Published on 2 April 2024
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 44291/20
Ion-Bogdan MITRACHE
against Romania
lodged on 5 October 2020
communicated on 12 March 2024
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns administrative proceedings concerning the contestation by the applicant of two decisions of the national and local Bar declaring him unfit to exercise the profession of lawyer and disbarring him, following his criminal conviction for influence peddling and sentence to a prison term.
The applicant lodged an action seeking the annulment of the above‑mentioned decisions taken in 2016 by the National Association of the Romanian Bars and the Vâlcea Bar, based on Art. 14 (a) of Law no. 51/1995.
At the time when the decisions were made, in 2016, Article 14 (a) prescribed that a lawyer could be declared unfit to exercise the profession of lawyer, if, inter alia, he was found guilty of a criminal offence committed with intention which was “considered to harm the prestige of the profession”, and sentenced to a prison term by a final decision.
In its decision no. 225/2017 delivered on 4 April 2017 the Constitutional Court ruled that the condition that the criminal offence was to be “considered to bring harm to the prestige of the profession” was unconstitutional, finding that it was unclear and lacking accuracy in respect of which criminal offence was to be considered to fall under this category.
By final decision of 24 February 2020 (served on 10 April 2020) the Pitești Court of Appeal dismissed his action. The Court of Appeal considered that the National Association of the Romanian Bars and Vâlcea Bar’s decisions of 2016 were lawful and did not infringe the principle of legal certainty, as they relied on the first hypothesis described in Art 14 (a) of the Law no. 51/1995 (criminal conviction and sentencing to prison for an intentional criminal offence), and finding that the part of the legal provision which had been declared unconstitutional had no particular relevance for the case.
Relying on Articles 6 § 1 and 7 of the Convention, and on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 to the Convention, the applicant alleges that the proceedings before the Court of Appeal had been unfair, having regard to the arbitrariness of the interpretation of Art. 14 (a) of Law no. 51/1995 despite the Constitutional Court’s decision no. 225/2017.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the domestic proceedings which ended with the Pitești Court of Appeal decision of 24 February 2000, as required by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see for example Helmut Blum v. Austria, no. 33060/10, §§ 59-75, 5 April 2016, Peleki v. Greece, no. 69291/12, §§ 34-41, 5 March 2020, and, mutatis mutandis, Donev v. Bulgaria, no. 72437/11, § 48, 26 October 2021)?
2. Has there been an interference with the applicant’s peaceful enjoyment of possessions, within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1? If so, was the interference in compliance with the requirements of that provision, as interpreted by the Court?