Published on 3 June 2024
FOURTH SECTION
Applications nos. 1951/19 and 4067/19
Adrian Valeriu RUS against Romania
and Mircea RUS against Romania
lodged on 14 December 2018 and 19 December 2018 respectively
communicated on 17 May 2024
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The two applications concern criminal proceedings against four persons, including the two applicants, for economic offences.
After being acquitted by the Mures County Court, upon an appeal lodged by the public prosecutor, the two applicants were convicted of continuous abuse of office and sentenced to one year and four months’ imprisonment by a final decision delivered by the Targu Mures Court of Appeal on 20 June 2018.
The applicants complain under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention of the alleged lack of impartiality of the two-judge panel of the appeal court. They contend that the president of that panel, judge I.B., had partially examined their criminal case at the first instance level sitting as a single judge. After 14 hearings in their case, during which he had heard evidence and taken various procedural decisions, judge I.B. was promoted to the Targu Mures Court of Appeal on 1 May 2013.
At the last hearing before the first instance court, before his promotion, judge I.B. had rejected their request to have the hearings adjourned to allow them to submit objections to the expert report commissioned by the court. The same request was repeated and was subsequently allowed by the single judge who replaced judge I.B.
The applicants also submitted that judge I.B. himself had raised doubts about his impartiality (see Rudnichenko v. Ukraine, no. 2775/07, § 118, 11 July 2013). Thus, on 24 May 2012, while examining the applicants’ case at the first instance level, judge I.B. had asked to withdraw from the case on the ground that a reasonable suspicion of lack of objective impartiality might arise due to the fact that he was a member of the Electoral Bureau in an electoral circumscription in which one of the applicants was a mayor and the other one was a member of the local council. His request was examined in chambers by a single judge of the Mures County Court and was dismissed as unfounded by an interlocutory judgement of 24 May 2012.
In the appeal proceedings, the applicants requested the recusal of judge I.B., but their request was dismissed by an interlocutory judgment of 10 October 2017.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Was the Targu Mures Court of Appeal sitting in a two-judge formation in the criminal proceedings against the applicants an “impartial tribunal”, as required by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, having regard to the participation of judge I.B.?