской Федерации», hereinafter – “Savings Act”).
On 30 December 1997 Judge Lebedinskaya of the Novooskolskiy District Court of the Belgorod Region (Новооскольский районный суд Белгородской области) found in the applicant’s favour and awarded her 129,544,1061 roubles (RUR) payable by the State treasury. The court rejected the State’s main defence that the reimbursement scheme under the Savings Act could not be implemented for practical reasons, no special secondary legislation having been passed. It found that it was the State’s own fault that no secondary legislation had been passed and that since the Savings Act recognised the guaranteed deposits as the State’s internal debt, the ordinary civil rules on late payment were applicable.
On 13 April 1998 the President of the Belgorod Regional Court, Judge Zazdravnykh, and later, on 24 April 1998, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Belgorod Region refused the applicant’s petitions for supervisory review of the appeal judgment.
The application was examined on 19 March 1999 by the Presidium of the Belgorod Regional Court under the presidency of Judge Zazdravnykh. Having accepted the reasons contained in the application, the Presidium set aside the judgment of 8 June 1998 and substituted its own decision dismissing the applicant’s case altogether. The applicant was not informed that the application for supervisory review had been lodged or invited to attend the hearing before the Presidium.
On 22 January 2001 the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court granted the application. It found that the Presidium had given valid reasons for setting aside the judgment of 8 June 1998, but ruled that the applicant’s case could not have been dismissed in full, as that would deprive her of her entitlement to reimbursement of the money she had deposited with the Savings Bank. It was also acknowledged that the applicant’s right to be informed that her case was reviewed by the Presidium had not been respected.
On 4 June 2001, after a new examination of the case, the Novooskolskiy District Court delivered a new judgment in the applicant’s favour. The award included RUR 188,724 as compensation for devaluation and RUR 60,000 by way of non-pecuniary damages. The court stated that the Government’s systematic delaying of its obligation to revalue the applicant’s savings caused moral suffering and anguish.
“Final judgments, decisions and rulings of all Russian courts shall be amenable to supervisory review on an application lodged by officials listed in Article 320 of the Code.”
Under Article 322 officials listed in Article 320 who consider that a case warrants closer examination may, provided certain conditions are complied with, obtain the case-file in order to establish whether good grounds for lodging an application exist.
Article 323 of the Code empowers the relevant officials to stay the execution of the judgment, decision or ruling concerned until the supervisory-review proceedings are completed.
Article 324 of the Code provides that the official concerned shall draft the application and forward it – in sufficient copies for each of the parties – and the case-file to the relevant court. The application shall be made in the number of copies corresponding to the number of litigants.
According to Article 325:
“The parties... shall be served copies of the application. If circumstances so require, the parties... shall be informed of the time and place of the hearing.
The copies of the application shall be served to the parties by the court [examining the application]. The court shall give the parties sufficient time before the hearing to submit a written reply to the application and any additional material.”
By Article 328 of the Code proceedings on an application for supervisory review will normally be oral and the parties are invited to make comments once the judge concerned has reported to the court.
Courts hearing applications for supervisory review (суды, рассматривающие дела по протестам в порядке надзора) have extensive jurisdiction in respect of final judgments:
2. quash all or part of the judgment, decision or ruling as a whole or in part and order a fresh examination of the case at first or cassation instance;
3. quash all or part of the judgment, decision or ruling as a whole or in part and terminate the proceedings or leave the claim undecided;
5. quash or vary the judgment of the court of first or cassation instance or if a court that has carried out supervisory review instance and deliver a new judgment without remitting the case for re-examination if substantive laws have been erroneously construed and applied.”
There is no time-limit under the legislation for lodging an application for supervisory review, and in principle such applications may be lodged at any time after a judgment has become final.
1. The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that her right to a fair trial was breached when the Presidium of the Belgorod Regional Court quashed the judgment of 8 June 1998, which had become final and was in the process of being enforced. She adds that she was not informed that the application for supervisory review had been lodged, and not invited to attend the hearing before the Presidium. She did not learn of the Presidium’s decision until five months after it had been given.
2. The applicant further complains under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention about the effect the inflation produced on her savings and about the State’s failure to compensate her in this respect. The cancellation of the judgment in her favour also infringed the same Convention provision.
1. The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the judgment of 8 June 1998 was quashed following the supervisory review, and that the procedure before the Presidium was “unfair”. Article 6 § 1, insofar as relevant, reads as follows:
The Government submit that since the supervisory review by the Supreme Court on 22 January 2001 resulted in the applicant’s action for the revaluation of her savings being re-examined on the merits, the State has taken effective measures to restore and protect the applicant’s rights under the Convention. The Government argue that the applicant’s case has not been finally determined at the national level and that the application can therefore not be examined by the Court.
The applicant requests that her application should proceed as she is sceptical about the prospects of success on a fresh examination of the case.
The Court notes that the complaint under Article 6 § 1 concerns the quashing of an earlier judgment in the applicant’s favour. The issue is whether such a procedure permitting that a final judgment is quashed could be considered compatible with Article 6 and, in particular, whether the principle of legal certainty was thereby infringed (see Brumărescu v. Romania [GC], no. 28342/95, § 62, 28 October 1999).
It is not clear, however, how the fact that the decision of the Presidium was subsequently quashed on a further application for supervisory review could be said to improve legal certainty in the applicant’s case and this issue is not affected by the proceedings which are pending at the national level.
2. The applicant further complains about the devaluation of her savings as a result of the inflation and that the supervisory review of her case and the cancellation of the judgment in her favour infringed Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, which reads as follows:
The applicant’s complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention is that by quashing the final judgment in the applicant’s favour of 8 June 1998 the Belgorod Regional Court deprived her of her possessions or at least interfered with her right to peaceful enjoyment thereof (see the above cited Brumărescu judgment, §§ 70, 73 and 77).
RYABYKH v. RUSSIA DECISION