THIRD SECTION
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CASE OF GACHMA v. RUSSIA
 
(Application no. 9589/06)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
 
 
STRASBOURG
 
17 October 2017
 
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Gachma v. Russia,
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Helen Keller, President,
 Pere Pastor Vilanova,
 Alena Poláčková, judges,
and Fatoş Aracı, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having deliberated in private on 26 September 2017,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
PROCEDURE
1. The case originated in an application (no. 9589/06) against the Russian Federation lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by Mr Vasiliy Alekseyevich Gachma (“the applicant”) on 25 January 2006. 2. The Russian Government (“the Government”) were represented initially by Mr G. Matyushkin, the Representative of the Russian Federation to the European Court of Human Rights, and then by his successor in that office, Mr M. Galperin. 3. On 18 May 2015 the application was communicated to the Government in accordance with the pilot judgment Burdov v. Russia (no. 2) (no. 33509/04, ECHR 2009). 4. On 21 September 2015 the Government informed the Court that the judgment in the applicant’s favour had not been fully enforced due to, inter alia, the applicant’s behaviour. They requested to consider the application on the merits. The Court therefore decided to resume examination of the present case. THE FACTS
5. The applicant was born in 1955 and lives in Budenovsk, the Stavropol Region of the Russian Federation. He is a former military officer. 6. On an unspecified date the applicant sued his former employer military unit. 7. On 3 May 2001 the Military Court of the Pyatigorsk Garrison (“the military court”) ordered, inter alia, the head of the respondent military unit to re-calculate the period of the applicant’s service, applying the favourable terms of such calculation for the time when the applicant had participated in a military operation. The military court obliged the head of the military unit to issue the relevant orders, to calculate and to pay the applicant some additional payments and field allowance for the periods specified in the judgment. The judgment contained information on the indexes and other parameters that should be applied for the awarded amounts to be calculated. 8. On 14 May 2001 the judgment came into force. 9. In March 2002 the applicant obtained the writ of execution and submitted it to the Department of the Federal Treasury in Budenovsk. 10. On 19 March 2002 the Department of the Federal Treasury returned the writ of execution to the applicant on the ground that the military unit did not have an account there, and the judgment contained no specific amounts awarded to the applicant. 11. On 21 March 2002 the applicant submitted the writ of execution to the bailiffs’ service. On the same day the enforcement proceedings were initiated. 12. On 19 February 2003 the enforcement proceedings were terminated and the writ was returned to the applicant without enforcement following his request to withdraw the writ. 13. In 2004-2005 the applicant applied to the domestic courts for clarification of the initial judgment with the view to establish the specific amounts due to him. The applicant’s requests were dismissed as being lodged out of time. The courts noted that, in any case, the matter concerning the awarded amounts should have been resolved by way of an additional decision rather than clarification of a final judgment, and informed that an application for an additional decision should have been lodged before the entry into force of the main judgment. 14. It is not disputed between the parties that the judgment of 3 May 2001 remained unenforced in the part concerning the payment to the applicant of the second salary and the field allowances for the periods specified in the judgment. 15. On 24 March 2016, after communication of the present case, the Ministry of Finance of Russia calculated the amount due to the applicant under the judgment of 3 May 2001. According to this calculation, the main debt amounted to 80,220.74 Russian roubles. THE LAW
I. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 6 § 1 OF THE CONVENTION AND ARTICLE 1 OF PROTOCOL No. 1 TO THE CONVENTION
16. The applicant complained about non-enforcement of the above judgment. This complaint falls to be examined under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, which, as far as relevant, read as follows:
Article 6 § 1
“In the determination of his civil rights and obligations ... everyone is entitled to a fair ... hearing ... by [a] ... tribunal ...”
Article 1 of Protocol No. 1
“Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law...”
A. Admissibility
17. The Court notes that the application is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention. It further notes that it is not inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible. B. Merits
18. The Government acknowledged that the judgment in the applicant’s favour was not fully enforced (see paragraphs 14-15 above). They argued, however, that the non-enforcement was due to the applicant’s behaviour. According to the Government, by his withdrawal of the writ of execution from the bailiffs’ service in 2003 the applicant impeded any further enforcement of the judgment in his favour. 19. The Court reiterates that an unreasonably long delay in the enforcement of a binding judgment may breach the Convention (see Burdov v. Russia, no. 59498/00, ECHR 2002-III). It further reiterates that a person who has obtained a judgment against the State may not be expected to bring separate enforcement proceedings (see Metaxas v. Greece, no. 8415/02, § 19, 27 May 2004). Where a judgment is against the State, the defendant State authority must be duly notiﬁed thereof and is thus well placed to take all necessary initiatives to comply with it or to transmit it to another competent State authority responsible for compliance (see Akashev v. Russia, no. 30616/05, § 21, 12 June 2008). The complexity of the domestic enforcement procedure or of the State budgetary system cannot relieve the State of its obligation under the Convention to guarantee to everyone the right to have a binding and enforceable judicial decision enforced within a reasonable time (Burdov (no. 2), cited above, § 70). 20. At the same time, the Court has accepted that a successful litigant may be required to undertake certain procedural steps in order to recover the judgment debt (see Shvedov v. Russia, no. 69306/01, § 32, 20 October 2005). The creditor’s uncooperative behaviour may be an obstacle to timely enforcement of a judgment, thus alleviating the authorities’ responsibility for delays (see Belayev v. Russia (dec.), no. 36020/02, 22 March 2011). 21. Turning to the present case, the Court notes that on 19 March 2002 the writ of execution was returned to the applicant from the Federal Treasury with the reasoning that, inter alia, the judgment contained no specific amounts due to him. The applicant further submitted the writ of execution to the bailiffs’ service, and, having waited for approximately eleven months, decided to apply for clarification of the judgment of 3 May 2001, considering that the main obstacle for its enforcement in the part concerning the outstanding payments had been the absence of the specific amounts in its text (see paragraphs 10-15 above). 22. In the view of the foregoing, the Court does not consider that the applicant failed to undertake the necessary procedural steps in order to recover the judgment debt. 23. The Court accordingly finds that the arguments advanced by the Government do not justify prolonged non-enforcement of the judgment in the applicant’s favour. 24. The Court has frequently found violations of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention in cases raising similar issues to the ones in the present case (see, for example, Kochalidze v. Russia, no. 44038/05, §§ 12-15, 10 April 2012, and Bezborodov v. Russia, no. 36765/03, §§ 45-51, 20 November 2008). 25. Having examined the material submitted to it, the Court sees no reason for reaching a different conclusion in the present case. Having regard to its case-law on the subject, the Court finds that by failing for over fourteen years to comply with the enforceable judgment in the applicant’s favour the domestic authorities impaired the essence of his right to a court and prevented him from receiving the money he had reasonably expected to receive. 26.

Article of the Convention at issue: Article 1
Outcome: violation