FOURTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 18805/10
Neculai TURTURICĂ and Gianina BĂLAN against Romania
and 2 other applications
(see list appended)
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 16 June 2016 as a Committee composed of:
Vincent A. De Gaetano, President,
Egidijus Kūris,
Gabriele Kucsko-Stadlmayer, judges,
and Hasan Bakırcı, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above applications lodged on the various dates indicated in the appended table,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
FACTS AND PROCEDURE
The list of applicants and the relevant details of the applications are set out in the appended table.
The applicants’ complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention concerning the excessive length of criminal proceedings were communicated to the Romanian Government (“the Government”).
THE LAW
A. Joinder of the applications
Having regard to the similar subject matter of the applications, the Court finds it appropriate to examine them jointly in a single decision.
B. Complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention
In the present applications, having examined all the material before it, the Court considers that for the reasons stated below, the respondent Government cannot be held liable for the non-compliance with the “reasonable time” requirement.
In particular, the Court notes that in applications nos. 18805/10 and 17305/11, the national authorities acknowledged, either expressly or in substance, the breach of the Convention and then afforded appropriate redress for it as follows. In particular, each of the two applicants in application no. 18805/10 were awarded EUR 5,000 as reparation and the applicant in application no. 17305/11 was awarded EUR 7,000 as reparation; all the amounts being comparable to what would have been awarded by the Court for just satisfaction under Article 41 of the Convention and thus, the applicants can no longer claim to be victims of a violation of Article 6 of the Convention (see, among other authorities, Staykov v. Bulgaria, no. 49438/99, § 90, 12 October 2006 and Temeșan v. Romania, no 36293/02, §§ 45 - 50, 10 June 2008). As regards application no. 52266/12, having regard to the overall length of the proceedings, the applicant’s conduct and that of the authorities, the length of the proceedings was not excessive and met the “reasonable time” requirement (see, among other authorities, Lazariu v. Romania, no. 31973/03, §§ 149-151, 13 November 2014 and Ion Popescu v. Romania (dec.), no. 4206/11, §§ 41 and 43, 17 March 2015).
In view of the above, the Court finds that these complaints are manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Decides to join the applications;
Declares the applications inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 7 July 2016.
Hasan BakırcıVincent A. De Gaetano
Deputy RegistrarPresident
APPENDIX
List of applications raising complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention
(excessive length of criminal proceedings)
No.
Application no.
Date of introduction
Applicant name
Date of birth/Date of registration
Representative name and location
Start of proceedings
End of proceedings
Total length
Levels of jurisdiction
1.
18805/10
15/03/2010
Neculai TURTURICĂ
20/05/1970
Gianina BĂLAN
13/06/1972
26/11/2001
27/03/2013
11 years and 4 months
3 levels of jurisdiction
2.
17305/11
09/03/2011
Paul TEODORESCU
03/05/1949
17/09/2002
10/09/2010
8 years
3 levels of jurisdiction
3.
52266/12
08/08/2012
James David ZEBRANEK
02/06/1955
Atudorei Ștefan
Brașov
16/02/2005
09/02/2012
7 years
2 levels of jurisdiction
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