FOURTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 33813/06
Andrei ȘTEFĂNESCU and Others
against Romania
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 12 January 2021 as a Committee composed of:
Tim Eicke, President,
Faris Vehabović,
Pere Pastor Vilanova, judges,
and Ilse Freiwirth, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 27 July 2006,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
FACTS AND PROCEDURE
1. The applicants, Mr Andrei Ştefănescu, Mr Dan Emanuel Manolescu, Ms Ioana Anca Chirvăsuţă, Ms Lucia Hagiescu, Mr Mihai Bezman, and Ms Raluca Vancea are Romanian nationals who were born, respectively, in 1947, 1941, 1955, 1938, 1981, and 1979 and live either in Bucharest, Constanţa, or Satu Nou de Jos. The latter three applicants are the heirs of Mr Mircea-Dumitru-Grigore Hagiescu, an applicant who died in 2014, and who have expressed their intention to pursue his application to the Court. All the applicants were represented before the Court by Mr D. Bogdan and Mrs A.M. Bogdan, lawyers practising in Bucharest.
2. The Romanian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agents, most recently, Ms O. Ezer, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
3. The application concerns the applicants’ complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention relating to their inability to recover full possession of their immovable property which had been nationalised under the communist regime, namely a factory and the appurtenant land located at no. 96 Splaiul Unirii street in the fourth district of Bucharest, in spite of a final court judgment acknowledging their property rights, following the sale of the factory and its land by the State to private parties. By a final judgment of 20 June 2006, the High Court of Cassation and Justice dismissed the applicants’ action seeking to recover possession of the factory.
4. On 22 March 2018, the application was communicated to the Government.
5. In their correspondence with the Court over the years, the parties informed the Court that on 17 November 2008 the National Commission for Compensation of Immovable Property delivered decision no. 3556 acknowledging the applicants’ right to compensation in the amount of RON 20,227,863 (EUR 5,394,097) for the property in dispute. The applicants received the aforementioned compensation in full between 2014 and 2019.
6. The applicants acknowledged that the compensation granted to them domestically was calculated lawfully by the national authorities. Also, the value of this compensation was affected directly by a decision of their ancestors who were the former owners of the property, taken before the nationalisation of the property, to intentionally devalue the assets of the company for pecuniary gain.
7. The applicants did not withdraw their just satisfaction claims. They are seeking to be awarded the difference between the compensation given to them by the authorities and the estimated market value of the property of EUR 10,322,055 in respect of pecuniary damage, EUR 30,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 14,000 in respect of costs and expenses incurred in the domestic proceedings and the proceedings before the Court.
THE LAWComplaint under Article 1 of Protocol nO. 1 to the Convention
8. The Court notes that, according to the information presented by the parties, following the steps the applicants have taken at national level, they have been compensated for the immovable property located at no. 96 Splaiul Unirii street in the fourth district of Bucharest that forms the object of their application under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.
9. The Court notes further that the applicants acknowledged that the compensation granted to them domestically was calculated lawfully by the national authorities and that the value of this compensation was the direct result of their ancestors’ decision (see paragraph 6 above).
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. Accordingly, the case should be struck out of the list.the Applicants’ claims for just satisfaction
13. As regards the applicants’ claim in respect of pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage, the Court notes that the application has been resolved and is to be struck out of the list. 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).
14. However, as regards the applicants’ 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).
15. In the present case, taking into account the relatively straightforward nature of the issues involved, the documents submitted by the applicants, the domestic proceedings the applicants were involved in and the amount of work carried out by the applicants’ lawyers before the Court, it decides to award the applicants jointly 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.
Holds
(a) that the respondent State is to pay jointly to the applicants, 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 4 February 2021.
Ilse FreiwirthTim Eicke
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy