In the Chelyabinsk region, officials are charged 20 thousand euros for failure to comply with a court decision
In the Chelyabinsk region, Vladimir Tsarelungo, an activist from the Yasnaya Polyana rural settlement, filed an administrative lawsuit seeking compensation for non-enforcement of a court decision made eight years ago. Then the court ordered the administration of Yasnye Polyany to restore the water supply to the residents of houses located along Lenin Street, in one of which Tsarelungo lives. However, this decision was not implemented. Therefore, the activist decided through the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation to collect compensation from officials for the inconvenience caused in the amount of 20 thousand euros.
As Vladimir Tsarelungo told Znak.com, his house No. 10, as well as three more (No. 8, 12 and 14), located along Lenin Street in Yasnye Polyany, were previously powered from a well on the territory of an administrative building. The well was once built by the residents themselves to provide centralized water supply for their homes, as well as hospitals and a number of other facilities.
“In 2013, Lyudmila Shatalova, being the head of the Troitsky district, ordered to cut off our houses from the water and bring water from the well to the school and the store,” recalls Vladimir Tsarelungo. “It happened because the tower, which was being built for the Yasnaya Polyana school and with which it was possible to provide water to the entire settlement, was sold for scrap. Although there it was only necessary to replace the pump. I found out about this and fought with the administration. As a result, we were left without water. Who dug wells, who dug wells.
Residents of four houses did not agree with this state of affairs and sent a complaint to the district prosecutor’s office. The supervisory agency, in turn, filed a lawsuit against the administration of the Yasnaya Polyana rural settlement to protect the rights of interests of an indefinite number of persons. On December 13, 2013, the court satisfied the demands of the prosecutor’s office and charged the municipality with the obligation to restore the water supply to the houses located along Lenin Street by November 1, 2014. On February 27, 2014, the Chelyabinsk Regional Court upheld the decision of the court of first instance, but excluded from the operative part the phrase “by constructing a water pipeline from an existing well.”
Eight years have passed since then, but the court’s decision has not been executed. Why, Vladimir Tsarelungo understood later.
“I participated in the consideration of this case as a third party. The basis for the suit of the prosecutor’s office was a collective statement of the residents of houses No. 8, 10, 12, 14 on Lenin Street in the village of Yasnye Polyany, which was sent to the prosecutor’s office of the Troitsky district. At the time of the issuance of this judicial act, I could not assess the legal consequences of this court decision, which could affect my rights and legitimate interests, as well as the rights and legitimate interests of the residents of these houses. But quite recently, I learned that enforcement proceedings under this judicial act, including enforcement actions of bailiffs, were carried out in relation to all 96 houses located on Lenin Street. Before that, I rightly believed that the court decision in this case concerned only four houses, the inhabitants of which filed a collective application with the prosecutor’s office in 2013. And it was the fact that four houses were disconnected from the centralized water supply that was considered in court, ”explains Vladimir Tsarelungo.
It turns out that the court ordered the administration of the settlement to restore the centralized water supply to all houses, including those where it never existed. Thus, the volume of obligations of the administration of the settlement increased 24 times. For the village administration, it turned out to be unbearable, because it required funding, which the settlement simply did not have.
“The prosecutor’s office and the courts at one time did not properly examine all the circumstances of the case. In particular, information about the lack of centralized water supply in the vast majority of houses located along Lenin Street in the village of Yasnye Polyany at the time of the court decision. But be that as it may, my legal rights and interests have been violated, so I went to court,” notes Vladimir Tsarelungo.
He filed his lawsuit against the administration of the Troitsky district, and not the settlement, since from January 1, 2015, the authority to organize water supply in settlements began to fall within the competence of municipal districts.
“As for the amount of compensation, here one should take into account the very long, perhaps unprecedented, period of non-execution of a judicial act. Based on the practice of the European Court of Human Rights, the amount of such compensation may be 20 thousand euros, in terms of the ruble equivalent, based on the exchange rate established by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation at the time the court decides to award compensation, ”wrote Vladimir Tsarelungo in the statement of claim .
He sent the document to the Troitsky District Court, which made a decision, as required by the Code of Administrative Procedure, but addressed it to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. However, the document was returned to him, and this was done by the same judge Elena Cheretskikh, who in 2013 ruled on the suit of the prosecutor’s office. Her response states that the plaintiff incorrectly determined the jurisdiction of the case, and the claim should be sent to the Chelyabinsk Regional Court. Tsarelungo was asked to correct the violations by sending an administrative claim to the regional court, paying the state duty, and then sending it back to the Troitsky District Court, which would redirect the materials further.
“It is very strange that the judge returned the claim instead of redirecting it to the Supreme Court within three days, while accompanying it with a regular letter. In judicial practice, such actions are usually accompanied by the issuance of a judicial act – a ruling on the return of an administrative claim. Only a judge of the Supreme Court could accept such a definition,” says Vladimir Tsarelungo.
According to the applicant, in this way the judge is trying to hide the fact that in 2013 she made an unjust decision without fully understanding the situation.
Alexander Lebin, who at that time headed the administration of the Yasnaya Polyana rural settlement, partly agrees with this. But he believes that such a decision was made intentionally.
“The judge made a decision that the administration of the settlement simply could not fulfill,” says Alexander Lebin. – Because of this, I was brought to administrative responsibility, I received warnings from bailiffs seven times about criminal liability under Article 315 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (failure to comply with a court sentence, court decision or other judicial act). At the same time, the goals of civil proceedings were not achieved. I believe that such a decision was made in order to create insurmountable circumstances in my activities. Because the non-execution of the court decision became the main reason for my dismissal from the post of head.”
According to the ex-official, the administration of the settlement applied to the Troitsky District Court with applications to terminate the enforcement proceedings, to replace the defendant in the enforcement proceedings, to clarify the court decision, to postpone the execution of the court decision. All these appeals were rejected by Judge Cheretskikh.
The head of the Troitsky district, Timur Mukhamedyarov, told Znak.com that he did not yet know about Vladimir Tsarelungo’s lawsuit, but had previously communicated with him on this topic and was aware of the problem.
“Eight years ago, in the village of Yasnye Polyany, they switched from a centralized source of water supply to several autonomous ones. I didn’t deal with these issues then and I don’t know why this happened,” the head of the district says. “Today I have an unenforced court decision that we are working on. We are developing a plan for its implementation with specialists from the UZHKH. Although today there are no mass complaints about the lack of water in Yasnye Polyany. Most residents have autonomous sources of water supply. Although there may be disadvantages related to water quality. In any case, a solution will be found.”