FOURTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 622/05
Romulus BARDELLI
against Romania
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 29 September 2020 as a Committee composed of:
Branko Lubarda, President,
Carlo Ranzoni,
Péter Paczolay, judges,
and Ilse Freiwirth, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 22 December 2004,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
FACTS AND PROCEDURE
1. The applicant, Mr Romulus Bardelli, is a Romanian national who was born in 1942 and lives in Ploiești. He was represented before the Court by Ms O. Stoica, a lawyer practising in Bucharest.
2. The Romanian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, initially Mrs C. Brumar and then her successor, Mrs Oana Florentina Ezer, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
3. The application concerns mainly the applicant’s complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 relating to his inability to recover full possession of his immovable property, namely apartment no. 6 of a building located at 9 Braziliei Street in the first district of Bucharest, in spite of a final court judgment acknowledging his property rights, following a sale contract concluded by the State with the tenants living in the aforementioned apartment. By a final judgment of 22 June 2004, the High Court of Cassation and Justice dismissed the applicant’s action for annulment of the sale contract.
4. In addition to the above-mentioned complaint raised under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, the applicant also complained under Article 6 of the Convention, (i) of an alleged breach of his right to a fair trial, after an initial final judgment of the Bucharest Court of Appeal of 25 February 2002 cancelling the sale contracts concluded between the State and the tenants occupying the applicant’s property was quashed by the High Court of Cassation and Justice on 22 June 2004, after an extraordinary appeal in the interest of the law brought by the Prosecutor General of Romania and (ii) of the excessive length of the aforementioned proceedings.
5. On 1 September 2006, the complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention was communicated to the Government.
6. On 25 March 2015 the applicant informed the Court that he had obtained full possession of the immovable property in dispute, following a new judgment delivered by the Bucharest Court of Appeal on 27 April 2005 cancelling the sale contract concluded between the State and the tenants occupying his property. However, he maintained his just satisfaction claims, namely 27,400 euros (EUR) in respect of pecuniary damage and EUR 100,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 4,309 in respect of costs and expenses incurred during the domestic proceedings and for his representation before the Court.
THE LAWComplaints under Article 1 of Protocol nO. 1 to the Convention and under Article 6 of the convention relating to the right to a fair trial
7. The Court notes that, according to the available evidence in the case file, following the steps the applicant has taken at national level, he has recovered possession of the immovable property that forms the object of his application under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention and under Article 6 of the Convention in so far as his right to a fair trial is concerned.
8. The Court reiterates that it may at any stage of the proceedings decide to strike an application out of its list of cases in accordance with Article 37 of the Convention.
9. In the light of the above, the Court considers that the matter has been resolved within the meaning of Article 37 § 1 (b) of the Convention (see, the relevant principles set out, among others, in Sisojeva and Others v. Latvia (striking out) [GC], no. 60654/00, § 97, ECHR 2007‑I; see also Ana Ionescu and Others v. Romania, nos. 19788/03 and 18 others, §§ 15-16, 26 February 2019) and that respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols does not require it to continue the examination of the application under Article 37 § 1 in fine.
10. Accordingly, the case should be struck out of the list in so far as the applicant’s complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention and the complaint under Article 6 of the Convention regarding the fairness of the trial are concerned.remaining Complaint under Article 6 of the Convention
11. The Court has examined the complaint submitted by the applicant under Article 6 of the Convention concerning the length of proceedings. However, having regard to all the material in its possession, and in so far as this complaint falls within the Court’s competence, it finds that it does not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms set out in the Convention or its Protocols. This part of the application must therefore be rejected as being manifestly ill-founded, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.the Applicant’s claims for just satisfaction
12. As regards the applicant’s claim in respect of pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage, the Court notes that one part of the application has been resolved and is to be struck out of the list and the other has been declared inadmissible. It follows that there is no ground on which to grant compensation for pecuniary or non-pecuniary damage and the Court therefore rejects this claim (see, mutatis mutandis, Danca v. Romania (dec.) [Committee], no. 44328/04, 14 November 2019).
13. However, as regards the applicant’s claim in respect of costs and expenses, the Court notes that it has discretion to award legal costs when it strikes out an application (Rule 43 § 4 of the Rules of Court). The general principles governing reimbursement of costs under Rule 43 § 4 are essentially the same as under Article 41 of the Convention. In other words, an award can be made to an applicant in respect of costs and expenses only in so far as they have been actually and necessarily incurred and are reasonable as to quantum (see, among other authorities, Union of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Others v. Greece (dec.), no. 72874/01, § 33, 21 April 2015, with further references).
14. In the present case, taking into account the relatively straightforward nature of the issues involved, the domestic proceedings the applicant was involved in and the amount of work carried out by the applicant’s lawyer before the Court, it decides to award the applicant EUR 2,000 covering costs under all heads.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases as regards the complaint under Article 1 of the Protocol No.1 to the Convention and the complaint under Article 6 of the Convention concerning the fairness of the trial;
Declares the remainder of the application inadmissible;
Holds
(a) that the respondent State is to pay the applicant, within three months, EUR 2,000 (two thousand euros) in respect of costs and expenses, to be converted into the national currency at the rate applicable on the date of settlement;
(b) that from the expiry of the above-mentioned three months until settlement simple interest shall be payable on the above amounts at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points.
Done in English and notified in writing on 22 October 2020.
Ilse FreiwirthBranko Lubarda
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy