DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE STEINER

I unfortunately cannot agree with the majority ' s finding in this case, that there has been a violation of Article 6 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 thereto, for the following reasons:

On 17 January 2005 the applicant company entered into an agreement with the Khabarovsk Town Council in order to settle the case. In this settlement it agreed explicitly to “renounce all other pecuniary claims ... .”.

In my view, if the applicant company had wished to proceed with the application before us (especially as it was represented by a lawyer) this point would have been excluded from the settlement. For me the dispute was settled in its entirety by that compromise.

The reason why I have come to this conclusion is that Article 37 of the Convention provides a better reason for a decision in this case. Article 37 has been inserted in order to give the Court a broad margin of appreciation when it is clear that the facts of the case disclose a situation in which an applicant has succeeded in his basic complaints before the domestic courts.

To decide otherwise in the present case appears too formalistic and contrary to the spirit of Article 37. It would be difficult to explain to the outside world why the Court, after having ascertained that the applicant explicitly renounced all other pecuniary claims against Russia in the framework of an agreement entered into freely by both sides, has decided to continue the examination of a case which is in fact now an abstract one.