Communicated on 20 April 2016
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 65910/09
Octavian TANASOV
against Romania
lodged on 2 December 2009
STATEMENT OF FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr Octavian Tanasov, is a Moldovan national, who was born in 1975 and lives in Cork, Ireland. He is represented before the Court by Mr I. Aramă, a lawyer practising in Bucharest.
A. The circumstances of the case
2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
3. On 28 October 2008 the applicant was travelling by bus from Moldova to Bulgaria, having as final destination Ireland.
4. At 0:30 a.m. his bus arrived at the border crossing between Moldova and Romania. The Romanian custom officers stopped the bus, got inside and started searching the passengers asking if anyone had anything to declare. The custom officer who was in front of the applicant noticed something in his pocket so he asked him what it was. The applicant said he had two silver ingots and he took them out of his pocket.
5. The customs officer considered that the applicant had failed to declare the ingots for the customs control and confiscated them. In a report drafted on the occasion by the custom officer it was mentioned that the applicant failed to declare to the customs two silver ingots of 1,000 kg each and had thereby breached the provisions of Article 653 (a) of the Customs Regulations. Besides the confiscation of the above-mentioned goods the applicant was sanctioned with a fine of 3,000 Romanian lei (approximately 750 euros (EUR)). The report also stated that, according to certificates produced by the applicant, he had bought the two ingots from a bank.
6. The applicant lodged an administrative complaint with the Albiţa Customs Office asking for the annulment of the offence report of 28 October 2008 and the restitution of the confiscated goods. He explained that he had legally acquired the two ingots which had a value of EUR 500. He had kept them on him in order to prevent their theft during the bus trip. He further mentioned that there had been no possibility to declare goods for the customs in a discrete manner or in writing. The passengers had not been allowed to get off the bus before the customs officers came in and he had wished to avoid saying in front of all passengers what he had been carrying.
7. On 26 January 2009 the Huşi District Court rejected the applicant’s complaint as ill-founded. The court held as proved the findings of the offence report and had not responded to any of the applicant’s arguments. His appeal on points of law (recurs) against that judgment was rejected with final effect on 3 June 2009 by the Vaslui County Court. The court held that the applicant, who had signed the offence report, had failed to disprove the findings of the customs officer as mentioned in the offence report.
B. Relevant domestic law and practice
8. The relevant provisions of Customs Regulations as approved by Government Decision No. 707/2006 are as follows:
Article 156
“(1) A written customs declaration shall be submitted for the following goods:
....
c) objects made of precious metals, with or without precious stones, which exceed personal use ...”
Article 653
“The following is considered an offence and shall be sanctioned with fine between 3,000 and 8,000 lei:
a) the failure to present for customs control any goods or merchandise which should be placed under a custom regime. In this situation the goods shall be confiscated.”
COMPLAINT
9. The applicant complains under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that the confiscation of his goods was a disproportionate measure having in mind that the goods had been lawfully acquired and that he had also been fined for the same offence. He also alleges that the proceedings which he initiated afterwards had failed to establish a fair balance between the general interest and his right to peaceful enjoyment of his possessions.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has there been an interference with the applicant’s peaceful enjoyment of possessions, within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1?
2. If so, was that interference in accordance with the conditions provided for by law and necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest?
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