European Court of Human Rights: review of the decision of 30 January 2018 (Third Section) in the case of Shtolts and Others v. Russia (application no. 77056/14)

The decision of the European Court of Human Rights (Section III) in the case of Shtolts and Others v. Russia concerns the non-enforcement of, or delays in the enforcement of judgments ordering the State to provide applicants with social housing leading to potential violations of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 1 of Protocol No.1 to the Convention. The present case was examined in light of the pilot judgment in Gerasimov and Others v. Russia, in which the Court ordered Russia to create effective remedies for situations of non-enforcement or delayed enforcement. In the present case, the Court applied an exception to the principle of exhaustion of domestic remedies which implies that the assessment of whether these remedies were exhausted is normally carried out with reference to the date of application to the Court. The Court concluded that the application at hand is inadmissible under Article 35 §1 and §4, since the applicants failed to exhaust all available domestic remedies including the amended law on compensation adopted in compliance with the pilot judgment Gerasimov and Others v. Russia, notwithstanding that the application in the present case was lodged before any amendments to the national law. Thus, all complaints falling under the amended law on compensation must first be lodged with domestic courts to ensure the exhaustion of all domestic remedies including the new compensatory mechanism.

Citation: (2018) Evropeyskiy Sud po pravam cheloveka: obzor resheniya ot 30 yanvarya 2018 (Sektsiya III) po delu Shtol’ts (Sht15lts) i drugie protiv Rossii (zhaloba no.77056/14) [European Court of Human Rights: review of the decision of 30 January 2018 (Third Section) in the case of Shtolts and Others v. Russia(application no.77056/14)]. Mezhdunarodnoe pravosudie, vol.8, no.2, pp.11–15. (In Russian).