I recently got a letter saying that a long drawn-out case had finally ended in success.

The background is as follows. Mr.N was wrongfully convicted and spent three years in prison. The Presidium of the Supreme Court of Tatarstan then annulled the court ruling and Mr.N was freed.

After his release, Mr.N decided to sue the Russian Ministry of Finance for material and moral damages of 5 million roubles. In June 2008, the court ruled partly in his favour and ordered the Ministry of Finance to pay 1.4 million roubles. But there were delays with the payment. First, the Ministry sent the enforcement order back to Mr.N to correct some formalities they had identified. Then, after the document had been corrected and returned to the Ministry, there was another hitch. Tired of battling against these obstacles, Mr.N wrote to me and asked for help.

In early April 2010, I sent a deputy’s request to A.L.Kudrin, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Government and Finance Minister, asking him to look into the case. On 20 April, I got a letter from the Ministry’s secretary of state, S.D.Shatalov, stating that the money had been paid into the claimant’s account.