DUMITRAŞCU v. ROMANIA

FOURTH SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 31478/23
Gheorghe DUMITRAŞCU
against Romania

The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 2 December 2025 as a Committee composed of:

 Ana Maria Guerra Martins, President,
 Anne Louise Bormann,
 Sebastian Răduleţu, judges,
and Valentin Nicolescu, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the application (no. 31478/23) against Romania lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 8 August 2023 by a Romanian national, Mr Gheorghe Dumitraşcu (“the applicant”), who was born in 1942, lives in Constanţa and was represented by Mr C.M. Dumitraşcu-Antoniu, a lawyer practising in Dobroești;

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

1.  The case concerns the demolition of the applicant’s garage, which was erected without a building permit on public land.

2.  The applicant is a pensioner and receives a monthly pension of approximately 660 euros (EUR).

3.  In 1999 the applicant purchased a garage from a third party, and paid local taxes on it to the Constanţa Local Council (“the local council”) until 2019.

4.  On 23 November 2021 the mayor of Constanţa (“the mayor”) issued an administrative decision under Article 33 of Law no. 50/1991 (on the authorisation of construction work), ordering the applicant to demolish the garage, on the grounds that it had been built without a permit on public land.

5.  On 9 February and 2 April 2022 respectively the applicant instituted separate sets of proceedings before the domestic courts seeking to have the enforcement of the decision suspended (see paragraphs 6-7 below) and the decision itself set aside (see paragraphs 8-11 below).

6.  On 3 October 2022 the Constanţa Court of Appeal (“the Court of Appeal”) dismissed as ill‑founded the application to have the enforcement of the decision suspended, on the grounds that the suspension of an administrative decision was only warranted when compelling legal or factual circumstances created serious doubts as to its lawfulness, which was not the situation in the applicant’s case.

7.  On 16 March 2023 the Court of Appeal dismissed an extraordinary appeal by the applicant as ill-founded.

8.  The applicant contended that he could not be ordered to demolish the garage, as he had neither constructed it nor been fined in respect of it. He also submitted that, since 1999, the garage had been recorded in the relevant registers and the local council had collected the corresponding property tax from him. In those circumstances, the demolition amounted to a de facto expropriation, in breach of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.

9.  On 22 November 2022 the Constanţa District Court (“the District Court”) dismissed as ill-founded the application to have the decision set aside (see paragraph 5 in fine above). The District Court noted that Article 33 of Law no. 50/1991 provided that structures erected without a permit on State‑owned land could be demolished on the basis of an administrative decision issued by the relevant local public authority (without that authority having to apply to the courts for a demolition order) and at the expense of the owner of the structure in question. It further found that the garage had been erected on public land without the requisite permit – a fact known to the applicant when he had purchased it – and that, since 1999, he had taken no steps to obtain such a permit.

10.  The District Court held that, contrary to the applicant’s submissions, it was immaterial that the garage had been erected by a third party; it sufficed that the applicant had used it. Equally, the payment of taxes on the garage and the applicant’s long-term use of it (see paragraph 3 above) could not compensate for the lack of a valid permit. It also rejected the applicant’s arguments that demolition could only be ordered as an ancillary sanction to a fine – which had not been imposed in his case – and that the authorities were under a duty to offer him the possibility of obtaining a permit retrospectively. Lastly, the District Court ordered the applicant to pay the legal costs incurred by the mayor in the proceedings, which it reduced from 4,046 Romanian lei (RON – approximately EUR 800) to RON 2,000 (approximately EUR 400), having regard to the relative simplicity of the case, the nature of the proceedings, and the work performed by counsel.

11.  On 10 April 2023, on an appeal by the applicant, the Court of Appeal upheld the first-instance decision (see paragraphs 9-10 above) for broadly the same reasons as those given by the District Court. With regard to Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, the Court of Appeal held that the demolition had not amounted to de facto expropriation and that the interference with the applicant’s property had been lawful and struck a fair balance between the general interest and the protection of his rights. It found that the authorities had given precedence to the public interest and that it lay within their prerogative to assess the appropriateness of demolishing structures erected without a permit. In its view, that conclusion followed from the wording of Article 33 of Law no. 50/1991, which reflected the precedence of the public interest over the private interest and emphasised the powers of local authorities.

12.  According to the applicant, the garage was demolished on 10 March 2022.

13.  The applicant was ordered to pay the legal costs incurred by the mayor in the two sets of proceedings (see paragraphs 5-11 above), which, according to the applicant, had totalled EUR 3,000.

THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT

14.  Relying on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, the applicant complained that the demolition of his garage (which he had purchased in good faith) and the lack of compensation in that regard had constituted de facto expropriation.

15.  The relevant legal principles under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 concerning the demolition of property without compensation have been reiterated in, among other authorities, Ivanova and Cherkezov v. Bulgaria (no. 46577/15, §§ 69 and 72-73, 21 April 2016).

16.  The Court observes that, for more than 20 years, the applicant enjoyed undisturbed possession of the garage and paid taxes in respect of it (see paragraph 3 above). Thus, the applicant’s proprietary interest over the garage appears sufficiently established and weighty to amount to a substantive interest and therefore a “possession” within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (see, mutatis mutandis, Depalle v. France [GC], no. 34044/02, § 68, ECHR 2010).

17.  According to the Court’s established case-law, the demolition of property – such as the applicant’s garage in the present case – constitutes an interference with possessions in the form of “control of the use of property” (see, mutatis mutandis, Tumeliai v. Lithuania, no. 25545/14, § 73, 9 January 2018; Ivanova and Cherkezov, cited above, § 69; and Hamer v. Belgium, no. 21861/03, § 77, ECHR 2007-V (extracts)). The Court notes – and this is not disputed by the applicant – that the interference was clearly provided for by law, namely Article 33 of Law no. 50/1991 (see paragraph 4 above), and pursued the legitimate aim of ensuring compliance with the relevant building regulations (see Ivanova and Cherkezov, cited above, § 71).

18.  Turning to whether the interference struck a “fair balance” between the applicant’s interest in keeping his possessions intact and the general interest in ensuring effective implementation of the prohibition against building without a permit (ibid., § 72), the Court notes that the domestic courts which upheld the demolition order did so on the basis that the applicant’s garage had been built on public land without a permit and that the domestic authorities had correctly weighed up the general interest of the community against the applicant’s own rights (see paragraphs 9-11 above). As to the conduct of the proceedings in question, the Court observes that the applicant was represented by a lawyer of his own choosing throughout and that he was given a reasonable opportunity to present his case to the relevant authorities for the purpose of effectively challenging the demolition order. The proceedings were adversarial, complied with the principle of equality of arms and allowed discussion of aspects that were important for the outcome of the case (see G.I.E.M. S.r.l. and Others v. Italy [GC], nos. 1828/06 and 2 others, § 302, 28 June 2018).

19.  The Court further notes that, in the domestic proceedings to have the decision in question set aside, the applicant argued that he could not be ordered to demolish the garage, as he had neither constructed it nor been fined in respect of it (see paragraph 8 above). The domestic courts found those arguments immaterial and held that the decisive factor was the applicant’s use of the garage (see paragraphs 9-10 above). The Court sees no reason to call those findings into question; to hold otherwise would effectively require the domestic authorities to tolerate unlawful constructions each time their ownership is transferred to a bona fide third party, which the applicant claimed to be (compare Saliba v. Malta, no. 4251/02, § 47 in fine, 8 November 2005).

20.  The Court also observes that the domestic courts rejected the applicant’s complaint that, as he had had undisturbed possession of the garage and paid taxes on it for over 20 years, he could not be ordered to demolish it (see paragraph 10 above). In particular, the District Court held that neither argument could compensate for the lack of a permit. Like the domestic courts, the Court considers that while the elements relied on by the applicant are important factors, they could not reasonably have led him to believe that no demolition order could be issued in respect of the garage, especially given the inalienability of land in the State’s public domain and, above all, the fact that he had never held a permit in respect of the garage (see paragraph 28 below; see also, mutatis mutandis, Hamer, cited above, §§ 83 and 85, and Depalle, cited above, § 86).

21.  As to the domestic authorities’ failure to compensate the applicant for the demolition of his garage, the Court reiterates that the lack of compensation is a factor to be taken into consideration in determining whether a fair balance has been achieved but is not of itself sufficient to constitute a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. In the instant case, given the lack of a permit and the fact that the garage had been erected on public land, the Court finds that the lack of compensation cannot be regarded as a measure disproportionate to control of the use of the applicant’s property, carried out in pursuit of the general interest (see Depalle, cited above, § 91).

22.  In the light of the above considerations, the Court finds that the demolition order in respect of the applicant’s garage was not disproportionate to the legitimate aim pursued and thus not in breach of his rights under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.

23.  It follows that this complaint must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.

24.  Under Article 6 of the Convention, the applicant complained that the order to pay the mayor’s legal costs (see paragraph 13 above) had been excessive in view of his financial situation (see paragraph 2 above) and the case’s relative simplicity.

25.  The general legal principles concerning the right of access to a court have been summarised in, among other authorities, Lupeni Greek Catholic Parish and Others v. Romania ([GC], no. 76943/11, §§ 84-90, 29 November 2016), and those applicable in cases where the requirement to pay another party’s legal costs could restrict the right of access to a court have been reiterated in Benghezal v. France (no. 48045/15, §§ 43-45, 24 March 2022).

26.  The applicant stated that the costs imposed on him in respect of the two sets of proceedings (see paragraphs 5-11 above) had totalled EUR 3,000 (see paragraph 13 above). The applicant has not provided an itemised breakdown of those costs; however, on the basis of the material before it, it would appear that the amounts he was ordered to pay came to approximately EUR 2,500. Be that as it may, even assuming that the higher figure alleged by the applicant is correct, the conclusion reached below remains unaffected.

27.  The Court observes that the applicant was ordered to pay the legal costs in question pursuant to Article 453 of the Code of Civil Procedure (“the CCP”), which enshrines the “loser pays” rule (see Cindrić and Bešlić v. Croatia, no. 72152/13, § 119, 6 September 2016), and which pursues the legitimate aims of ensuring the proper administration of justice and discouraging ill‑founded litigation and excessive costs (see Marić v. Croatia (dec.), no. 37333/17, § 52, 3 December 2020).

28.  As to the outcome of the two sets of proceedings, both were dismissed as ill‑founded (see paragraphs 6-11 above). In assessing their prospects of success, the Court notes that the applicant never disputed that the garage had been built on public land or that it had been built without a permit; his sole argument was that he had not personally built it (see paragraph 8 above). However, under Article 33 of Law no. 50/1991, such considerations are irrelevant where the demolition of property on public land is at stake. The proceedings thus lacked any reasonable prospect of success (compare Marić, cited above, § 58; contrast Cindrić and Bešlić, cited above, § 107), and the applicant and his lawyer, who represented him throughout, should have taken stock of the law and of the strength of the applicant’s case when deciding what legal avenues to pursue. Furthermore, the Court cannot overlook the fact that the applicant further increased the costs incurred before the domestic courts by lodging an extraordinary appeal, which was also dismissed by the Court of Appeal (see paragraph 7 above).

29.  It is not disputed that the applicant has a modest pension (see paragraph 2 above). However, there is no evidence before the Court that the order to pay the costs caused him undue hardship. Furthermore, in one set of proceedings (see paragraph 10 above), the District Court used its discretion to halve the costs on the grounds that they were disproportionate, given the case’s relative simplicity.

30.  Having regard to the above, the Court finds that ordering the applicant to bear the costs of the mayor’s representation in the various proceedings in question did not amount to a disproportionate restriction on his right of access to a court.

31.  The complaint is therefore manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.

32.  The applicant also raised other complaints under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and Articles 6, 7 and 13 of the Convention. The Court considers that, in the light of all the material in its possession and in so far as the matters complained of are within its competence, these complaints either do not meet the admissibility criteria set out in Articles 34 and 35 of the Convention or do not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Convention or the Protocols thereto.

33.  It follows that the remaining complaints must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Declares the application inadmissible.

Done in English and notified in writing on 15 January 2026.

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 Valentin Nicolescu Ana Maria Guerra Martins
 Acting Deputy Registrar President