A. Council of Europe
1. Committee of Ministers
39. On 3 - 5 December 2007 the Committee of Ministers resumed consideration under Article 46 § 2 of the Convention of the group of the Court's judgments against Russia concerning failure to enforce or delays in the enforcement of domestic judgments (Timofeyev and others group, CM/Del/OJ/DH(2007)1013 Public). The following decision was adopted by the Committee on 19 December 2007 (CM/Del/Dec(2007)1013 FINAL):
"The Deputies, (...)
1. recalled that these judgments reveal various structural problems in the Russian legal system which, by their nature and scale, severely affect its effectiveness and cause very numerous violations of the Convention an increasing number of which are complained of before the Court;
2. took note, with interest, of various measures adopted or being taken by certain competent authorities to prevent new similar violations and to remedy those that have already occurred by setting up or improving appropriate domestic procedures, measures which remain to be taken;
3. emphasised anew that the problems revealed by the judgments require urgent solutions in order to ensure that the relevant Convention rights are adequately protected at the domestic level, thus preventing an exceedingly high number of similar applications to the Court;
4. invited the competent authorities to continue bilateral consultations with the Secretariat with a view to establishing a proper strategy for adoption of the necessary measures, including the setting up of effective domestic remedies; (...)"
40. The problems underlying the non-enforcement of domestic judgments in Russia and various measures taken or considered by the authorities in the context of the implementation of the Court's judgments were addressed in detail in the Committee of Ministers' documents CM/Inf/DH(2006)45 of 1 December 2006 and CM/Inf/DH(2006)19rev3 of 4 June 2007. The latter document presented the progress so far achieved by the Russian authorities, pointed at a number of outstanding questions and proposed further measures with a view to a comprehensive solution of the problem. The main avenues of action proposed were summarised as follows (see CM/Inf/DH(2006)19rev3, cited above, page 1):
"- Improvement of budgetary procedures and of practical implementation of the budget decisions;
- Identifying a specific state authority as a defendant;
- Ensuring effective compensation for delays (indexation, default interest, specific damages, penalties for delays);
- Increasing the effectiveness of domestic remedies for proper enforcement of judicial decisions;
- Improvement of the legal framework governing compulsory execution against the public authorities;
- Ensuring effective liability of civil servants for non-enforcement;
Special consideration is given to possible ways of ensuring coherence of the present execution mechanisms by allowing the Treasury and the bailiffs to act in a complementary manner in their respective fields of competence and under appropriate judicial review. A strong emphasis is also put on possible ways of preventing litigation against the State through improved budgetary proceedings, which would allow the State to timely comply with its pecuniary obligations."
41. In Recommendation Rec(2004)6 to member states on the improvement of domestic remedies adopted on 12 May 2004, the Committee of Ministers recommended inter alia that:
"(...) member states review, following Court judgments which point to structural or general deficiencies in national law or practice, the effectiveness of the existing domestic remedies and, where necessary, set up effective remedies, in order to avoid repetitive cases being brought before the Court (...)"
42. The Appendix to the Recommendation furth
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