4.  The applicant was born in 1961 and lives in Udachnyy, a town in the Sakha (Yakutiya) Republic of the Russian Federation. 5.  The applicant brought a civil action against the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, seeking to recover the monetary value of state promissory notes for purchase of a Russian-made car. 6.  On 2 April 2003 the Mirninskiy District Court of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutiya) found for the applicant and awarded him 138,967 Russian roubles. 7.  By a decision of 14 May 2003 the Supreme Court of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutiya) rejected an appeal by the Ministry of Finance and upheld the judgment. On the same date the judgment of 2 April 2003 acquired legal force but it has never been enforced. 8.  On 16 July 2004 a judge of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutiya) referred the case to the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutiya), upon the defendant's application for supervisory review. 9.  On 12 August 2004 the Presidium quashed the judgment of 2 April 2003, as upheld by the decision of 14 May 2003, and dismissed the applicant's claim in full. In so deciding, the Presidium noted that the courts had failed to take into account the provisions of the Federal Law on State Promissory notes of 1 June 1995, as amended on 2 June 2000, which extended the period of redemption of the state promissory notes until 31 December 2004. In the Presidium's assessment, that failure amounted to a substantial violation of the material law warranting a re-examination of the case.