FOURTH SECTION
CASE OF ANAMARIA-LOREDANA ORĂȘANU AND OTHERS
v. ROMANIA
(Application no. 43629/13 and 74 other applications)
JUDGMENT
STRASBOURG
7 November 2017
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.
In the case of Anamaria-Loredana Orășanu and Others v. Romania,
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
Vincent A. De Gaetano, President,
Georges Ravarani,
Marko Bošnjak, judges,
and Andrea Tamietti, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having deliberated in private on 17 October 2017,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
PROCEDURE
1. The case originated in 75 applications against Romania lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by Romanian nationals. The applicants’ personal details and the dates of their respective applications are set out in the appended tables.
2. The applicants were represented by Mr I. Matei, a lawyer practising in Bucharest. The Romanian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mrs C. Brumar, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
3. Between 14 February and 10 October 2014 and 10 February and 10 July 2015 the complaints concerning the effectiveness of the criminal investigation, the length of the criminal proceedings and the lack of an effective domestic remedy were communicated to the Government and the remainder of the applications was declared inadmissible pursuant to Rule 54 § 3 of the Rules of Court.
4. As Iulia Antoanella Motoc, the judge elected in respect of Romania, withdrew from sitting in the case (Rule 28 § 3 of the Rules of Court), the President decided to appoint Krzysztof Wojtyczek as an ad hoc judge (Rule 29 § 2 of the Rules of Court).
THE FACTS
I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE
5. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, are similar to those in Association “21 December 1989” and Others v. Romania (nos. 33810/07 and 18817/08, §§ 12-41, 24 May 2011).
6. Between 21 and 27 December 1989 many people including the applicants and/or their close relatives involved in this case took part in the anti-communist demonstrations in Bucharest, Timișoara, Brașov, Reșița and Craiova which led to the fall of the communist regime. They were injured or killed by gunfire during the demonstrations.
7. In 1990 following the overthrow of the communist regime, the military prosecutor’s office opened investigations into the armed crackdown on the demonstrations. The main criminal investigation into the use of violence, particularly against civilian demonstrators, during the events of December 1989 in Bucharest and other cities has been contained in file no. 97/P/1990 (current number 11/P/2014).
8. In a number of cases concerning events in Bucharest and Craiova, the prosecutor decided not to initiate a criminal investigation or to discontinue the proceedings. Those decisions were taken between 1990 and 2007. It results from the documents submitted by the parties that, after the adoption of those decisions, the prosecutor continued to examine the circumstances of these cases in the main criminal investigation – object of file no. 97/P/1990 (current number 11/P/2014).
9. To date, the main criminal investigation appears to be still ongoing. The most important procedural steps were summarised in Association “21 December 1989” and Others (cited above, §§ 12-41) and Alecu and Others v. Romania, nos. 56838/08 and 80 others, §§ 7-13, 27 January 2015. Subsequent developments are as follows.
10. Following the entry into force of the new Code of Criminal Procedure in February 2014, jurisdiction over the case was relinquished in favour of the military prosecutor’s office.
11. On 14 October 2015 the prosecutor’s office closed the investigation, finding that the applicants’ complaints were partly statute-barred, partly subject to an amnesty and partly ill-founded. It also found that some of the facts which had been investigated could not be classified as criminal offences and that some of them were res judicata. The parties have not submitted any information on whether there was an appeal against that decision (see Ecaterina Mirea and Others v. Romania, nos. 43626/13 and 69 others, § 15, 12 April 2016). However, from the information available on the prosecutor’s office website, the investigation is still ongoing and must have therefore been reopened.
II. RELEVANT DOMESTIC LAW
12. The legal provisions in relation to the criminal proceedings in connection with the events of December 1989 and concerning the statutory limitation of criminal liability are detailed in Association “21 December 1989” and Others (cited above, §§ 95-100), and Mocanu and Others v. Romania [GC], nos. 10865/09, 45886/07 and 32431/08, §§ 193-196, ECHR 2014 (extracts).
13. The procedure for making a court challenge to a prosecutor’s decision not to initiate a criminal investigation or to discontinue one came into force on 1 July 2003 (see Rupa v. Romania (dec.), no. 58478/00, §§ 88─89, 14 December 2004, and Dumitru Popescu v. Romania (no. 1), no. 49234/99, §§ 43-45 and 53, 26 April 2007).
14. The status of military prosecutors is regulated by Law no. 303/2004 on the status of judges and prosecutors, and by Law no. 304/2004 on the organisation of the judicial system, both amended by Law no. 255/2013 on the enactment of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which also amended regulatory acts relating to provisions for criminal offences (see Elena Apostol and Others v. Romania, no. 24093/14 and 16 other cases, §§ 18-21, 23 February 2016, and Ecaterina Mirea and Others v. Romania, cited above, §§ 17-20).
THE LAW
I. THE JOINDER OF THE CASES
15. The Court notes that the present applications concern the same factual circumstances and raise similar legal issues. Consequently, it considers it appropriate to order their joinder, in accordance with Rule 42 § 1 of the Rules of Court.
II. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 2 OF THE CONVENTION
16. The applicants complained of the lack of an effective, impartial and thorough investigation carried out within a reasonable time and capable of leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible for the violent crackdown on the demonstrations of December 1989 in Bucharest, Timișoara, Brașov, Reșița and Craiova, when they had been shot or their close relatives had been killed by gunfire. They relied on Article 2 of the Convention.
17. Having regard to the facts, the Court considers that the complaints concerning the injuring of the applicants or their relatives’ death by gunfire must be examined under the procedural limb of Article 2 of the Convention (see Şandru and Others v. Romania, no. 22465/03, §§ 51-54, 8 December 2009, and Dobre and Others v. Romania, no. 34160/09, §§ 37-39, 17 March 2015). In so far as relevant, this provision reads as follows:
Article 2
“1. Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally ...”
A. Admissibility
18. The Government made preliminary objections in relation to some of the applications (see Appendix A).
1. The Government’s objection of incompatibility ratione temporis
19. The Government argued that the events in question and the opening of the investigations had occurred prior to the ratification of the Convention by Romania on 20 June 1994 and that in several applications the criminal investigation had been terminated by the prosecutor before that date.
20. The applicants argued that the Court should examine the entire period owing to the investigators’ failure to conduct an investigation with due diligence.
21. The Court has already defined its jurisdiction ratione temporis in similar cases (see Association “21 December 1989” and Others v. Romania, nos. 33810/07 and 18817/08, §§ 114-118, 24 May 2011; and Mocanu and Others v. Romania [GC], nos. 10865/09 and 2 others, §§ 207─211, ECHR 2014 (extracts)), concluding that it was competent to examine complaints relating to the ineffectiveness of the criminal investigations into the events of December 1989 when the majority of the proceedings and the most important procedural measures were carried out after the Convention’s entry into force in respect of Romania.
22. Having examined all the material submitted to it, the Court considers that the Government have not put forward any fact or argument capable of persuading it to reach a different conclusion in the present case and it dismisses the objection.
2. The Government’s objection that some applications were lodged out of time
23. The Government submitted that the applications specifically listed in Appendix A were outside the six‑month time‑limit. They calculated the period as running from the date of prosecutors’ decisions taken between 1990 and 2007 not to initiate criminal investigations or to discontinue proceedings (see paragraph 8 above). Depending on the circumstances of the case, they also calculated the period as running from the date of the communication of the prosecutors’ decisions.
24. The applicants contested the Government’s submissions by referring to the shortcomings of the main criminal investigation, which was still ongoing.
25. The Court notes that where an applicant avails himself of an apparently existing remedy and only subsequently becomes aware of circumstances which render the remedy ineffective, it may be appropriate for the purposes of Article 35 § 1 to take the start of the six-month period from the date when the applicant first became or ought to have become aware of those circumstances (see Mocanu and Others, cited above, § 260).
26. In the present case, the Court notes that, although due notification is a pre-requisite set by law, no evidence in the file indicates that the prosecutors’ decisions were duly communicated to the applicants or that the applicants who received them could have challenged them under the law in force at the time (see paragraph 13 above). Moreover, after the adoption of these decisions, the prosecutor pursued the investigation into the circumstances concerning the applicants and/or their close relatives in the main criminal investigation into the events of December 1989 which appears to be still ongoing (see paragraph 11 in fine above).
27. Having regard to the developments in the investigation, its scope and its complexity, as well as the exceptional circumstances at issue, the Court considers that the applicants could have legitimately believed that the investigation also concerned their particular situation. The applicants acted reasonably in awaiting an outcome as long as there was a realistic possibility that investigative measures were moving forward (see, mutatis mutandis, Mocanu and Others, cited above, §§ 275 and 280, and Melnichuk and Others v. Romania, nos. 35279/10 and 34782/10, § 89, 5 May 2015).
28. Under these circumstances, the Court cannot conclude that, by introducing their applications on the dates indicated in appendix A, the applicant failed to comply with the six-month time-limit set forth in Article 35 § 1 of the Convention. It therefore rejects the Government’s preliminary objection.
3. The Government’s objection of abuse of right of individual application
29. The Government submitted that the applications specified in Appendix A should be rejected as being an abuse of the right of individual application, within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention, because the applicants had failed to inform the Court that there had been decisions relating to the events in which their close relatives had died (see paragraph 8 above).
30. The Court reiterates that an application may be rejected as an abuse of the right of individual application under Article 35 § 3 of the Convention if, among other reasons, it was knowingly based on untrue facts (see Varbanov v. Bulgaria, no. 31365/96, § 36, ECHR 2000-X; Rehak v. Czech Republic (dec.), no. 67208/01, 18 May 2004; Popov v. Moldova (no. 1), no. 74153/01, § 48, 18 January 2005; and Kerechashvili v. Georgia (dec.), no. 5667/02, 2 May 2006). Incomplete and therefore misleading information may also amount to an abuse of the right of application, especially if the information concerns the very core of the case and no sufficient explanation is given for the failure to disclose that information (see Hüttner v. Germany (dec.), no. 23130/04, 9 June 2006; Poznanski and Others v. Germany (dec.), no. 25101/05, 3 July 2007; Predescu v. Romania, no. 21447/03, §§ 25-26, 2 December 2008; and Kowal v. Poland (dec.), no. 2912/11, 18 September 2012).
31. In the present case, the Government’s argument does not actually concern “untrue facts” allegedly adduced by the applicants. The Court notes that whilst the applicants did not, indeed, inform the Court about all the decisions concerning the events in which their close relatives had died, the main criminal investigation opened in respect of the events of December 1989 appears to be still ongoing (see paragraph 11 in fine above). It follows that the decisions mentioned by the Government cannot be regarded as “concerning the very core of the case” in the light of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention.
32. The preliminary objection is therefore dismissed.
4. The Government’s objection of lack of victim status
33. The Government argued that the applicants specified in Appendix A lacked victim status. This was because they had joined the proceedings at a later stage; or, because they had never been parties in the main criminal investigation since they had not expressed their intention to be included in it or their cases had been finalised by a prosecutor’s decision.
34. The applicants argued that they had victim status given the absence of an effective investigation in the present case.
35. The Court reiterates that a decision or measure favourable to the applicants is not in principle sufficient to deprive them of their status as a “victim” unless the national authorities have acknowledged, either expressly or in substance, and then afforded redress for, the breach of the Convention (see, for example, Scordino v. Italy (no. 1) [GC], no. 36813/97, § 180, ECHR 2006‑V).
36. Turning to the present case, the Court notes that there is no evidence indicating an acknowledgement of the violation claimed by the applicants – ineffectiveness of the criminal investigation – or a redress afforded to them by the domestic authorities in this respect.
37. Moreover, as the investigation had been opened by the authorities of their own motion (see paragraph 7 above), a request of the applicants to join the main investigation later in the proceedings or the absence of a separate complaint, according to the circumstances of each case, could have no effect on the applicants’ standing (see Alecu and Others v. Romania, nos. 56838/08 and 80 others, § 31, 27 January 2015, and Ecaterina Mirea and Others v. Romania, nos. 43626/13 and 69 others, §§ 28-30, 12 April 2016).
38. The sum of the above considerations leads the Court to reject the Government’s preliminary objection.
5. The Government’s objection of non‑exhaustion of domestic remedies
39. The Government argued that some of the applicants had not exhausted domestic remedies as they had not challenged the prosecutors’ decisions not to initiate a criminal investigation or to discontinue proceedings.
40. The applicants contested that argument by saying that those decisions had not been communicated to them. Further, they criticised the passivity of the authorities during the criminal investigation.
41. The Court notes that the question is whether the applicants should have challenged the prosecutors’ decision in their cases in order to join the main criminal investigation, as contended by the Government, although they maintained – and the Government did not contest that argument in all cases – that they had not been informed of the outcome of the investigation or the reasons why they had not been joined to the main criminal investigation.
42. The Court emphasises that the application of the rule of exhaustion of domestic remedies must make due allowance for the fact that it is being applied in the context of machinery for the protection of human rights that the Contracting States have agreed to set up. Accordingly, it has recognised that Article 35 § 1 must be applied with some degree of flexibility and without excessive formalism. It has further recognised that the rule of exhaustion is neither absolute nor capable of being applied automatically; for the purposes of reviewing whether it has been observed, it is essential to have regard to the circumstances of the individual case. This means, in particular, that the Court must take realistic account not only of the existence of formal remedies in the legal system of the Contracting State concerned but also of the general context in which they operate. It must then examine whether, in all the circumstances of the case, the applicant did everything that could reasonably be expected of him or her to exhaust domestic remedies (see İlhan v. Turkey [GC], no. 22277/93, § 59, ECHR 2000-VII, with further references).
43. The Court further recalls that cases regarding the authorities’ obligation to provide an effective investigation into the death caused by, inter alios, the security forces of the State might imply situations where the initiative must rest on the State for the practical reason that the victim is deceased and the circumstances of the death may be largely confined within the knowledge of State officials (Ilhan, cited above, § 91). The authorities must act of their own motion once the matter has come to their attention. They cannot leave it to the initiative of the next-of-kin either to lodge a formal complaint or to take responsibility for the conduct of any investigative procedures (McKerr v. the United Kingdom, no. 28883/95, § 111, ECHR 2001-III).
44. In addition, the Court has also found in respect of the main criminal investigation that the domestic authorities had failed to comply with their obligation to involve victims’ close relatives in the procedure (see Alecu and Others, cited above, § 39). From this perspective, the Court is not persuaded that the criminal-law remedies nominally indicated by the Government as available to the applicants would have been capable of altering to any significant extent the course of the investigation that was made (see Alecu and Others, cited above, § 41; see also, mutatis mutandis, Tanrıkulu v. Turkey [GC], no. 23763/94, § 110, ECHR 1999-IV). Moreover, the Court notes that the criminal investigation is still ongoing after 27 years, and that the applicants’ complaints focus, inter alia, on the duration, in their view excessive, of that investigation. The Government have not alleged, let alone shown, that any of the internal remedies could have brought to a substantial acceleration of the domestic proceedings.
45. In the light of the above considerations, the Court dismisses the Government’s objection of non-exhaustion of domestic remedies.
6. Other reasons for inadmissibility
46. The Court notes that the complaints raised in the applications 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
47. The Government made reference to the facts and progress of the criminal investigation, as exposed in their observations submitted in Association “21 December 1989” and Others (cited above) and Alecu and Others (cited above). In addition, they argued that the military prosecutors who had carried out the criminal investigation had been independent and impartial in their judicial decisions.
48. The Court reiterates that an investigation must be effective in the sense that it is capable of leading to a determination of the circumstances of fact and to the identification and punishment of those responsible. This is not an obligation of result, but of means (see Kelly and Others v. the United Kingdom, no. 30054/96, § 96, 4 May 2001, and Anguelova v. Bulgaria, no. 38361/97, § 139, ECHR 2002-IV). The State’s obligation under Article 2 of the Convention will not be satisfied if the protection afforded by domestic law exists only in theory: above all, it must also operate effectively in practice and that requires a prompt examination of the case without unnecessary delays. Any deficiency in the investigation which undermines its ability to establish the cause of death or the person responsible will risk falling foul of this standard (see Šilih v. Slovenia [GC], no. 71463/01, § 195, 9 April 2009; Varnava and Others v. Turkey [GC], nos. 16064/90, 16065/90, 16066/90, 16068/90, 16069/90, 16070/90, 16071/90, 16072/90 and 16073/90, § 191, ECHR 2009; and Association “21 December 1989” and Others, cited above, § 134).
49. In the present case, the Court notes that in 1990 a criminal investigation was opened by the authorities of their own motion with regard to the armed suppression of the anti-communist demonstrations of December 1989 in Bucharest, Timișoara, Brașov, Reșița and Craiova, with a view to establishing the circumstances of the death or injury of a large number of p
