Futornyak v. Ukraine (dec.) - 41678/20, Decision 4.6.2024
Citation: Futornyak v. Ukraine (dec.) - 41678/20, Decision 4.6.2024
Rule of thumb : Are relatively small amounts of criminal injuries/damage compensation in state aid a violation of Article 2 & 3 ECHR? No, even though the sums provided are small this is not deemed to be a violation of the ECHR.
Facts: The basic facts of this case were that Futornyak’s car was destroyed by a Russian bomb. There was no mechanism available for him to claim the cost of this.
Parties argued:He argued that the failure by the Government to provide state aid for this was a violation of the Human Right to Private Property, Protocol 1 Article 1, as well a violation of the Right to a Remedy, Article 13.
Judgment:
The Court refused this application. It held that there is no positive obligation upon the Government of a country to introduce state aid for people to claim for damages caused by another country’s acts of war upon them. How an individual divided up their state aid budget for acts of terrorism and war by & large falls within an individual country’s margin of appreciation, and it would only be in extremely exceptional circumstances that this would not be the case.
‘31. Insofar as the applicant complains, in addition, that the very failure of the Ukrainian Parliament to adopt additional legislation providing for an enforceable right to compensation in situations such as that at issue and setting out the conditions and modalities for the exercise of such a right was in itself in breach of the respondent State’s duties flowing from Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, the Court emphasises at the outset that the State’s obligation to protect the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions guaranteed by Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention is not absolute and cannot extend further than what is reasonable in the circumstances (see, mutatis mutandis, Hadzhiyska v. Bulgaria (dec.), no. 20701/09, 15 May 2012). Nonetheless, without there being a need to determine whether in the circumstances of the present case Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention could be interpreted in the sense of giving rise to an obligation to adopt a compensation mechanism for damage resulting from terrorist acts, the Court considers that this part of the applicant’s complaint is in any event inadmissible for loss of victim status within the meaning of Article 34 of the Convention and the Court’s case-law. Indeed, the Court observes that in the domestic proceedings brought by the applicant the Supreme Court acknowledged the State’s failure to introduce an appropriate mechanism for compensation for damage caused by a terrorist act and awarded the applicant approximately EUR 332 in compensation for that omission (see paragraph 16 above).
32. As regards Article 13, the Court, having found the complaints under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention inadmissible, also concludes that the applicant has no arguable claim for the purposes of Article 13 of the Convention (see, mutatis mutandis, Rodić and Others v. Bosnia and Herzegovina, no. 22893/05, § 82, 27 May 2008). It follows that the latter provision did not apply and that, therefore, the complaint under Article 13 is incompatible ratione materiae with the Convention and must be rejected pursuant to its Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4’.
Judges: Mattias Guyomar, President; Carlo Ranzoni; Mārtiņš Mits; Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström; María Elósegui; Mykola Gnatovskyy; Stéphane Pisani.
Warning: This is not professional legal advice. This is not professional legal education advice. Please obtain professional guidance before embarking on any legal course of action. This is just an interpretation of a Judgment by persons of legal insight & varying levels of legal specialism, experience & expertise. Please read the Judgment yourself and form your own interpretation of it with professional assistance.