FIFTH SECTION     CASE OF BILETSKAYA v. UKRAINE (Application no. 25003/06)        JUDGMENT   STRASBOURG 10 December 2009 FINAL 10/03/2010 This judgment will become final in the circumstances set out in Article 44 § 2 of theConvention. It may be subject to editorial revision.In the case of Biletskaya v. Ukraine,The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of: Peer Lorenzen, President, Renate Jaeger, Karel Jungwiert, Rait Maruste, Mark Villiger, Isabelle Berro-Lefèvre, judges, Mykhaylo Buromenskiy, ad hoc judge, and Claudia Westerdiek, Section Registrar,Having deliberated in private on 17 November 2009,Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on the last‑mentioned date:PROCEDURE1. The case originated in an application (no. 25003/06) against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by a Ukrainian national, Ms Lyubov Mikhaylovna Biletskaya (“the applicant”), on 3 June 2006.2. The Ukrainian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr Yuriy Zaytsev.3. On 14 January 2009 the President of the Fifth Section decided to give notice of the application to the Government. It was also decided to rule on the admissibility and merits of the application at the same time (Article 29 § 3).THE FACTSI. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE4. The applicant was born in 1957 and lives in Slavutych of the Kyiv Region.5. On 16 May 2005 the Slavutych Court awarded the applicant 6,057.34 Ukranian hryvnias[1] (UAH) in compensation for salary arrears and non‑pecuniary damage to be paid by the State Central Enterprise of Nuclear Waste Utilisation (Державне підприємство «Центральне підприємство по переробці радіоактивних відходів»). The judgment became final on 16 June 2005.6. In May 2006 the Ministry of Fuel and Energy of Ukraine informed the applicant that the liquidation procedure in respect of the State Central Enterprise of Nuclear Waste Utilisation had been instituted and that the Enterprise lacked funds to pay the judgment debts to the applicant.7. The judgment remains unenforced.II. RELEVANT DOMESTIC LAW8. The relevant domestic law is summarised in the judgment of Mykhaylenky and Others v. Ukraine (nos. 35091/and foll., §§ 24-33, ECHR 2004‑XII).THE LAWI. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 1 OF PROTOCOL NO. 1 TO THE CONVENTIONA. Admissibility9. The Government submitted that the applicant's complaint was inadmissible as violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention concerning non-enforcement of judgment could not be established separately, being based on a finding of a breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.10. The applicant disagreed.11. The Court considers that the Government's objection is closely linked to the merits of the applicant's complaints under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. In these circumstances, it joins this objection to the merits of the applicant's complaint.12. The Court notes that the applicant's complaint is not manifestly ill‑founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention. It further notes that it is not inadmissible on any other ground. It must therefore be declared admissible.B. Merits13. The Court reiterates that the judgment debt at issue constitutes the applicant's possession (see Poltorachenko v. Ukraine, no. 77317/01, § 38, 18 January 2005) and impossibility for the applicant to obtain execution of the judgment at issue amounts to an interference with this possession (see, among other authorities, Voytenko v. Ukraine, no. 18966/02, § 53, 29 June 2004). It has already found a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 in cases similar to the present one, where the Government have not advanced any convincing justification for that interference (see, Dubenko v. Ukraine, cited above, § 51; see also Lopatyuk and Others v. Ukraine, nos. 903/05 et seq., §§ 14-15 and 22, 17 January 2008).14. Having examined all the material in its possession, the Court considers that the Government have not put forward any fact or argument capable of persuading it to reach a different conclusion in the present case.15.

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