DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE KOVLER

I cannot share the conclusion of the majority that there has been a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 on account of the discontinuation of the enforcement of the judgment in favour of the applicant against a private bank.

The first reason for my disagreement is that, generally speaking, a State, according to the Court ' s case-law, is not responsible for savings deposited in private banks (see X v. Germany (dec.), no. 8724/79, Commission decision of 6 March 1980, Decisions and Reports 20; Rudzi Å„ ska v. Poland (dec.), no. 45223/99, ECHR 1999-VI; Gayduk and Others v. Ukraine (dec.), nos. 45526/99 et al., ECHR 2002-VI; and Appolonov v. Russia (dec.), no. 67598/01, 29 August 2002).

The second reason is that the Court ' s case-law is rather clear: the State ' s responsibility for enforcement of a judgment against a private company extends no further than the involvement of State bodies in the enforcement procedures. Once the enforcement procedures have been closed by a court in accordance with the national legislation, the responsibility of the State ends (see, among other authorities, Shestakov v. Russia (dec.), no. 48757/99, 18 June 2002).

The Court has repeatedly stated that where a judgment is given against the State, the latter must take the initiative in enforcing it fully and in due time (see, among other authorities, Akashev v. Russia , no. 30616/05, §§ 21 ‑ 23, 12 June 2008, and Burdov v. Russia , no. 59498/00, §§ 32-42, ECHR 2002-III). When the debtor is a private individual or company, the position is different, since the State is not, as a general rule, directly liable for debts of private individuals or companies and its obligations under the Convention are limited to providing the necessary assistance to the creditor in the enforcement of the relevant court awards, for example through a bailiffs ' service or insolvency proceedings (see Kesyan v. Russia , no. 36496/02, 19 October 2006, and Fociac v. Romania , no. 2577/02, §§ 69 ‑ 70, 3 February 2005). The Court has also found that the principle that judgments must be executed cannot be interpreted as compelling the State to take the place of a private defendant in the event of the latter ' s insolvency (see Reynbakh v. Russia , no. 23405/03 § 18, 29 September 2005, and Bobrova v. Russia , no. 24654/03, § 16, 17 November 2005).

Finally, in the particular circumstances of the present case the applicant accepted the bank ' s offer to have the outstanding amount in United States dollars converted into Russian roubles and the amount was transferred to his account in another bank (see paragraph 12 of the judgment). Having considered the applicant ' s claim for the third time, on 28 March 2001 the Town Court took in to account the Bank ' s representative ' s statement that the applicant had agreed for his monies to be transferred to another bank and accordingly had forfeited his rights to claim the interest, but granted the applicant ' s claim in part (see paragraph 19 of the judgment ). It seems that the main problem is the value of the award, but o n many occasions the Court has stated that a national judge is better placed than an international judge to decide on such matters .

Thus, I am not convinced that the application for discontinuation of the enforcement of the judgment in the applicant ' s favour was “an appeal in disguise” as the Court stated (see paragraph 35).