DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE VAJIĆ

1. I regret that I am unable to share the reasoning and the conclusions of the majority in the present case in finding that there has been a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention combined with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and in making an award for pecuniary damage to the applicant company.

2. I do not agree with the approach of the majority whereby, in spite of the settlement reached by the parties (paragraph 14) under the terms of which the applicant renounced “ ... all other pecuniary claims against the Town Council ... ”, and the fact that it received the relevant amount, the Court found a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and decided to make an award to the applicant for pecuniary damage in respect of the interest on the judgment debt for the period of non-enforcement (paragraph 32).

Mindful of all the delays incurred in the enforcement proceedings, the applicant company agreed to settle the case. It was open to it to include in the settlement any issue negotiated with the Town Council, that is to say, whatever it considered appropriate: this might have included the amount of interest. On the other hand, the company could equally well have written off the whole debt. It was clearly the applicant ' s choice whether or not to settle the case and, in full knowledge of the circumstances, it decided to do so.

In these circumstances I consider that the matter has been resolved and find no reason to depart from the established case-law of the Court (see Çiçek and Öztemel and 6 other cases v. Turkey , nos 7 4069/01, 74703/01, 76380/01, 16809/02, 25710/02, 25714/02 and 30383/02, § 22, 3 May 2007). In my opinion the applicant can no longer be considered to be a victim of a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.

3. I would not, however, exclude the possibility that the Court might find a State responsible under Article 6 of the Convention for failure to execute a final judgment for a significant period of time even where a valid settlement has been reached between the parties (see, mutatis mutandis, Guerrera and Fusco v. Italy , no. 40601/98, § 54, 3 April 2003). Thus, I could have voted for a finding of a violation of Article 6 only, which in the present case did not entail any award for non-pecuniary damage.