The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), in the case Shmatko and Others v. Russia – 6 July 2017, found that, since execution of a judgment given by any court must be regarded as an integral part of a “hearing” for the purposes of Article 6, non-enforcement or delayed enforcement of domestic decisions constitute violation of Article 6. Having regard to the nature of the judicial awards in the applicants’ favour, the Court considered that the applicants had, by virtue of these judgments, a “legitimate expectation” to acquire a pecuniary asset, which was sufficiently established to constitute a “possession” within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. The Court found that the authorities did not deploy all necessary efforts to enforce fully and in due time the decisions in the applicants’ favour.
The Court referred to its previous case law (Hornsby v. Greece n. 1835/91 and Gerasimov and Others v. Russia n. 29920/05).
