FIRST SECTION

DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 66543/01 by Petr Fedotovich VASILYEV against Russia

The European Court of Human Rights (First Section) , sitting on 1 April 2004 as a Chamber composed of:

Mr C.L. Rozakis , President , Mr E. Levits , Mrs S. Botoucharova , Mr A. Kovler , Mr V. Zagrebelsky , Mrs E. Steiner , Mr K. Hajiyev, judges , and Mr S. Nielsen , Section Registrar ,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 10 January 2001,

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

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr Petr Fedotovich Vasilyev, is a Russian national who was born in 1935 and lives in the Orenburg Region. The respondent Government are represented by Mr P. Laptev, Representative of the Russian Federation at the European Court of Human Rights.

A. The circumstances of the case

The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.

From 25 August 1995 the applicant has received his old-age pension from the social security authorities.

On 23 June 1997 the Federal Law on Calculating and Upgrading State Pensions (« О порядке исчисления и увеличения государственных пенсий », the “Pensions Law” ) was adopted. The Pensions Law introduced a new scheme of calculating retirement benefits – “Individual Pensioner Coefficient” (“IPC”).

On 1 February 1998 the amount of the applicant's pension was re-assessed according to the Pensions Law. The Sakmarsky District Welfare Office of the Orenburg Region ( Управление социальной защиты населения Сакмарского района Оренбургской области ) decided that the IPC to be applied in the applicant's case should be 0.420.

The applicant, who believed that he was eligible to an IPC of 0.641, sued the Sakmarsky District Welfare Office for insufficient increase of his pension.

On 11 October 1999 the Sakmarskiy District Court of the Orenburg Region found that the defendant had misinterpreted the Pensions Law. It granted the applicant's claim to apply the IPC at 0.641 for calculating his pension, increasing it by RUR 400, and awarded him arrears of RUR 3,647.82.

On 16 December 1999 the Orenburg Regional Court dismissed the defendant's appeal, and the judgment of 11 October 1999 became final.

On 10 July 2000 the President of the Orenburg Regional Court lodged an extraordinary appeal ( протест в порядке надзора ) against the judgment of 11 October 1999.

On 17 July 2000 the Presidium of the Orenburg Regional Court examined the extraordinary appeal in the supervisory review procedure.

The Presidium found that the courts' previous judgments misinterpreted the Pensions Law. It set aside the judgment of 11 October 1999 and the decision of 16 December 1999 and substituted its own decision dismissing the applicant's claim. It reinstated the applicant's IPC at 0.420 and annulled the previously awarded increase as well as the arrears.

B. Relevant domestic law

Supervisory review (Пересмотр в порядке судебного надзора)

Under the Code of Civil Procedure of 1964, which was in force at the material time, judgments became final as follows:

Article 208. Coming into force of judgments

“Court judgments shall become legally binding on the expiration of the time-limit for lodging a cassation appeal if no such appeal has been lodged. If the judgment is not quashed following a cassation appeal, it shall become legally binding when the higher court delivers its decision...”

The only further means of recourse was the special supervisory-review procedure that enabled courts to reopen final judgments:

Article 319. Judgments, decisions and rulings amenable to supervisory review

“Final judgments, decisions and rulings of all Russian courts shall be amenable to supervisory review on an application lodged by the officials listed in Article 320 of the Code.”

The power of officials to lodge an application ( protest ) depended on their rank and territorial jurisdiction:

Article 320. Officials who may initiate supervisory review

“Applications may be lodged by:

1. The Prosecutor General – against judgments, decisions and rulings of any court;

2. The President of the Supreme Court – against rulings of the Presidium of the Supreme Court and judgments and decisions of the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court acting as a court of first instance;

3. Deputy Prosecutors General – against judgments, decisions and rulings of any court other than rulings of the Presidium of the Supreme Court;

4. Vice-Presidents of the Supreme Court – against judgments and decisions of the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court acting as a court of first instance;

5. The Prosecutor General, Deputy Prosecutor General, the President and Vice-Presidents of the Supreme Court – against judgments, decisions and rulings of any court other than rulings of the Presidium of the Supreme Court;

6. The President of the Supreme Court of an autonomous republic, regional court, city court, court of an autonomous region or court of an autonomous district, the Public Prosecutor of an autonomous republic, region, city, autonomous region or an autonomous district – against judgments and decisions of district (city) people's courts and against decisions of civil chambers of, respectively, the Supreme Court of an autonomous republic, regional court, city court, court of an autonomous region or court of an autonomous district that examined the case on appeal.”

The power to lodge such applications was discretionary, that is to say it was solely for the official concerned to decide whether or not a particular case warranted supervisory review.

Under Article 322 officials listed in Article 320 who considered that a case deserved closer examination could, in certain circumstances, obtain the case file in order to establish whether good grounds for lodging an application existed.

Article 323 of the Code empowered the relevant officials to stay the execution of the judgment, decision or ruling in question until the supervisory review proceedings had been completed.

Courts hearing applications for supervisory review had extensive jurisdiction in respect of final judgments:

Article 329. Powers of supervisory-review court

“The court that examines an application for supervisory review may:

1. Uphold the judgment, decision or ruling and dismiss the application;

2. Quash all or part of the judgment, decision or ruling and order a fresh examination of the case at first or cassation instance;

3. Quash all or part of the judgment, decision or ruling and terminate the proceedings or leave the claim undecided;

4. Uphold any of the previous judgments, decisions or rulings in the case;

5. Quash or vary the judgment of the court of first or cassation instance or of a court that has carried out supervisory review and deliver a new judgment without remitting the case for re-examination if substantive laws have been erroneously construed and applied.”

41. The grounds for setting aside final judgments were as follows:

Article 330. Grounds for setting aside judgments on supervisory review

“...

1. wrongful application or interpretation of substantive laws;

2. significant breach of procedural rules which led to delivery of unlawful judgment, decision or ruling...”

There was no time-limit for lodging an application for supervisory review, and, in principle, such applications could be lodged at any time after a judgment had become final.

COMPLAINTS

The applicant complains about the decrease of the amount of his pension as a result of the supervisory review proceedings. He maintains that his right to social security has been infringed. He refers in this respect to Articles 2, 8 and 13 of the Convention. Under Article 6 of the Convention the applicant complains about the annulment of a court judgment in his favour.

THE LAW

1. The applicant complains that the award made in his favour was subsequently quashed by way of supervisory review, which resulted in a decrease of his pension. This complaint falls to be examined under Article 6 and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.

Article 6 of the Convention, in so far as relevant, provides as follows:

“1. In the determination of his civil rights and obligations ... everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing ...”

Article 1 of Protocol 1 to the Convention provides as follows:

“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.

The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of a State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties.”

The Government allege that the judgment in the applicant's favour was quashed by the Presidium of the Orenburg Regional Court with a view to correcting a judicial error. The Government refer to the fact that the applicant's dispute about his pension increase was a part of a complex general problem caused by the vagueness of the Federal Law on Calculating and Upgrading State Pensions . The ambiguity was eliminated by an instruction passed on 29 December 1999 by the Ministry of Labour and Social Development to clarify how this law should be interpreted and applied. All disputes similar to the applicant's one were resolved in accordance with this instruction thereafter. Furthermore, the lawfulness of the instruction was later confirmed by the Supreme Court on 24 April 2000.

The Government maintain that the supervisory proceedings complied with the Code of Civil Procedure, and therefore the quashing of the subordinate courts' judgments cannot be said to have violated the applicant's right to fair trial. As to whether the applicant's property right has been violated, the Government contend that the applicant had not acquired property since the judgments which conferred the title on him were unlawful. They conclude that neither Article 6 § 1 nor Article 1 of Protocol 1 have been violated by the quashing of the judgments in question.

The applicant contests the Government's allegation and maintains his complaints.

The Court considers, in the light of the parties' submissions, that the complaint raises serious issues of fact and law under the Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol 1 to the Convention, the determination of which requires an examination of the merits. The Court concludes therefore that this complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention. No other ground for declaring it inadmissible has been established.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Declares the application admissible, without prejudicing the merits of the case.

Søren Nielsen Christos Rozakis Registrar President