In cases where the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) recognizes a violation of the right to property enshrined in article 1 of Protocol 1 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the Convention), the most impressive amounts of just satisfaction are awarded. In this context, non-compliance with court judgments is the form of this right violation representing the most critical issue among those established by the ECHR with regard to Ukraine.

The article aims at exploring the historical and theoretical background of the onset and development of the ECHR’s case law involving non-compliance with court judgments as a violation of the right to property, as well as a shift of the court’s focus from legislative and administrative obstacles to compliance with court judgments against individuals to non-compliance with judgments against public authorities and State-owned enterprises due to lack of money in the State budget. The author particularly concentrates on different kinds of violations of the right to enforcement of court judgments which are typical of Ukraine, namely, lack of money for fulfillment of social obligations of the State and statutorily established moratoriums on enforcement of judgments against State-owned enterprises.

The author concludes that non-compliance with a court judgment constitutes a violation of article 1 of Protocol 1 to the Convention only when such non-compliance refers to the State. Non-compliance with a judgment against an individual due to the latter’s lack of money is very unlikely to be recognized as a violation within the ECHR’s meaning. The State may interfere with the enforcement of a court judgment in two forms: (a) restriction or prohibition of enforcement of a judgment, or (b) lack of the State’s money where a judgment is passed particularly against its body.

 Pilot judgments on non-compliance by Russia (Burdov 2) and Moldova (Olaru) were successful and required that Russia pass one law on compensation for long-term non-compliance with judgments, and that Moldova overturn one law on free housing and compensation. At the same time, Ivanov, where no specific methods of resolving the problem were offered and essentially different forms of non-compliance with court judgments were brought to a common denominator, was not successful and its passing seems to be premature.