ion lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms ("the Convention") by a Russian national, Mrs Anna Stefanovna Menchinskaya ("the applicant"), on 14 May 2001.
2. The Russian Government ("the Government") were represented by Mr P. Laptev, the former Representative of the Russian Federation at the European Court of Human Rights.
3. The applicant alleged, in particular, that the principle of equality of arms in the proceedings on her civil claim had been infringed as the prosecutor had entered the proceedings on the side of the State agency.
4. On 23 June 2005 the President of the First Section decided to give notice of the application to the Government. It was also decided to examine the merits of the application at the same time as its admissibility (Article 29 § 3).
5. The Government objected to the joint examination of the admissibility and merits of the application. Having examined the Government's objection, the Court dismissed it.
THE FACTS
I. The circumstances of the case
6. The applicant was born in 1949 and lives in Norilsk in the Krasnoyarsk Region of the Russian Federation.
7. In August 1998 the applicant, formerly an engineer in a public company, was made redundant. On 3 September 1998 she was registered in the Norilsk Employment Centre.
8. As the unemployment allowances were paid to the applicant after a substantial delay and, as she believed, their calculation was not correct, in March 2000 she sued the Norilsk Employment Centre for the allowance arrears, adjusted for inflation, and interest thereon.
9. On 25 September 2000 the Norilsk Town Court of the Krasnoyarsk Region allowed the applicant's claims in part. It awarded her 677.35 Russian roubles (RUR) for arrears and RUR 4,568.53 for the indexation of the arrears to take account of inflation. Basing its award on Article 395 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation the court also granted the applicant RUR 8,102.50 as interest on belated payments.
10. On 2 and 25 October 2000 the applicant lodged an appeal, arguing that the claims rejected by the first-instance court should have been granted.
11. On 9 October 2000 the Norilsk Employment Centre lodged an appeal. It claimed that labour legislation did not provide for an interest on unemployment allowances and therefore requested that the judgment in this part be quashed.
12. On 12 October 2000 the Norilsk Town Prosecutor filed an appeal (protest) against the judgment, exercising his power under Article 282 of the RSFSR Code of Civil Procedure. He submitted that the first-instance court had erroneously applied provisions of civil law to labour law relations and therefore unlawfully granted interest on belated payments in the applicant's favour. In his view, no interest was payable in respect of belated unemployment allowances, thus he requested the Court of Appeal to quash the judgment in this part. The Prosecutor also supported the part of the judgment which rejected the remainder of the applicant's claims.
13. A copy of the prosecutor's protest was served on the applicant on 18 October 2000, and she submitted her objections on 25 October 2000.
14. Having examined the appeals and the prosecutor's protest and having heard the judge-rapporteur and the prosecutor, on 29 November 2000 the Krasnoyarsk Regional Court upheld the arguments made by the Employment Centre and the prosecutor. Finding that the Civil Code was not applicable in the sphere of unemployment benefits, it quashed the first-instance court's judgment in the part granting the applicant RUR 8,102.50 as interest on belated payments.
15. The applicant's attempts to institute supervisory review proceedings proved to be unsuccessful.
II.
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