NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

The case of Amat-G Ltd and Mebaghishvili v. Georgia 1030 also related to a breach of Article 13 in conjunction with Article 6 of the Convention. 1031 In the instant case, a limited liability company, Amat-G, lodged complaints with the Court under Article 13 of the Convention. The Court concluded that there has been a breach of this Article providing the following argumentation: “39. The Court notes that the enforcement officer, who is a State officer in charge of the execution of judicial decisions, took certain measures to ensure the execution of the judgment of 6 December 1999. However, in the present case the debtor is a State body and the enforcement of a judicial decision against it depends on the allocation of provisions from the State budget (see paragraph 27 above). Consequently, the enforcement of the judgment of 6 December 1999 was contingent upon appropriate budgetary measures rather than on the enforcement officer’s conduct (see Romashov v. Ukraine , no. 67534/01, § 31, 27 July 2004). The applicant company cannot therefore be reproached for not having brought criminal proceedings against him (see Shestakov v. Russia (dec.), no. 48757/99, 18 June 2002), and it has therefore complied with the requirements of Article 35 § 1 of the Convention. 40. Accordingly, the Court dismisses the Government’s objection. The applicant company’s complaint under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention must therefore be declared admissible. … 51. The applicant company complained of a violation of Article 13 of the Convention, claiming that it had no effective remedy for its Convention claims. 52. The Government maintained that the applicant company had at its disposal effective criminal-law remedies to challenge the non-enforcement of the court judgment given in its favour. The Government referred, in this regard, to their earlier arguments on the exhaustion of domestic remedies (see paragraph 37 above). 53. However, the Court refers to its findings on this point (see paragraphs 39-40 above). For the same reasons, it concludes that the applicant company did not have an effective domestic remedy, as required by Article 13 of the Convention, to redress the damage created by the delay in the proceedings in issue (see Voytenko v. Ukraine , no. 18966/02, §§ 46-48, 29 June 2004). 54. Accordingly, there has been a breach of this provision .” 1032 The inability to obtain a redress caused by the extreme length of proceedings was also the issue in the case of Paratheristikos Oikodomikos Synetairismos Stegaseos Ypallilon Trapezis Tis Ellados v. Greece . 1033 The applicant in the present case was an association of employees of the Bank of Greece called ‘Paratheristikos Oikodomikos Synetairismos Stegaseos Ypallilon Trapezis Tis Ellados’, which was set up with the sole aim of building a holiday centre for the Bank’s employees on land it acquired for this purpose. The association complained that the authorities had changed the status of the land concerned, prohibiting the construction of developments such as the one featured in its plans, in violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the 1030 Amat-G Ltd , cited above. 1031 Tort Law in the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights . Berlin : De Gruyter, 2011, p. 530. 1032 Amat-G Ltd , cited above, §§ 39-40 and §§ 51-54. 1033 Paratheristikos Oikodomikos Synetairismos Stegaseos YpallilonTrapezis Tis Ellados v. Greece , no. 2998/08, § 38, 3 May 2011.

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