PARTLY DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE DE MEYER

( Translation )

The amount awarded to the applicant for pecuniary damage is greater than that obtained from a calculation of interest accrued due at the contractual rate of 12% up to the date of payment in full, but does not appear sufficiently to compensate for the loss caused by thirteen years of inflation [5] .

For this reason I was unable to approve point 5 of the operative provisions.

PARTLY DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE PALM

( Translation )

I consider that the question of the application of Article 50 of the Convention as regards pecuniary damage is not ready for determination. Consequently, I voted against point 2 of the operative provisions.

PARTLY DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE REPIK

( Translation )

I voted with the majority on all the points of the judgment except that concerning the award of 1,000,000 escudos to the applicant for pecuniary damage.

Paragraphs 47 to 51 of the judgment suggest that the award was made on the basis of two different premises: firstly, the claim had depreciated through inflation and, secondly, there was a small difference between the sum claimed and the sum awarded to the applicant which could not be accounted for by reference to the contractual interest rate of 12% for the thirteen years the proceedings lasted.

As to the latter ground, the sum of 722,135 escudos awarded to the applicant is equal to the balance of the proceeds of sale of the property securing the loan that was repossessed during the enforcement proceedings (see paragraphs 17, 18 and 21 of the judgment). The fact that the applicant was not repaid in full had, therefore, nothing to do with the length of the proceedings and I do not see why the State should be liable for the debtors’ inability to repay their debt.

With regard to the depreciation of the claim through inflation, the present case is entirely different from that of AkkuÅŸ v. Turkey (AkkuÅŸ v. Turkey judgment of 9 July 1997, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997-IV), in which the Court took that factor into account. The instant case concerned a commercial transaction between individuals and account should have been taken of the risk of inflation when contracting the loan. The State should be held liable for the effects of inflation only in exceptional circumstances such as those that existed in the AkkuÅŸ case.

[1] . This summary by the registry does not bind the Court.

[2] Notes by the Registrar

. The case is numbered 16 / 1997 / 800 / 1003 . The first number is the case’s position on the list of cases referred to the Court in the relevant year (second number). The last two numbers indicate the case’s position on the list of cases referred to the Court since its creation and on the list of the corresponding originating applications to the Commission.

[3] . Rules of Court B, which came into force on 2 October 1994, apply to all cases concerning States bound by Protocol No. 9.

[4] . Note by the Registrar . For practical reasons this annex will appear only with the printed version of the judgment (in Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998), but a copy of the Commission’s report is obtainable from the registry.

[5] 1. See, mutatis mutandis , the Akkuş v. Turkey judgment of 9 July 1997, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997-IV, p. 1310, §§ 30–31, and p. 1311, §§ 35–36.