CONCURRING OPINION OF JUDGE KOVLER

Whereas I concur with the Chamber ' s finding that there has been a violation of Article 6 of the Convention on account of a lengthy non-enforcement of a judicial decision in the applicant ' s favour and, as a consequence, a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, I would like to discuss in more detail the Government ' s objection to the admissibility of the application founded on the premise that self-government (municipal) bodies do not form part of the system of State bodies by virtue of Article 12 of the Russian Constitution (see paragraph 15 of the judgment) and, consequently, the State is not responsible for the acts of the Chapayevsk Social Security Service.

1. As the national judge, I bear witness to many discussions about Article 12 of the Constitution and, especially, of its provision that “local self-government bodies shall not form part of the system of State bodies”. Contradictory interpretations of that provision were given in the light of Article 132 § 2 of the Constitution which conferred public-law functions on the local self-government bodies: “Local self-government bodies may be vested by law with certain State functions and accordingly receive material and financial resources which are necessary for their implementation. The implementation of the State functions shall be controlled by the State”.

It is understood that the Chapayevsk Social Security Service exercised precisely public-law functions, including the social protection of the population, even though emoluments were payable from the local rather than federal budget.

2. The protection of social rights of individuals is an integral part of the general system for the protection of human rights which, under the Russian Constitution, is either under the exclusive jurisdiction of the federation (Article 71) or under the joint jurisdiction of the federation and its constituent entities (Article 72), but never, and I emphasise – never , under the exclusive jurisdiction of a constituent entity.

If it were otherwise, the State would not be responsible for ensuring effective respect for many individual rights, including those enshrined in Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. Obviously, such a construction would be contrary to Article 1 of the Convention and to the “ordinary meaning” of the term “jurisdiction”. Explaining the meaning of Article 1 of the Convention, the Court noted that it “makes no distinction as to the type of rule or measure concerned, and does not exclude any part of the member States ' ' jurisdiction ' from scrutiny under the Convention” ( Matthews v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 24833/94, § 29 , ECHR 1999 ‑ I ).

I will not speculate about a possible breach of the “vertical of power”. If the term “jurisdiction” is to be linked to the concept of “responsibility”, the argument that a State is not responsible for the acts (failures to act) of the agencies located within its territory, even if those are municipal agencies, is unsustainable. Indeed, as the Court noted on many occasions, a State is not responsible for the obligations of “third parties”, such as private individuals, companies or banks (see, among others, Shestakov v. Russia (dec.), no. 48757/99, 18 June 2002 ). However, it is highly unlikely that the Court would include municipal bodies in that category of “third persons”, even having regard to the respondent State ' s margin of appreciation.

Once the Court rejected the argument by a State that denied its responsibility for the acts of the independent judicial authorities: “In all cases before the Court, what is in issue is the international responsibility of the State” ( Lukanov v. Bulgaria , judgment of 20 March 1997 , Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997 ‑ II, § 40).

[1] The amount is indicated without regard to the revaluation of 1998. In accordance with the Presidential Decree “On the Modification of the Face Value of Russian Currency and Standards of Value” of 4 August 1997 , 1,000 “old” roubles became 1 “new” rouble as of 1 January 1998 .

[2] The amount is indicated with regard to the revaluation of 1998. It thus corresponded to 16,000,000 “old” roubles.