KRYLKOV v. RUSSIA (European Court of Human Rights)

Last Updated on April 24, 2019 by LawEuro

Communicated on 6 February 2019

THIRD SECTION

Application no.6442/18
Roman Valentinovich KRYLKOV
against Russia
lodged on 29 January 2018

STATEMENT OF FACTS

The applicant, Mr Roman ValentinovichKrylkov, is a Russian national, who was born in 1961 and lives in St Petersburg. He is represented before the Court by Mr L.G. Gribov, a lawyer practising in St Petersburg.

A.  The circumstances of the case

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.

On 25 March 2009 the applicant joined criminal proceedings, instituted against a third party, as a civil party and lodged a claim to compensate for the damage constituted as a result of the criminal offence.

On 12 February 2015 the Justice of the Peace of No. 52 court circuit discontinued the proceedings and dismissed the applicant’s claims on the ground that the statutory time-limit for criminal prosecution had expired. The court further ruled that the applicant could lodge a separate complaint under the law of civil procedure to recover damages.

On 11 March 2015 the applicant lodged a separate application with the Moscow District Court of St. Petersburg with the same claim as in the first set of proceedings.

On 15 March 2016 the first instance court rejected the applicant’s claim. The applicant appealed.

On 22 August 2016 the St. Petersburg City Court quashed the judgment of 15 March 2016 and granted the applicant’s appeal awarding him 525,310 Russian roubles (RUB) as compensation for the damage and RUB 32,820 for costs and expenses (7,266 and 418 euros respectively).

In February 2017 the applicant applied to the St. Petersburg City Court for compensation for lengthy proceedings lasted from 2009 to 2016.

On 30 March 2017 the St. Petersburg City Court rejected the applicant’s complaint on the ground that the proceedings started from 11 March 2015 and lasted until 22 August 2016 (one year and five months), which was not contrary to the Court’s case-law and could not be said to be excessively long. As for the length of the criminal proceedings the court referred to that part of the applicant’s claim as “unsubstantiated”.

On 29 November 2017 the applicant’s appeal against that judgment was dismissed by the Single Judge of the Supreme Court in the final instance with the same reasoning as in the judgment of the first instance court.

B.  Relevant domestic law

The relevant domestic law governing the procedure for compensation for violation of the right to a trial within a reasonable time is summed up in the Court’s decision in the case of (see Nagovitsyn and Nalgiyev v. Russia (dec.), nos. 27451/09 and 60650/09, 23 September 2010).

COMPLAINT

The applicant complains under Article 6 and Article 13 of the Convention about the excessive length of criminal and civil proceedings and lack of an effective domestic remedy in this respect.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1.  Has there been a violation of Article 6 of the Convention on account of excessive length of proceedings? In particular were there delays in criminal and subsequent civil proceedings? If so, to what extent were they attributable to the authorities?

2.  Having regard to the proceedings instituted by the applicant under the Law no. 68-FZ of 30 April 2010, “On Compensation for Violation of the Right to a Trial within a Reasonable Time or the Right to Enforcement of a Judgment within a Reasonable Time” (“the Compensation Act”), did the applicant have an effective domestic remedy for the excessive length of proceedings, as required by Article 13 of the Convention?

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