nature (see judgment of 16 May 2000, cited above). Accordingly, the Constitutional Court concluded that the legislator may decide, having regard to the public purposes, that certain objects necessary for the survival of the population, may be transferred to the respective municipal authority in the course of insolvency proceedings. The Government itself noted that the Town Council transferred the company's property lawfully and in the public interest.
60. The public nature of the municipal company's functions and its ensuing dependence on the municipal authorities were amply demonstrated by the process of the company's liquidation. The Administration decided to wind up the company and, furthermore, disposed of the company's assets as it saw fit: they were transferred to MUP Teploenergiya, a newly-created unitary enterprise performing the same functions as the debtor company (compare, mutatis mutandis, Lisyanskiy, cited above, § 19).
61. The Court notes the Government's argument that the municipality was not the company's main debtor and should thus not be considered to have caused the company's insolvency. However, this fact does not in itself obviate the company's institutional and operational dependence on the municipal authorities as demonstrated above.
62. In view of the foregoing, and given in particular the public nature of the company's functions, the significant control over its assets by the municipal authority and the latter's decisions resulting in the transfer of these assets and the company's subsequent liquidation, the Court concludes that the company did not enjoy sufficient institutional and operational independence from the municipal authority. Accordingly, notwithstanding the company's status as a separate legal entity, the municipal authority, and hence the State, is to be held responsible under the Convention for its acts and omissions (see Mykhaylenky and Others, cited above, § 44; Lisyanskiy, cited above, § 20; Shlepkin, cited above, § 24; Grigoryev and Kakaurova, cited above, §§ 35 - 36; and {Kayapor} and Others, cited above, § 98).
63. The Government's objection must therefore be dismissed.
3. Non-exhaustion
64. The Government argued that the applicant had failed to exhaust the domestic remedies available to her, because she had not complained to the court about the bailiffs' and the insolvency manager's shortcomings. The applicant disagreed, having pointed out that she had raised her problem before various domestic authorities, but to no avail.
65. The Court reiterates that it is incumbent on the Government claiming non-exhaustion to satisfy the Court that the remedy was an effective one available in theory and in practice at the relevant time (see Akdivar and Others, cited above, § 68). In the present case, the Government have not shown how the suggested remedies would have met these requirements (compare, for example, John Sammut and Visa Investments Limited v. Malta (dec.), No. 27023/03, §§ 39 - 46, 16 October 2007). The Court notes, in particular, that insolvency proceedings in respect of the company started in 2001, the applicant had been placed on the list of the company's creditors and notified thereof by the insolvency manager. By the time the insolvency proceedings commenced, the debtor company had already been unable to meet the creditors' claims for some time. The Court concludes that, in these circumstances, any civil action against the authorities would not bring the applicant closer to her goal, that is the payment of the judgment debt (see Grigoryev and Kakaurova, cited above, § 29).
The Court finally notes that, insofar as the judgments given in the applicant's favour were apparently not enforced owing to the alleged lack of funds on the part of the debtor company, this deficit was caused, to a lar
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