DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE DEDOV

I regret that I cannot agree with the majority that there has been no violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. Unfortunately, the reasoning of the Court ’ s judgment and the reasoning of the domestic courts are too general and not clear enough to enable me to make a judgment based on full information about the present case. The Court limited itself to stating in paragraph 3 3 that “the Administrative Court of Appeal demonstrated to the parties that it agreed with the lower court ’ s reasoning and that the new evidence before it did not alter its conclusion”.

However, the domestic courts expressed different opinions on the circumstances that would exclude the applicant from entitlement to the life annuity. According to the County Administrative Court, the case material “did not adequately support the conclusion that the applicant, in his work, had been subject to any harmful influences which, with a high degree of probability, could have caused or aggravated his problems” (see paragraph 10 of the judgment). As I understand this statement, the standard for the establishment of a causal link is not very high (a probability criterion is allowed, and the problems may be either caused or aggravated by harmful effects at work). However, as it appears from the present judgment, the national courts did not provide any explanation as to the nature of the applicant ’ s back pain and his other health problems; furthermore, they did not conduct any analysis of his working conditions and their potentially harmful consequences. It is not explained whether the existing diseases were caused by any alternative factors and what the usual harmful effects attributable to a particular kind of activity are.

It is well known that driving and lifting (as explained in the applicant ’ s submissions) may cause various problems with the back. Those problems are usually recognised as occupational diseases linked to these types of activity. Moreover, the authorities did not take into account the fact that the applicant is a disabled person. In general, I must admit that the applicant produced an arguable claim, so that the authorities should have provided him with a detailed examination of each element of the causal link to be established. However, in spite of the additional expert opinion, the appeal court, surprisingly, came to an even more far-reaching conclusion, and was even more confident that the applicant ’ s back-related and other problems could not be defined as a work-related injury (see paragraph 1 4 of the judgment).

The absence of any explanation as to why the domestic authorities came to the above conclusions prevented me from joining the majority in the present case. According to the established case-law, reflecting a principle linked to the proper administration of justice, judgments of courts and tribunals should adequately state the reasons on which they are based (see Garcia Ruíz v. Spain [GC], no. 30544/96, § 26, ECHR 1999-I).