lodged the application with the Court. It was for the State to provide the applicant with adequate and sufficient redress in respect of this complaint in a timely manner, that is to say before the Court examined the case (see mutatis mutandis the criteria established in the Scordino case, cited in paragraph 69 above).
79. In the Court's opinion, the mere reopening of the case was not sufficient to deprive the applicant of his victim status. This view is closely linked to the particular features of the Russian system of supervisory review, as it was at the material time (see paragraphs 42 - 45 above). In the first place, there were no limits as to the number of times and the circumstances in which the case could be reopened. Second, reopening depended on the discretion of the State prosecutor or judge who decided whether a supervisory-review complaint or application deserved to be examined on the merits. Whether it was a prosecutor lodging an application for reopening or the president of the court reversing a decision of a judge not to entertain a supervisory-review complaint, the decision might be taken proprio motu. This would make it possible for the respondent State to evade the Court's substantive review by continuously reopening the proceedings.
80. Such a possibility was not only theoretical. In a number of Russian cases domestic criminal proceedings were reopened shortly after the communication of a case to the Government, but many months or even years after the closure of the original case - see, among other examples, the cases of Zaytsev v. Russia, No. 22644/02, §§ 9 - 11, 16 November 2006; Laryagin and Aristov v. Russia, Nos. 38697/02 and 14711/03, §§ 18 - 19, 8 January 2009; Sibgatullin v. Russia, No. 32165/02, § 13, 23 April 2009; Baklanov v. Russia (dec.), No. 68443/01, 6 May 2003; Mikadze v. Russia (dec.), No. 52697/99, 3 May 2005; Gorodnichev v. Russia (dec.), No. 52058/99, 3 May 2005; Fedorov v. Russia (dec.), No. 63997/00, 6 October 2005; Fedosov, cited above; and Makhkyagin v. Russia (dec.), No. 39537/03, 1 October 2009. Similar examples can be found in the case-law concerning the use of supervisory review in civil cases (see, for instance, Ryabykh v. Russia, No. 52854/99, ECHR 2003-IX and follow-up cases). These cases demonstrate a clear link between the communication and the reopening of a case.
81. Further, in certain cases the connection between communication of the case and the reopening has been even more evident. Thus, in the case of Nurmagomedov v. Russia ((dec.), No. 30138/02, 16 September 2004) it was not until the European Court intervened that the prosecutor lodged an application for supervisory review of a court's ruling, whereas earlier the same prosecutor had dismissed the applicant's complaint about that very ruling saying that it had been "well-reasoned and lawful". In the case of Adzhigovich (cited above, §§ 11 and 12) the applicant's numerous supervisory-review appeals had been rejected several times prior to communication of the case, whereas the same appeals were accepted for examination after the case had been communicated to the respondent Government. Finally, in the present case the applicant's own efforts to obtain supervisory review of the first judgment were futile until such time as the Prosecutor General's office felt compelled to intervene following notification that the applicant had turned to this Court for redress (see paragraphs 24 and 25 above).
82. Against this background the Court has reached the following conclusion. Domestic proceedings are frequently reopened at the instigation of the Russian authorities when they learn that the case has been admitted for examination in Strasbourg. Sometimes it benefits the applicant, in which case the reopening serves a useful purpose. However, given the ease with which the Government uses this procedure, there is also a risk of abuse. If the Court were to acce
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