CASE OF ANDREYEVA v. RUSSIA
Violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 - Protection of property (Article 1 para. 1 of Protocol No. 1 - Peaceful enjoyment of possessions)
Anatoly Kovler;Elisabeth Steiner;Erik Møse;Julia Laffranque;Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos;Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska
5. The applicant was born in 1918 and lives in St Petersburg. 6. The applicant holds a number of premium bonds issued in 1982 (“the 1982 USSR bonds”, облигации Государственного внутреннего выигрышного займа 1982 года). She deposited them in 1986 with Sberbank (“the Savings Bank” – Сбербанк России). 7. In December 1991 the USSR was dissolved. In February 1992 the Government of Russia acknowledged that the 1982 USSR bonds held by Russian nationals were a part of its internal debt. Later that year the Russian Government proposed a settlement to the holders of the 1982 USSR bonds (“the redemption scheme”). The redemption scheme provided for conversion of the 1982 USSR bonds into Russian bonds issued in 1992 or, alternatively, their buy-out by the Savings Bank at a price fixed by the Government. The applicant did not react to that offer, so, according to Governmental Decree no. 549 of 5 August 1992 describing the means of the redemption scheme, her bonds were automatically acquired by the Savings Bank. The bonds were extinguished and the redemption price of the 1982 USSR bonds was credited to the applicant’s bank account. 8. Between 1995 and 2000, a series of Russian laws was adopted which provided for the conversion of Soviet securities, including the 1982 USSR bonds, into special Russian promissory notes. In particular, on 6 July 1996 the Promissory Value Act introduced the “promissory rouble” as the currency of special promissory notes issued by the Russian Federation. On 4 February 1999 the Base Value Act set out the general approach to be taken as regards the conversion of “promissory roubles” into Russian roubles. The Government were mandated to devise a more detailed procedure for the conversion. Although a regulation on the conversion process was adopted by the Government in 2000 (“Resolution no. 82”), the actual conversion did not start and application of the regulation has remained suspended, by a series of resolutions, to the present day. The application of the Base Value Act was suspended from 1 January 2003 to 1 January 2012 by successive federal laws. 9. In the 1990s the applicant brought proceedings against the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation and the Savings Bank seeking damages for the loss of value of her bonds. The first judgment on the merits was rendered in 1998. On 3 April 2003, following several rounds of court proceedings, the Basmanniy District Court of Moscow dismissed her claim. She appealed. 10. On 22 October 2003 the Moscow City Court, sitting as a court of appeal, satisfied her claim in part. In particular, the City Court found that the compulsory redemption of the bonds in 1992 had breached the applicant’s rights. The City Court ordered that the applicant should be restored to the same position as other bondholders, whose bonds had not been subjected to compulsory redemption and had later been converted into special promissory notes of the Russian Federation. The City Court acknowledged the applicant’s right to eighty-four special promissory notes having a total nominal value of 3,185 “promissory roubles”. The court also “acknowledged the applicant’s right to obtain redemption of the notes from the State, under the conditions established by the legislation in force for the holders of special promissory notes”. 11. The applicant brought supervisory review proceedings, but to no avail. In the ruling of 23 August 2004 a judge of the Moscow City Court explained that in the absence of a specific law defining the terms and conditions of the redemption of the special promissory notes, the State had no obligation to pay the applicant any particular amount. 12. On 22 February 2006 the applicant obtained a writ of execution against the Ministry of Finance in pursuance of the judgment of 22 October 2003. The writ was valid for three years. However, it was not enforced. The Government claimed that the applicant had not tried to enforce the writ by serving it on the Ministry of Finance. 13. In the following years the applicant initiated several sets of court proceedings against various State bodies and officials, seeking damages for the lengthy non-enforcement of the judgment of 22 October 2003, complaining of the failure of the Government and of the legislature to implement the Base Value Act, and so forth. It appears that all her claims were rejected, either for want of substantive jurisdiction over the dispute, or because the courts had found her claims unsubstantiated. In particular, the applicant sued the Ministry of Finance for its failure to redeem the promissory notes, claiming 110,000,000 Russian roubles under the heads of pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage. On 13 January 2009 the Moscow City Court, acting as the court of final instance, rejected her claims against the Ministry of Finance on the grounds that similar claims has already been examined in 2003, and, furthermore, the applicant had failed to justify the amount sought from the defendant. 14. For the relevant domestic law on State premium bonds and promissory notes of the Russian Federation, see the case of Yuriy Lobanov v. Russia, no. 15578/03, §§ 13 et seq., 2 December 2010.