Final 13/09/2013
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FIRST SECTION CASE OF SIVOGRAK AND ZENOV v. RUSSIA (Application no. 14758/08) JUDGMENT STRASBOURG 13 June 2013 FINAL 13/09/2013 This judgment has become final under Article 44 § 2 of the Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision. SIVOGRAK AND ZENOV v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT 1 In the case of Sivograk and Zenov v. Russia, The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of: Isabelle Berro-Lefèvre, President, Elisabeth Steiner, Khanlar Hajiyev, Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska, Julia Laffranque, Ksenija Turković, Dmitry Dedov, judges, and André Wampach, Deputy Section Registrar, Having deliberated in private on 21 May 2013, Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date: PROCEDURE 1. The case originated in an application (no. 14758/08) 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 two Russian nationals, Mr Igor Georgiyevich Sivograk (“the first applicant”) and Mr Valeriy Nikolayevich Zenov (“the second applicant”), on 31 January 2008. 2. The applicants were represented by Mr V.V. Sharovarin, a lawyer practising in Bryansk. The Russian Government (“the Government”) were represented by Mr G. Matyushkin, Representative of the Russian Federation at the European Court of Human Rights. 3. On 9 January 2009 the application was communicated to the Government. It was also decided to rule on the admissibility and merits of the application at the same time (Article 29 § 1). 4. In accordance with the pilot judgment in Burdov v. Russia (no. 2) (no. 33509/04, ECHR 2009), the applications were adjourned pending their resolution at the domestic level. 5. The Government later informed the Court that they saw no possibility of enforcing the judgments in the applicants’ favour. The Court therefore decided to resume the examination of the present application. THE FACTS 6. The applicants are Russian nationals, who were born in 1969 and 1968, and live in Starodub, the Bryansk Region, and Saratov respectively. 2 SIVOGRAK AND ZENOV v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT A. NON-ENFORCEMENT OF THE JUDGMENT OF 1 NOVEMBER 2005 IN THE APPLICANT’S FAVOUR 7. By a judgment of 1 November 2005 the Zavodskoy District Court, Grozny (“the District Court”) ordered the Ministry of the Interior of the Chechen Republic to pay an allowance due to the applicants for participation in the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus. The court awarded the first applicant 607,999 Russian roubles (RUB) for a period of service from June 2002 to December 2004 and the second applicant RUB 367,333 for a period of service from June 2003 to December 2004. 8. The judgment became binding and enforceable on 11 November 2005. The applicants repeatedly attempted to secure the enforcement of that judgment by contacting the debtor authority and other State authorities responsible for payment of the judgment debt. They provided the authorities with the necessary documents, including the writ of enforcement issued by the domestic court. However, their attempts were not successful and the judgment remained unenforced. 9. Following the authorities’ prolonged failure to enforce the judgment, the applicants sued the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation on the basis of its vicarious liability (субсидиарная ответственность). On 29 September 2009 the Zamoskvoretskiy District Court, Moscow (“the Zamoskvoretskiy District Court”) granted the applicants’ claims and awarded RUB 847,999 in favour of Mr Sivograk and RUB 607,333 in favour of Mr Zenov. Those amounts corresponded to the total sum owed to the applicants under the judgments of 1 November 2005 and 10 May 2006 (see paragraph 13 below). 10. On 3 August 2010 the judgment of 29 September 2009 was quashed, following an application by the Ministry of the Interior for review on account of newly discovered circumstances. 11. By a new judgment of 9 November 2010, upheld on appeal on 20 July 2011, the Zamoskvoretskiy District Court dismissed the applicants’ claims. The court noted that the debtor was not in possession of the writs of enforcement and thus could not enforce the judgment of 1 November 2005 in the applicant’s favour. Furthermore, the court referred to the applicants’ failure to prove that the principal debtor had refused or failed to pay the judgment debt. 12. The judgment of 1 November 2005 in the applicants’ favour remains unenforced to the present date. SIVOGRAK AND ZENOV v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT 3 B. A SECOND JUDGMENT ALLEGEDLY DELIVERED ON 10 MAY 2006 IN THE APPLICANT’S FAVOUR 13. The applicants submitted a copy of a judgment of 10 May 2006 allegedly delivered by the District Court in favour of five claimants, including the applicants. It transpires from the text of the judgment that the court heard the oral submissions of the parties to the case at a hearing and arrived at the following conclusions: “... The failure of the command of the United Group Alignment to issue orders to make the payments in due time does not in itself prove that the applicants did not take part in the counter-terrorist operation and are not entitled to receive combat allowance. The records of individual participation in the counter-terrorist operation on the territory of the North-Caucasus region reflect the dates of [the claimants’] participation which match the timeframe indicated by the claimants. The records submitted by the finance department of the Ministry of the Interior’s regional office demonstrate that the claimants have indeed not received the remuneration due to them for participation in combat and other actions in defence of the public order ... The reports drawn up by the head of the personnel department in the Ministry of the Interior’s regional office following an internal inquiry show that the claimants were included in the orders authorising the counter-terrorist operation and are entitled to relevant payments. In addition, the case file contains the minutes of meetings held by the commission supervising the putting together of orders concerning the involvement of personnel in the counter-terrorist operation which evidence that the applicants indeed took part in the operations during the aforementioned period and are entitled to extra reimbursement. ... The court concludes that the claimants indeed took part in the counter-terrorist operation. The respondent submitted to the court official documents evidencing [this fact] and thus de facto accepted their claims. ... The amounts to be recovered are calculated by the court based on the records provided by the respondent. ... Having regard to the above and relying on Articles 194 and 198 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the court orders the Ministry of the Interior of the Chechen Republic to 4 SIVOGRAK AND ZENOV v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT pay the following amounts for de facto participation in the counter-terrorist operation on the territory of the North Caucasus in favour of: ... Valeriy Nikolayevich Zenov RUB 240,000 for the period from 1 January to 31 December 2005, and also to credit the above period in [the claimant’s] length of service record in the proportion of one month for three months and in [the claimant’s] length of special service record in the proportion of one month for three months; Igor Georgiyevich Sivograk RUB 240,000 for the period from 1 January to 31 December 2005, and also to credit the above period in [the claimant’s] length of service record in the proportion of one month for three months and in [the claimant’s] length of special service record [in the proportion of one month for three months].” 14. On 20 July 2007 the Chechen Republic Department of the Federal Treasury returned the writs of enforcement related to the judgment of 10 May 2006 issued by the District Court for failure to indicate the creditor’s addresses and discrepancies between the operative part of the judgment and the enforcement document. 15. By letter of 24 July 2008 the acting president of the District Court, replying to the applicants’ request for correction of the irregularities in the enforcement documents and the judgment, informed them that the court had never delivered the judgment of 10 May 2006 or the related writs of enforcement and that the stamps and signatures on the documents had been falsified. 16. The Government submitted a copy of a decision to refuse the institution of criminal proceedings dated 26 January 2009, which read as follows: “Senior police lieutenant I.A. Askhabov, an investigator at the Zavodskoy police station’s investigative department, having examined the material submitted by the prosecutor’s office for the Zavodskoy District of Grozny and registered by ... the Zavodskoy police station ... on 17 December 2008, concerning the falsification by an unidentified person of a judgment of the Zavodskoy District Court ordering the payment of an additional monetary allowance for participation in the counter-terrorist operation in the Chechen Republic, established [the following]: The judgment by the Zavodskoy District Court of 10 May 2006 in [the applicants’] favour and the writs of enforcement dated 20 May 2006 [by which] the Ministry of the Interior for the Chechen Republic [was] ordered to pay [the applicants] RUB 240,000 each, which had been submitted by [the applicants] to the Chechen Republic Department of the Federal Treasury, are falsified and were never delivered or issued by the Zavodskoy District Court. The above is confirmed by the information contained in [a letter] of the Zavodskoy District Court of 24 July 2008 ... Accordingly, the actions of the unidentified person constitute the corpus delicti described in Article 327.1 of the Criminal Code. SIVOGRAK AND ZENOV v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT 5 The above crime belongs to the category of small-scale crimes and, considering that the judgment ..