THIRD SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 10936/06 Vladimir Vasilyevich SAZHIN against Russia

The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 9 February 2021 as a Committee composed of:

Georges Ravarani, President, Darian Pavli, Anja Seibert- Fohr , judges, and Olga Chernishova, Deputy Section Registrar ,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 15 January 2006 ,

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

1 . The applicant, Mr Vladimir Vasilyevich Sazhin , is a Russian national who was born in 1948 and lives in Syktyvkar (Komi Republic). He was represented before the Court by Mr E.A. Mezak , a human rights defender from Syktyvkar.

2 . The Russian Government (“the Government”) were represented by Mr G. Matyushkin , former Representative of the Russian Federation to the European Court of Human Rights, and then by his successor in that office, Mr M. Galperin.

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

as follows.

4 . On 19 April 2004 the Naryan -Mar Town Court convicted the applicant of attempting to steal a manual winch worth 2,031 Russian roubles (RUB, approximately 60 euros (EUR)) from his employer, a private company (“the Company”), and handed down a one-year suspended sentence. On 15 June 2004 the Court of Nenetskiy Autonomous Region upheld this judgment on appeal.

5 . On an unspecified date, the Company lodged a claim before the Naryan -Mar Town Court asking for reimbursement of the costs it had incurred in the criminal proceedings. The applicant did not appear before the Town Court. He did not provide the Court with any written submissions made before the Town Court in those proceedings.

6 . On 17 March 2005 the Naryan -Mar Town Court granted the Company ’ s claim in part and ordered the applicant to pay RUB 179,785 (approximately EUR 4,900) to the Company. Those costs comprised prosecution witnesses ’ travel expenses (for nine witnesses) and their wages for the period of time they spent participating in the proceedings, as well as the fees of the Company ’ s legal representative in the proceedings. Since the trial had taken place in the far north of the country, the Company had paid for their air tickets and transport in order to get them there (14 trips). The court examined the Company ’ s claim and calculations in detail and dismissed them in the part related to adjournment of the hearings which had not been the applicant ’ s fault, and for travel arrangements made for the dates when no hearings had been held.

7 . On 20 May 2005 the applicant lodged a statement of appeal seeking to reject the Company ’ s claim in full. He argued, inter alia, that he was a pensioner living with his dependent daughter (born in 1984 and a full-time student) and their only source of income was his old-age pension in the amount of RUB 3,830 (approximately EUR 110) per month. On 26 July 2005 the Court of the Nenetskiy Autonomous Region upheld the judgment of 17 March 2005, endorsing the Town Court ’ s approach and rejecting the applicant ’ s arguments as unsubstantiated. The court did not find any reasons stated in Article 132 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (paragraph 13 below) to release the applicant from reimbursement of the costs.

8 . The applicant submitted, without providing supporting documents, that the bailiffs had deducted from his pension RUB 1,645 (EUR 48) in November 2005 and RUB 317 (EUR 9) in December 2005 within the framework of the execution of the impugned judgment.

9 . Between April and September 2011, the bailiffs executed the judgment in the following way. The applicant ’ s monthly pension at that time was RUB 14,033 (EUR 324-356, depending on the exchange rate): the bailiffs withdrew 50% of it monthly (RUB 7,016, or EUR 162-178) in favour of the Company. The total amount of deductions made during those six months was RUB 42,100 (EUR 1,029).

10 . The applicant provided a statement from the Pension Fund, according to which the total amount of his pension received between 1 March 2005 and 30 September 2011 was RUB 646,024.

11 . On 27 September 2011 the Bailiff Service of Syktyvkar issued an order to terminate the enforcement proceedings and to return the execution writ to the Company on the latter ’ s request. According to the applicant, the new management of the Company decided to waive the remainder of the applicant ’ s debt.

12 . Article 131 of the Russian Code of Criminal Procedure provides that costs and expenses incurred in criminal proceedings are to be borne by the parties to those proceedings or by the State. The Code allows reimbursement of various types of costs incurred by victims (travel expenses, reimbursement of wages, legal representation, and so on).

13 . Article 132 of the mentioned Code provides that costs and expenses are to be paid by a person who has been convicted or by the State. The State is liable for costs if the guilty party is impecunious. A court may also release that party of liability for costs and expenses or reduce the amount to be paid if the financial obligation could significantly affect his or her dependents.

COMPLAINT

14 . The applicant complained that the costs which the domestic courts ordered him to pay in favour of the Company (paragraphs 6 and 7 above) put an excessive burden on him, alleging in substance that his criminal conviction was arbitrary as such. He refers to Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, which provides, in so far as relevant, 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 LAW

15 . The Government submitted that the applicant had not informed the Court about the termination of enforcement proceedings by the Company (see paragraph 11 above). Such a failure, in the Government ’ s opinion, amounted to an abuse of the right of application within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention. Addressing the merits of the case, the Government argued that the measure in question had not imposed an excessive individual burden on the applicant, since the remainder of his pension (after deductions) had exceeded a subsistence minimum for pensioners determined by the Russian authorities, and by the time the deductions were made – in 2011 – his daughter had graduated from university and ceased to be his dependent.

16 . The applicant admitted that he had not informed the Court about the termination of the enforcement proceedings but argued that the damage which he had suffered by the termination of the enforcement proceedings was already quite significant to him. As for the merits, the applicant outlined that he had been ordered to make the payments in favour of a private entity and not the State. He complained of the unfairness of his criminal conviction for attempted theft of a low-value item of equipment and argued that the amount of potential damage which he might have caused (EUR 60) was not proportionate to the amount of costs and expenses which he would have had to pay once the judgment had been fully enforced (EUR 4,900) (compare paragraphs 4 and 6 above). He argued lastly that if the full amount, in accordance with the judgment, had been recovered, this would have plunged him and his daughter into poverty.

17 . The Court notes that the applicant has indeed failed to inform it without undue delay of the further developments in his case. However, it does not need to rule on the issue of abuse, within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention as, for the reasons set out below and taking into account these developments, the application is in any event inadmissible.

18 . The Court considers first of all that in the present case, insofar as the applicant appears to raise an issue of unfairness of his criminal sentence, it is not its task to rule on this issue, since the sentence had been delivered more than six months before the date of lodging the application.

19 . In the present case, in accordance with the applicable national law (paragraph 13 above), there was no unconditional right of the applicant to be released from the reimbursement of the costs, and the courts ’ exercise of their discretion not to allow such a release was neither arbitrary nor manifestly unreasonable, and the Court has no reason to call them into question ( Anheuser-Busch Inc. v. Portugal [GC], no. 73049/01, § 8 5 , ECHR 2007 ‑ I ). Indeed, the first-instance court dismissed the Company ’ s claim in part, having thoroughly examined the calculations, the grounds for the expenses and the character of the costs (paragraph 6 above). The applicant, who was not detained at the material time, did not appear at the hearings of the first-instance court and did not appoint a lawyer to represent him during oral pleadings (paragraph 5 above). The Court does not have at its disposal information on the documents which the applicant submitted to this court, if any (paragraph 6 above). The cassation court, in its turn, considered the applicant ’ s arguments and rejected them as unsubstantiated (paragraph 7 above).

20 . Turning to the actual impact of the impugned measure on the applicant ’ s personal financial situation, the Court notes that while the sum required under the costs order against the applicant – about EUR 4,900 at the date of the judgment in 2005 – was indeed substantial, the Company has never recovered this sum from the applicant, nor has the latter ever complied with the mentioned judgment voluntarily. Recalling that the Convention is not intended to guarantee rights that are theoretical or illusory but rights that are practical and effective (see, amongst other authorities, N.D. and N.T. v. Spain [GC], nos. 8675/15 and 8697/15, § 171, 13 February 2020 ), the Court finds that it is not its task to examine the hypothetical question of whether, had the applicant paid the whole amount of the recovered expenses, this would have plunged him into poverty.

21 . Taking into account that the applicant did not submit any documents confirming that two deductions from his pension in 2005 had been made within the framework of the execution of the judgments in question (see paragraph 8 above), the Court finds that the impugned judgment was partially executed only in 2011 - six years after it became final. The total amount of the pension received by the applicant between 1 March 2005, when the judgment on recovery of costs was delivered, and 30 September 2011, when the enforcement was terminated, was RUB 646,024, while the total sum of deductions was RUB 42,100 (compare paragraphs 10 and 9 above), that is, less than 10% of the applicant ’ s pension for this 6-year period. Moreover, by the time the deductions were actually made the applicant ’ s daughter had reached the age of 26 (see paragraphs 7 and 15 above) and apparently had ceased to be his dependent.

22 . Having regard to all these circumstances, namely the absence of arbitrariness or manifest unreasonableness of the judgments of national courts as well as limited impact of the enforcement proceedings on the applicant ’ s financial situation, the Court finds that the application must be rejected as manifestly ill-founded in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Declares the application inadmissible.

Done in English and notified in writing on 11 March 2021 .

Olga Chernishova Georges Ravarani Deputy Registrar President