20 GOGITIDZE AND OTHERS v. GEORGIA JUDGMENT introduction of the application, the consequence of such misleading procedural manipulations is obviously incompatible with the purpose of the right of individual application (compare, for instance, with Poznanski and Others v. Germany (dec.), no. 25101/05, 3 July 2007). 79. That being so, the part of the application lodged in the name of Mr Tengiz Gogitidze is abusive for the purposes of Article 35 § 3 (a) in fine of the Convention and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 § 4. II. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 1 OF PROTOCOL No. 1 TO THE CONVENTION 80. The applicants complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 about the confiscation of their property. This provision reads as follows: “Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law. The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of a State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties.” A. Admissibility 81. The Court finds that these complaints are not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention. It further notes that they are not inadmissible on any other grounds. They must therefore be declared admissible. B. Merits 1. The Government’s submissions 82. At the outset the Government asked the Court to take note of the scale of the corruption phenomenon that had been ravaging the country prior to the launching of a vast array of anti-corruption measures by the authorities in February 2004. The corrupt environment had been particularly apparent in the Ajarian Autonomous Republic, in whose government the first applicant had occupied high-ranking posts at the material time. On the other hand, only a few years after the State had undertaken a number of crucial legislative initiatives to bolster efforts to combat corruption, of which administrative confiscation constituted a major part, a firm trend of significant reduction in corruption could be readily observed, from 2006 onwards. In 2009 the Transparency International Corruption Perception