TrustHLT/LaCour huggingface dataset:
GR2 (Government): Following this argument would amount to disregarding that the scrutiny provided for by Article 19 of the Convention is defined by the competence rules contained in Terralia in Article 34, and that in the economy of the Convention, it is Article 34 that determines l'effet utile of Article 19.
GR2 (Government): As far as the general role of the nongovernmental organizations is concerned, while commending their participation in public affairs as essential for a democratic society and praising the work and commitment of the Applicant Association to the Protection of Human Rights, the government considered that their role alone could not determine such a fundamental shift in the understanding of the individual applicant concept.
GR2 (Government): Matter of fact, the Romanian legal framework allows the NGOs to participate and even to initiate human rights proceedings.
GR2 (Government): Specifically, the Romanian anti-discrimination legislation expressly allows the NGOs to engage in judicial proceedings on behalf of claimants.
GR2 (Government): As to the criminal proceedings pursuant to Article 221 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, a criminal proceeding can be initiated following either a complaint or a denounce by any person or ex officio.
GR2 (Government): Thus, any person can denounce an alleged crime, including nongovernmental entities.
GR2 (Government): Furthermore, Article 278, Index I of the same Code, acknowledges legal standing to the victim and any other person the interests of whom have been harmed.
GR2 (Government): When dealing with the interests of human rights exception, the Court found that sometimes persons close to the victim have a legitimate interest in seeing to it that the justice is done even after the applicant's death.
GR2 (Government): Moreover, the conventional system's purpose is not only to provide individual relief, but also to determine issues on public policy grounds in the common interest, transcending the person and her or his interests.
GR2 (Government): Furthermore, the Court stated that there are general interests which entitle it to continue the examination of an application even if the conditions required by Article 37 for striking the case out have been fulfilled.
GR2 (Government): And we know that even in those cases, there were two fundamental aspects that entitled the Court to such a course of action.
GR2 (Government): First, it was the fact that convention's protection mechanism was put in motion by the victim of the violation, and then that the respect for human rights permitted the Court to continue the examination of the case.
GR2 (Government): It is only throughout the proceedings that the Court is allowed a more flexible way in applying the criterion concerning the maintenance on its docket of an application by an individual.
GR2 (Government): The initial part we dare to affirm is non-negotiable for a flexible interpretation.
GR2 (Government): It is correct that the applicant assumed in the domestic legal order the position of a denouncer of violations and its actions seen in overall context and bringing to the attention of the national authorities a general situation encountered in a public institution.
GR2 (Government): However, as opposed to the cases mentioned by the applicant, such as the case of Karnar versus Austria, where the Court applied the interest for human rights exception, in the present case the proceedings were initiated only after the victim's demise.
GR2 (Government): On the substance of the interest of human rights exception, the applicant invokes explicitly two reasons that would require the examination of the case despite the absence of any standing on its part.
GR2 (Government): The general question of Romanian legislation in the field of treatment of persons with mental disabilities, including their involuntary hospitalization and their legal capacity, as well as the practice of implementation of the existing legislation.
GR2 (Government): The applicant considers this to be relevant for the Romanian system as well as for other national systems in the region.
GR2 (Government): Implicitly, the applicant acknowledges that the fundamental issue to be decided refers, in fact, to the recognition of standing before the Court for non-governmental entities beyond the clear requirements of Article 34.
GR2 (Government): It purportedly includes situations where these organizations consider that a complaint should be raised before the Court on behalf of vulnerable persons with no legal representative and no relative.
GR2 (Government): The government first notes that the Court defines the important issue of general interest as an issue that could contribute to elucidate, safeguard, and develop efforts of protection under the Convention. In the case of CB v. Romania, for example,
GR2 (Government): the Court considered of general interest the fact that its analysis concerns for the first time a piece of Romanian legislation.
GR2 (Government): A topical general interest affecting more than one State was also identified in Karnal case, where the Court considered that the subject matter of the application involved a recognition of general interest not only for Austria but also for other States' parties to the Convention.
GR2 (Government): In contrast to these hypotheses, we argue that the general interest raised by this case was already identified and analyzed by the Court in various judgments delivered against Romania or against other countries.
GR2 (Government): Thus, as far as the case law relating to Romania is concerned, we recall that the various issues identified by the applicant have already been addressed by the Court and largely cover the relevant period described by the applicant.
GR2 (Government): The execution of these judgments is presently under the supervision of the Committee of Ministers. As the applicant pointed out, currently it can get involved in the
GR2 (Government): execution phase and submit communications to the Committee of Ministers on the stage and scope of these executions.
GR2 (Government): We also recall that the Court has already considered situations concerning the plight of vulnerable people placed in large-scale institutions in other countries in the region.
GR2 (Government): Stanev v. Bulgaria is just an example.
GR2 (Government): Acknowledged by all participating States to the Interlaken and Brighten conferences, as an effect of the authoritative character of the interpretation the Court gives to the Convention, such considerations are taken into account by all parties where the same problem of principle exists within their own legal system.
GR2 (Government): Therefore, the evaluation already made by the Court in its previous judgments contributes to the acknowledgement of general interest issues without the need for additional analyses and efforts. Furthermore, we contend that in the current case, one could not
GR2 (Government): identify a topical general interest given precisely the involvement of other international mechanisms for the protection of human rights, especially the rights of disabled people.
GR2 (Government): Thus, the circumstances that surrounded Mr. Campiano's death were documented, reported
GR2 (Government): and examined by the European Committee for Prevention of Torture.
GR2 (Government): Based on the report issued in 2006 after its 2004 visit, the national authorities took various steps to make sure that a similar violation would not occur in the future in the Poiana Mare Hospital. As a matter of fact, as early as 2005, the Romanian authorities
GR2 (Government): addressed the specific recommendations of the CPT. They informed the Committee on the
GR2 (Government): subsequent developments, and all information is either publicly available on the CPT's website or already presented to the Court in the initial written submissions of the Government in this case. On a more general note, the Government would
GR2 (Government): also like to refer to the 2013 UN Universal Periodic Review, which acknowledged positive developments concerning the situation of disabled persons in Romania. Still, further improvements
GR2 (Government): are necessary, and some of the recommendations encourage Romania to facilitate the greater integration and participation in society of people with disabilities, and in particular implement strategies that will achieve a substantial reduction in the number of people with disabilities currently in institutional care. For these reasons, we strongly contend that
GR2 (Government): the respective interest is not topical anymore, so as to determine a shift of the Court's approach. The Applicant Association suggests in its ongoing media campaign that the general
GR2 (Government): interest is specifically related to the very issue of legal standing, to the NGO's right to represent vulnerable people such as Mr. Campiano in loco parentis, before the conventional
GR2 (Government): organs. In our opinion, the NGO's interest to represent vulnerable people before the
GR2 (Government): Court could not in itself justify the claimed shift of the Court's approach in terms of legal standing, all the more so as the domestic tools exist and are available.
GR2 (Government): As to the merits of the actions undertaken by the Applicant in the wake of Mr. Campiano's
GR2 (Government): death, we refer to our written submissions, which detailed and commented on the circumstances of the case. Those submissions should, in our view, be read in the light of the developments
GR2 (Government): occurred at the legislative and administrative level in the past ten years, for an accurate assessment of the existence of an actual general interest. In fact, the Applicant participated
GR2 (Government): in the drafting of the amendments to the primary and secondary legislation on mental health that include provisions on the involuntary hospitalization, and its implication was commended by the Romanian authorities. The entry into force of the new legislation on civil matters
GR2 (Government): offers specific provisions on guardianship for the protection of a person's interests after a tribunal established that the person lacked judgment. The new Code on Civil Procedure
GR2 (Government): provides for the establishment of special provisional guardianship in case of judicial proceedings. The functions of guardian are accomplished by an attorney appointed by the
GR2 (Government): Court from a list specially drawn up by each Bar Association.
GR2 (Government): The legislation adopted in 2006 for the promotion of the rights of disabled people responds to the need to involve the person in the decision-making process by promoting the individual personalized support, the choice of the least restrictive alternative in the determination of the needs of the person, the prevalence of the person's interests.
GR2 (Government): Mr. President, Honorable Judges, in light of the above, we respectfully invite the Court
GR2 (Government): to consider that the applicant does not have locus standi within the meaning of Article 34, and that no particular ground relating to respect for human rights as defined in the Convention requires it to continue the examination of the application. Accordingly,
GR2 (Government): the Government kindly invites the Court to dismiss the application as inadmissible.
Dean Spielmann (JudgeP): Thank you Mr Caian, I call Mr Cojocariu.
AP1 (Applicant): Mr. President, honorable judges, together with my colleagues from the Center for Legal
AP1 (Applicant): Resources, I have the privilege to make the following submission.
AP1 (Applicant): Valentin Kampan was an HIV positive and intellectually disabled teenager. His mother abandoned him
AP1 (Applicant): at birth and his father was unknown. He spent his childhood in children's institutions.
AP1 (Applicant): When he turned 18, social services decided that he had to go to an adult's institution.
AP1 (Applicant): On 5 February 2004, Kampan was brought to the Cetate Social Care Home in a state of health described as stable at the time. Within two weeks, Valentin Kampan was dead.
AP1 (Applicant): My colleague, who is next to me now, Georgiana Pasch, saw Kampan on the last day of his life while he was alive, contrary to the government's claims. She found him in a room described
AP1 (Applicant): to her as a storage room, which lacked heating. His neglect was extreme. He was almost naked
AP1 (Applicant): and very thin. Although he could not feed himself and could not walk to the toilet by
AP1 (Applicant): himself, members of staff refused to help him. When confronted, they revealed that they
AP1 (Applicant): feared becoming infected with HIV. Upon leaving the hospital, the Center for Legal Resources
AP1 (Applicant): issued an urgent public appeal asking that Valentin Kampan be transferred to a medical facility that could provide him with urgency medical care. It was already too late. In
AP1 (Applicant): the evening of the day of the visit, he died and was buried on the grounds of the hospital.
AP1 (Applicant): Valentin Kampan's death occurred against the background of a huge rise of patient mortality at the Poana Mare Hospital. It was not an isolated case. Against a nominal capacity
AP1 (Applicant): of 500 beds, the hospital reported 68 deaths in 2002, 87 deaths in 2003, and 28 deaths in the first months of 2004, including Valentin Kampan himself. Most of these deaths occurred
AP1 (Applicant): during the cold season. Authoritative sources, such as the Committee for the Prevention
AP1 (Applicant): of Torture and others, noted that many of these deaths were due to cold, to hunger, and to substandard medical treatment. The government claimed that they addressed the
AP1 (Applicant): situation. The fact is that no one has been held responsible for these deaths to this
AP1 (Applicant): day. This is the reason why this case has reached the Court. The lack of any redress
AP1 (Applicant): for violations of basic rights committed against people with disabilities put away in institutions.
AP1 (Applicant): I will address the question of admissibility to the present application. My colleague,
AP1 (Applicant): Georgiana Jorgulescu, from the Center for Legal Resources, will then speak about the merits of the case.
AP1 (Applicant): We ask that the indirect victim — there are a number of ways in which CLR standing may be recognized before this Court. The most convenient way we submit is that the Court
AP1 (Applicant): recognizes that — or that the Court extends indirect victim status to third parties in the exceptional situation where the direct victim had died and where they did not have known relatives or other formal sources of representation. This should particularly
AP1 (Applicant): apply to situations where the person has died while in the State's care, and it is alleged that they died as a result of the State's actions or inactions.
AP1 (Applicant): The Court has applied its admissibility rules flexibly in the interest of ensuring effective protection of the human rights included in the Convention. Amongst others, the Court
AP1 (Applicant): has developed the notion of indirect victims primarily in the context of Article 2, although not exclusively, allowing relatives to bring cases on behalf of those who died or who disappeared. In the majority of cases, recognizing that relatives
AP1 (Applicant): have standing to act on behalf of the deceased is sufficient in order to ensure effective scrutiny. On the other hand, it is indisputable that among people with
AP1 (Applicant): disabilities living in institutions for long periods of times — of time, there are some who have been abandoned by their relatives or who do not have any living relatives willing to act on their behalf. There is also extensive documentary
AP1 (Applicant): evidence showing that abuse is an inherent feature of institutional life. At some
AP1 (Applicant): institutions, like Poana Mare Hospital, abuse took — indeed, took extreme, even grotesque forms, as people died of hunger, cold, and lack of medical treatment.
AP1 (Applicant): It follows that if the notion of indirect victim is restricted to close relatives, this would have a disparate impact on persons with disabilities like Valentin Campiano, who, as he does, be unable to enjoy the rights provided for in the Convention.
AP1 (Applicant): Until a case decided in June this year, Nantjeva v. Others v. Bulgaria, the Court
AP1 (Applicant): has not examined, to the best of our knowledge, the issue of standing where there were no relatives to represent the victim, the direct victim of the Article 2 violation.
AP1 (Applicant): In Nantjeva, a human rights association, the Association for European Integration of Human Rights, complained about the deaths of 15 children and young people in a social institution. Although the Court declared inadmissible the case, insofar as it was
AP1 (Applicant): concerned to the Association, it explicitly left the door open for NGOs standing in exceptional circumstances in the interest of assuring the participation of the public and the representation of the victims who are not able to act to defend themselves. In particular, in Nantjeva, the Court criticized the Association
AP1 (Applicant): for not having raised the matter domestically before filing the application, and thus implied that its decision may have been different if the Association had not failed to bring domestic proceedings. That is the central consideration
AP1 (Applicant): on which this case can be distinguished from Nantjeva and can actually be distinguished from the general class of cases that the government has highlighted might reach in the future, should the notion of standing be expanded as we request.
AP1 (Applicant): The Center for – so as opposed to Nantjeva, the Center for Legal Resources have litigated this and other cases extensively in domestic courts and more broadly engaged in dialogue with the authorities in Romania on this topic, and yet they failed to secure any accountability whatsoever for the abuses that happened at Poiana Mare and at many other institutions throughout the year, including, obviously, for Valentin Campiano's death. Valentin Campiano's mother had been – had abandoned
AP1 (Applicant): him at birth. She never visited him. She died in 2000. His father is unknown.
AP1 (Applicant): She had no legal guardian at the time when he died. Therefore, there was no one to
AP1 (Applicant): complain on his behalf in relation to the circumstances in which he died other than the Center for Legal Resources. Undoubtedly, the lack of relatives or guardians
AP1 (Applicant): facilitated greatly the possibility of abuse and the authorities' – or the authorities' feeling of impunity. Although it argued that the Center for Legal Resources
AP1 (Applicant): lacked standing to initiate these proceedings, the government failed to answer a question of crucial importance. Who would be entitled to bring Campiano's
AP1 (Applicant): case to this Court other than the Center for Legal Resources so that the circumstances of his death may be properly scrutinized and the compliance of the State with its obligations under the Convention may be examined by this Court?
AP1 (Applicant): The Center for Legal Resources asserts its right – right to bring this case to this honorable Court on the basis that it had acted on Valentin Campiano's behalf both prior to his death by launching an appeal for his transfer out of the Poe Annamare Hospital and immediately afterwards and throughout the next four years, seeking accountability for his death before domestic courts. Its monitors had direct
AP1 (Applicant): contact with Valentin Campiano on the last day of his life. In addition, the Center
AP1 (Applicant): for Legal Resources has a longstanding experience in defending the human rights of persons with disabilities in institutions. Its standing to act on Valentin's
AP1 (Applicant): – Valentin Campiano's behalf was recognized at the domestic level.
AP1 (Applicant): We respectfully ask the Court to take due account of the fact that the High Court of Cassation and Justice, the highest court of the land in Romania, has recognized that the Center for Legal Resources qualified as, quote, a person whose interests have been injured, unquote, in accordance with Article 278, Index I of the Criminal Code. This referred to its standing to challenge decisions by the prosecutor
AP1 (Applicant): to not to indict – not to – not to indict the potential culprits in Campiano's case, but it was narrowly related to the circumstances of Campiano's death.
AP1 (Applicant): And actually, the High Court of Cassation and Justice has interpreted Article 278, Index I, in the light of Articles II and III of the Criminal Code, and it's not only of the European Convention on Human Rights, and indeed also of Article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The government, in its submission before
AP1 (Applicant): the Grand Chamber and its oral presentation before this Court, suggested that Article 278, as interpreted, allowed for an axio popularis, which is – would not be permissible, as we accept in – in the convention system. This, however, is
AP1 (Applicant): not an axio popularis. We submitted to the Court another judgment, or it is not an
AP1 (Applicant): axio popularis in the sense of – in the sense of Article 278, Index I of the Romanian Criminal Procedural Code. The purpose of admissibility rules at the domestic
AP1 (Applicant): level and before this Court is the same or similar.
AP1 (Applicant): The High Court, turning back to the decision of the – of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, the High Court made it clear that Article 278, Index I, does not allow an axio popularis. The High Court denied standing to a parliamentarian group complaining
AP1 (Applicant): about alleged wrongdoing on the basis of public interest. In doing so, the High Court
AP1 (Applicant): of Cassation and Justice specifically stated that, quote, a concern for respect of the law is morally justified and laudable, but insufficient to produce eo ipso consequences in the field of procedural law, thus outruling the possibility of an axio popularis under Article 278, Index I of the Romanian Criminal Procedural Code. In its submission before the Grand Chamber, the government also argues that
AP1 (Applicant): the applicants sought interpretation of the victim status requirement that went beyond what the State initially committed to when signing up the European Convention on Human Rights. This, however, implies that the original intention of the drafters
AP1 (Applicant): of the Convention was to remove persons with disabilities without any relatives and who have been abandoned in institutions from the material scope of the Convention.
AP1 (Applicant): This, as I think we all can agree, is – would be, though, an unacceptable conclusion. We do not seek to impose new obligations on the State. We seek the effective
AP1 (Applicant): use of one of the most fundamental rights in the Convention in relation to some of the most vulnerable individuals of our societies. The government states that
AP1 (Applicant): this case further – further insists that this case should be dismissed as it represents an axio popularis. In particular, it relies on the Ada Rossi v. Italy decision,
AP1 (Applicant): which my esteemed colleague has referred to in – in her submission today, where associations of relatives of severely disabled persons, amongst others, complained about the decision of the Milan Court of Appeal granting the request to discontinue the life of a person in vegetative state filed by her father standing as guardian.
AP1 (Applicant): The present case can be distinguished from Ada Rossi on the basis that the Center for Legal Resources acted on Campano's behalf because of the absence – because of the absence of an officially appointed guardian, and not to challenge the actions of the official guardian, as the applicant associations did in Ada Rossi. In Ada Rossi,
AP1 (Applicant): this Court explained that, quote, the reason why the Convention does not allow an axio popularis is to avoid cases being brought before the Court by individuals complaining of the mere existence of a law applicable to any citizens of a country or of a judicial system to which they are not party, unquote. The present case seeks justice for a real