GRANIT AD SKOPJE v. NORTH MACEDONIA

2025-03-06T00:00:00
Published on 24 March 2025   SECOND SECTION Application no. 25637/23 GRANIT AD SKOPJE against North Macedonia lodged on 15 June 2023 communicated on 6 March 2025 SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE The application concerns non-enforcement of final judgments ordering a municipality to pay the applicant various sums of money. The judgments in the applicant’s favour were rendered on various dates between January 2003 and March 2015. Between March 2008 and April 2023, in proceedings which the above debtor instituted against the applicant, the domestic courts adopted several decisions finding that a final decision against the debtor could be executed only if it had a surplus of assets, exceeding the amount of minimum indispensable assets necessary for the performance of its duties. Such amount of indispensable assets was established based on expert reports submitted by the debtor. The applicant lodged several appeals against the above decisions, but they were unsuccessful. Since the debtor never reported sufficient assets, the judgments in the applicant’s favour remain unenforced. The applicant complains, under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 thereto, about the non-enforcement of final judgments in its favour and under Article 13 of the Convention about the lack of an effective remedy to have those judgments enforced.   QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES 1.  Has there been a breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and/or Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention on account of the applicant’s inability to enforce the final judgments in its favour (see Immobiliare Saffi v. Italy [GC], no. 22774/93, §§ 49 and 74, ECHR 1999-V; Burdov v. Russia, no. 59498/00, §§ 34-38 and 40-42, ECHR 2002-III; Burdov v. Russia (no. 2), no. 33509/04, §§ 65-70, ECHR 2009; and Kuzhelev and Others v. Russia, nos. 64098/09 and 6 others, §§ 109-10, 15 October 2019)?   2.  Did the applicant have at its disposal effective domestic remedies for its complaints under Article 6 of the Convention and/or Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, as required by Article 13 of the Convention (see Burdov (no. 2), cited above, §§ 96-100)?