CASE OF MOCANU AND OTHERS v. ROMANIA

1. The case originated in three applications against Romania lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by three Romanian nationals, Mrs Anca Mocanu (no. 10865/09), Mr Marin Stoica (no. 32431/08) and Mr Teodor Mărieş, and by the Association “21 December 1989”, a legal entity registered under Romanian law and based in Bucharest (no. 45886/07) (“the applicants”) on 28 January 2009, 25 June 2008 and 13 July 2007 respectively.
2. Before the Court, Mrs Mocanu, Mr Mărieş and the applicant association were represented by Mr A. Popescu, Ms I. Sfîrăială and Mr I. Matei, lawyers practising in Bucharest. Mrs Mocanu was granted legal aid. Mr Stoica, who was also granted legal aid, was represented until 8 December 2009 by Ms D. Nacea, a lawyer practising in Bucharest, and from 22 January 2013 by Ms D.O. Hatneanu, a lawyer practising in Bucharest. The Romanian Government ( “the Government” ) were represented by their Agents, first by Mr R.H. Radu, then by Ms I. Cambrea, and finally by Ms C. Brumar, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
3. In their respective applications, the individual applicants alleged that they had been victims of the violent crackdown on the anti-government demonstrations which took place in Bucharest in June 1990 and claimed that no effective investigation had been carried out into those events. With reference to the same events, the applicant association complained of the length of the criminal proceedings which it had joined as a civil party.
4. The applications were allocated to the Third Section of the Court (Rule 52 § 1 of the Rules of Court). On 3 February 2009 the Chamber decided to join applications nos. 45886/07 and 32431/08 and to communicate them to the Government. On 15 March 2011 it decided to give notice also of application no. 10865/09 to the Government.
5. Following the withdrawal of Mr Corneliu Bîrsan, the judge elected in respect of Romania then in post, the Government appointed Mr Florin Streteanu to sit as an ad hoc judge (Article 26 § 4 of the Convention and Rule 29 § 1).
6. On 13 November 2012, a Chamber of the Third Section, composed of Josep Casadevall, Egbert Myjer, Alvina Gyulumyan, Ján Šikuta, Ineta Ziemele, Luis López Guerra, judges, Florin Streteanu, ad hoc judge, and Santiago Quesada, Section Registrar, decided to join the three applications and declared them admissible as to the complaints under Article 2 of the Convention in respect of Mrs Mocanu, Article 3 of the Convention in respect of Mr Stoica and Article 6 § 1 of the Convention in respect of the applicant association, declaring the remainder of the application inadmissible. Application no. 45886/07 was declared inadmissible in respect of Mr Mărieş. The Chamber concluded, unanimously, that there had been a violation of the procedural aspect of Article 2 of the Convention in respect of Mrs Mocanu and a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention in respect of the applicant association, and held that there was no need to examine separately the complaint under Article 34 of the Convention. It also concluded, by five votes to two, that there had been no violation of the procedural aspect of Article 3 of the Convention in respect of Mr Stoica.
7. On 12 February 2013 Mr Stoica requested the referral of the case to the Grand Chamber in accordance with Article 43 of the Convention and Rule 73. On 29 April 2013 the panel of the Grand Chamber granted that request.
8. The composition of the Grand Chamber was determined according to the provisions of Article 26 §§ 4 and 5 of the Convention and Rule 24.
9. Mr Stoica, the applicant association and the Government all filed further observations (Rule 59 § 1). In addition, third-party observations were received from the international non-governmental organisation Redress, which had been given leave by the President to intervene in the written procedure (Article 36 § 2 of the Convention and Rule 44 § 3).
10. A hearing was held in public in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 2 October 2013 ( Rule 59 § 3).
There appeared before the Court :
(a) for the Government Ms C. Brumar, Agent, Ms G. Munteanu, Counsel;
(b) for the applicantsMs D.O. Hatneanu, lawyer, Mr A. Popescu, lawyer, Ms I. Sfîrăială, lawyer, Counsel, Mr T. Mărieş, President of the applicant association, Mr M. Stoica Applicant.
The Court heard addresses firstly by Ms Hatneanu and Ms Sfîrăială, then by Ms Brumar and Ms Munteanu, and lastly by Mr Popescu and Mr Mărieş, as well as their answers to questions put by the judges.
I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE
11. Mrs Anca Mocanu and Mr Marin Stoica were born in 1970 and 1948 respectively. They live in Bucharest.
12. The Association “ 21 December 1989 ” ( Asociaţia 21 Decembrie 1989 ) was set up on 9 February 1990 and is based in Bucharest.
13. The applicant association brings together mainly individuals who were injured during the violent suppression of the anti-totalitarian demonstrations which took place in Romania in December 1989 and the relatives of persons who died during those events. It was one of the groups which supported the anti-government demonstrations held in Bucharest between April and June 1990, at which demonstrators called, inter alia, for the identification of those responsible for the violence committed in December 1989.
A. The events of 13 to 15 June 1990
14. The main facts concerning the crackdown on anti-government demonstrations from 13 to 15 June 1990 were described in the decisions of 16 September 1998 (see paragraphs 99-110 below) and 17 June 2009 (see paragraphs 152-63 below), issued by the prosecutor ’ s office at the Supreme Court of Justice ( which in 2003 became the High Court of Cassation and Justice ), and in the decisions to commit for trial ( rechizitoriu ) issued by the same prosecutor ’ s office on 18 May 2000 and 27 July 2007.
15. On 13 June 1990 the security forces ’ intervention against the demonstrators who were occupying University Square and other areas of the capital resulted in several civilian casualties, including Mrs Mocanu ’ s husband, Mr Mocanu, who was killed by a shot fired from the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior.
16. On the evening of 13 June 1990 Mr Stoica and other persons, some but not all of whom were demonstrators, were arrested and ill-treated by uniformed police officers and men in civilian clothing, in the area around the headquarters of the State television service and in the basement of that building.
17. On 14 June 1990 thousands of miners were transported to Bucharest, essentially from the Jiu Valley ( Valea Jiului ) mining region, to take part in the crackdown on the demonstrators.
18. At 6.30 a.m. on 14 June 1990 the President of Romania addressed the miners, who had arrived in the square in front of the Government building, inviting them to go to University Square, occupy it and defend it against the demonstrators; they subsequently did so.
19. The violent events of 13 and 14 June 1990 resulted in more than a thousand victims, whose names appear in a list attached to the decision issued on 29 April 2008 by the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice.
20. The headquarters of several political parties and other institutions, including those of the applicant association, were attacked and ransacked. The latter association subsequently joined the criminal proceedings as a civil party.
21. The criminal proceedings into the unlawful killing by gunfire of Mr Velicu -Valentin Mocanu are still pending. The investigation opened on 13 June 1990 into the ill-treatment allegedly inflicted on Mr Stoica was closed by a decision not to bring a prosecution, dated 17 June 2009, subsequently upheld by a judgment of the High Court of Cassation and Justice of 9 March 2011.
22. The facts as set out by the prosecutor ’ s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice in its decisions of 16 September 1998 and 17 June 2009 and in the decisions to commit for trial of 18 May 2000 and 27 July 2007 may be summarised as follows.
2. The demonstrations held in the first months of 1990
23. University Square in Bucharest was considered a symbolic location for the fight against the totalitarian regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu, given the large number of persons who had died or were injured there as a result of the armed repression initiated by the regime on 21 December 1989. It was therefore in this square that several associations – including the applicant association – called on their members to attend protest events in the first months of 1990.
24. Thus, the first demonstrations against the provisional government formed after the fall of the Ceauşescu regime took place in University Square in Bucharest on 12 and 24 January 1990, as indicated in the decision issued on 17 June 2009 by the prosecutor ’ s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice. That decision also states that a counter-demonstration was organised by the National Salvation Front ( Frontul Salvării Naţionale – the FSN) on 29 January 1990. On that occasion, miners from the coal-mining regions of the Jiu Valley, Maramureş and other areas appeared in Bucharest. The headquarters of the National Liberal Party were vandalised at that time.
25. From 25 February 1990, demonstrations were held every Sunday. According to the decision to commit for trial of 27 July 2007, they were intended to denounce the non-democratic attitude of those in power, who were accused of having “betrayed the ideals of the revolution”, and sought to alert the population to the threat of a new dictatorial regime.
26. Election campaigns were subsequently launched for parliamentary elections and the office of President of the Republic, to be held on 20 May 1990.
27. It was in this context that unauthorised “marathon demonstrations” ( manifestaţii maraton ) began on 22 April 1990 in University Square, at the initiative of the Students ’ League and other associations, including the applicant association. These demonstrations lasted fifty-two days, during which the demonstrators occupied University Square. The decisions of 16 September 1998 and 17 June 2009 indicate that the demonstrators, who had gathered in large numbers, were not violent and were essentially demanding that persons who had exercised power during the totalitarian regime be excluded from political life. They also called for a politically independent television station.
28. They called further for the identification of those responsible for the armed repression of December 1989 and demanded the resignation of the country ’ s leaders ( particularly the Minister of the Interior ), whom they considered responsible for the repression of the anti-communist demonstrations in December 1989.
29. On 22 April 1990 fourteen demonstrators were arrested by the police on the ground that the demonstration had not been authorised. Faced with the reaction of the public, who had arrived to boost the number of demonstrators in University Square, the police released the fourteen arrested demonstrators. The authorities did not use force again over the following days, although the Bucharest City Council had still not authorised the gathering.
30. Negotiations between the demonstrators and the provisional government resulted in stalemate.
31. On 20 May 1990 the presidential and parliamentary elections took place. The FSN and its leader, who was standing for President, won the elections.
32. Following those elections the protests continued in University Square, but were reduced from their original scale. Of the approximately 260 persons still present, 118 had gone on hunger strike.
3. The meeting held by the executive on 11 June 1990
33. On the evening of 11 June 1990 the new President elect of Romania and his Prime Minister convened a government meeting, attended by the Minister of the Interior and his deputy, the Minister of Defence, the director of the Romanian Intelligence Service ( Serviciul Român de Informaţii – the SRI ), the first deputy president of the ruling party (the FSN) and the Procurator General of Romania. This is established in the prosecution service ’ s decisions of 16 September 1998 and 17 June 2009.
34. At that meeting it was decided to take measures to clear University Square on 13 June 1990. In addition, it was proposed that the State organs, namely the police and army, would be assisted by some 5,000 mobilised civilians. Implementation of this measure was entrusted to the first deputy president of the FSN. Two members of that party ’ s steering committee opposed the measure, but without success. According to the decision of 17 June 2009, an action plan drawn up by General C. was approved by the Prime Minister.
35. On the same evening the Procurator General ’ s Office ( Procuratura Generală ) broadcast a statement on State television calling on the government to take measures so that vehicles could circulate again in University Square.
36. At a meeting held on the same evening with the participation of the Minister of the Interior, the head of the SRI and the head of police, General D.C. set out the plans for the police and gendarmerie, in collaboration with civilian forces, to clear University Square. Under this plan, the action was “to begin at 4 a.m. on 13 June 1990 by cordoning off the square, arresting the demonstrators and re-establishing public order”.
4. The sequence of events on 13 June 1990
37. At about 4.30 a.m. on 13 June 1990 members of the police and gendarmerie brutally charged the demonstrators in University Square. The arrested demonstrators were driven away and locked up at the Bucharest municipal police station. The 26 3 arrested individuals (or 262, according to the decision to commit for trial of 18 May 2000) included students from the Architecture Institute, who had been on the premises of their establishment, located on University Square, and who had not taken part in the demonstrations. The decision of 17 June 2009 indicated that the 263 persons who had been arrested were taken to the Măgurele barracks after being held in the police cells.
38. The police operation led to protests by many people, who demanded that the arrested demonstrators be released. According to the decision of 16 September 1998, those persons launched violent attacks on the security forces, hurling projectiles and setting cars on fire. According to the decision to commit for trial of 18 May 2000, those actions were the work of a few aggressive individuals who had infiltrated groups of peaceful demonstrators.
39. At about 10 a.m., workers from the factories of a large metallurgical company in Bucharest (IMGB) headed en masse for University Square to help the police arrest the demonstrators. According to the decision of 16 September 1998, they acted in a chaotic and heavy-handed manner, hitting out blindly and making no distinction between demonstrators and mere passers-by.
40. On the afternoon of 13 June 1990, the demonstrations intensified around the television building, University Square, the Ministry of the Interior and the municipal police station, all locations where, according to the demonstrators, the persons who had been arrested could be held prisoner.
41. Following those incidents, the army intervened and several armoured vehicles were sent to the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior.
42. According to a report by the Ministry of the Interior, referred to by the Government in their observations, at about 6 p.m. the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior were surrounded by between 4,000 and 5,000 demonstrators; on the orders of Generals A.G. and C.M., servicemen posted inside the Ministry fired at the ceilings of the entrance halls with a view to dispersing the demonstrators.
43. Three persons were killed by the shots fired in the Ministry of the Interior.
44. It was in those circumstances that, at about 6 p.m., when he was a few metres away from one of the doors of the Ministry, the first applicant ’ s husband was killed by a bullet which hit the back of his head after having ricocheted. Those events are described in detail in the decisions of 18 May 2000 and 27 July 2007 committing for trial the Minister of the Interior at the relevant time, a general and three colonels. According to the first decision to commit for trial, the applicant ’ s husband and the other victims, who were returning from their workplaces on that day, were unarmed and had not previously taken part in the marathon demonstrations in University Square. Mere spectators of the events, they had been killed by bullets which had ricocheted.
45. The security forces shot and killed a fourth person in another district of Bucharest. Another died shortly after having been stabbed in the area around the television headquarters.
46. On 13 June 1990 no servicemen were subjected to violence by the demonstrators, as attested by the decision to commit for trial of 27 July 2007. According to that document, the army had fired 1,466 bullets from inside the Ministry of the Interior headquarters on that date.
47. In addition, other persons, including Mr Stoica, were beaten and detained by police officers and civilians in the headquarters of the State television station, in the circumstances described below.
48. The headquarters of the State television station were at that time guarded by 82 servicemen, backed by 14 armed vehicles, and subsequently reinforced by other groups of armed forces, the largest of which contained 156 servicemen ( who arrived at 7 p.m. ), a detachment of parachutists ( 7.30 p.m. ), 646 servicemen ( 8 p.m. ), 118 parachutists ( 11 p.m. ) and 360 servicemen with 13 other armed vehicles ( 11 p.m. ).
49. At about 1 a.m. the demonstrators were chased out of the television headquarters following this mass intervention.
5. Circumstances specific to Mr Marin Stoica
50. Towards the end of the afternoon on 13 June 1990, while he was walking to his workplace along a street near the State television headquarters, the applicant was brutally arrested by a group of armed individuals and taken by force into the television building. In sight of the police officers and servicemen present, civilians struck and bound him, then took him to the basement of the building. He was then led into a television studio, where several dozen other persons were already present. They were filmed in the presence of the then director of the State television station. The recordings were broadcast during the night of 13 to 14 June 1990, accompanied by commentary which described the persons concerned as employees of foreign secret services who had threatened to destroy the television premises and equipment.
51. In the course of the same night the applicant was beaten, struck on the head with blunt objects and threatened with firearms until he lost consciousness.
52. He woke up at around 4.30 a.m. in the Floreasca Hospital in Bucharest. According to the forensic medical report drawn up on 18 October 2002, the medical certificate issued by the hospital ’ s emergency surgery department stated that the applicant had been admitted at about 4.30 a.m. on 14 June 1990 and diagnosed as suffering from bruising on the left side of the abdomen and ribcage, abrasions on the left side of his ribcage resulting from an assault, and craniocerebral trauma.
53. Fearing further ill-treatment, he fled from the hospital, which was surrounded by police officers, at about 6.30 a.m.
54. His identity papers had been confiscated during the night of 13 to 14 June 1990. Three months later he was invited to collect them from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations at the General Inspectorate of Police. In the meantime, he had remained shut away at home for fear of being arrested again, tortured and imprisoned.
6. The miners ’ arrival in Bucharest
55. According to the decision of 16 September 1998, witness M.I., an engineer, who at the relevant time was head of department at the Craiova agency of the national railway company ( Regionala CFR Craiova ), had stated that, on the evening of 13 June 1990, the director of that agency had ordered that the scheduled trains be cancelled and that 4 train convoys, or a total of 5 7 wagons, be made available to the miners at Petroşani station, in the heart of the Jiu Valley mining area.
56. M.I. had added that the order seemed to him unlawful and that he had attempted to prevent the miners ’ transportation to Bucharest by cutting the electricity provision to the railway line on the journey indicated. He had stated that, faced with his insubordination, the director of the Craiova CFR agency had ordered that he be replaced and had the railway line restored to use by about 9 p.m. It appears that M.I. was subsequently dismissed and brought before the prosecution service.
57. According to the decision issued on 10 March 2009 by the prosecutor ’ s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice, on 14 June 1990 11 trains – a total of 120 wagons – transporting workers, especially miners, had travelled to Bucharest from several industrial regions around the country. The first had reached Bucharest at 3.45 a.m., the last at 7.08 p.m.
58. The decision of 16 September 1998 states that the miners had been informed that they were to help the police re-establish public order in Bucharest, and that they were armed with axes, chains, sticks and metal cables.
59. The decision of 10 March 2009 indicates that the miners had been mobilised by the leaders of their trade union. Questioned as a witness, the President of the Federation of Miners ’ Unions, who became mayor of Lupeni in 1998, stated that 5 trains carrying the miners had arrived at Bucharest station at about 1 a.m. on 14 June 1990, that the miners had been greeted by the deputy Minister for Mines and a Director General from that Ministry, and that these two senior government officials had led them to University Square.
7. The sequence of events on 14 June 1990
60. On the morning of 14 June 1990, groups of miners first stopped at Victory Square ( Piaţa Victoriei ), at the government headquarters.
61. At about 6.30 a.m., the Head of State addressed the miners who were gathered in front of the government building, inviting them to cooperate with the security forces and to restore order in University Square and in other areas where incidents had occurred. In this speech, which is reproduced in full in the decision of 17 June 2009, he urged them to head towards University Square and occupy it, informing them that they would be confronted with “openly fascist elements who had committed acts of vandalism ” by setting fire to the headquarters of both the Ministry of the Interior and of the police and “besieging the television building”.
62. Immediately afterwards groups of miners were led “by unidentified persons” to the headquarters of opposition parties and associations perceived as hostile to the authorities.
63. The miners were flanked by troops from the Ministry of the Interior, with whom they formed “mixed teams”, and set out to look for demonstrators. The decision of 17 June 2009 indicates that “acts of extreme cruelty [took place] on this occasion, with violence being used indiscriminately against demonstrators and Bucharest residents who were totally unconnected with the demonstrations”. The decision of 10 March 2009 indicates that the miners also attacked the homes of persons of Roma ethnicity. According to that decision, the miners had “selection criteria” for identifying those persons who, in their opinion, were suspected of taking part in the University Square demonstrations, and attacked “as a general rule, Roma, students, intellectuals, journalists and anyone who did not recognise their legitimacy”.
64. The groups of miners and the other persons accompanying them ransacked the headquarters of the National Farmers ’ Party ( Partidul Naţional Ţărănesc Creştin şi Democrat ) and the National Liberal Party, and the headquarters of other legal entities, such as the Association of Former Political Prisoners ( Asociaţia Foştilor Deţinuţi Politici ), the League for the Protection of Human Rights ( Liga pentru Apărarea Drepturilor Omului ) and the Association “21 December 1989” (the applicant association).
65. According to the decision of 16 September 1998, no one present in the headquarters of those political parties and associations at that time was spared by the miners. All were attacked and had their possessions confiscated. Many were apprehended and handed over to the police – who were there “as though by coincidence” – and detained in an entirely unlawful manner.
66. Other groups of miners had gone to University Square. On arrival, they broke into the University premises and the Architecture Institute, located on University Square. They attacked the staff and students whom they encountered there, subjecting them to violence and humiliating acts. The miners apprehended everyone on the premises and handed them over to the police and gendarmes. The arrested persons were taken by the law-enforcement officers to police stations or to the Băneasa and Măgurele military barracks.
67. The miners then moved into the streets surrounding University Square and continued their activities there.
68. According to the decision of 17 June 2009, 1,021 individuals – including 63 who were then under age – were apprehended in those circumstances. Of those individuals, 1 8 2 of them were placed in pre-trial detention, 88 received an administrative penalty and 706 were released “after checks”.
69. The decision of 16 September 1998 states that “the miners [ended] their law-enforcement activities on 15 June 1990, after the President of Romania had thanked them publicly for what they had done in the capital, and authorised them to return to their work”.
70. That decision also indicates that some of those who were beaten and imprisoned were unlawfully detained for several days and that several of them were released on 19 and 20 June 1990.
71. The other persons in police custody were placed in pre-trial detention, on a decision by the prosecutor, for causing a breach of the peace; their number included the current president of the applicant association, who was subsequently acquitted of all the charges against him.
72. The decision of 17 June 2009 states that the miners acted in close collaboration with the security forces and on the instructions of the State ’ s leaders. The relevant passages read as follows:
“ On 14 and 15 June 1990 the miners, in groups coordinated by civilians on behalf of and with the agreement of the State ’ s leaders [ în numele şi cu acordul conducerii de stat ], committed acts in which the State ’ s law-enforcement forces fully collaborated [ deplină cooperare ] and which caused not only physical harm to the persons who were apprehended for checks, but also significant damage to the premises of the University of Bucharest, the Architecture Institute, several political parties and civilian associations, and the homes of figures from so-called ‘ historical ’ parties ...
The investigations conducted by the military prosecutors have not permitted identification of the persons in civilian clothing who had infiltrated the miners ’ groups; the victims who were questioned had distinguished between the miners and their other attackers by describing the first as ‘ dirty miners ’ and the second as ‘ clean miners ’.
8. Circumstances specific to the applicant association
73. On 13 June 1990 the applicant association publicly condemned the violent interventions of the same day.
74. At about 11 p.m. the leaders of the association decided, as a security measure, to spend the night in its headquarters. Seven of them remained there during the night.
75. At 7 a.m. on 14 June 1990, a group of miners forcibly entered the applicant association ’ s premises after breaking a window pane. In the first few minutes after entering they were not violent, and were rather reserved. Shortly afterwards an unidentified civilian, who was not a miner, arrived on the scene and began hitting one of the members of the association. The miners followed his lead, brutally attacking the seven members of the association, who were then arrested by the security forces.
76. During that day all of the association ’ s property and documents were seized, in breach of the legal formalities, under the supervision of troops from the Ministry of Defence.
77. On 22 June 1990 the leaders of the association were able to return to the association ’ s premises, accompanied by the police.
9. Developments subsequent to the events of 13 to 15 June 1990
78. The above-cited decisions of the prosecutor ’ s office indicate that, instead of immediately returning to their homes, 958 miners remained in Bucharest, “ready to intervene should the protests recommence”, notably with a view to the impending swearing-in of the newly elected President. From 16 to 19 June 1990 those miners were accommodated in military barracks in Bucharest, where they received military uniforms.
79. The decision of 16 September 1998 indicates that the investigation was unable to elucidate who had given the order to house and equip the miners, but specifies that “such a measure had to have been taken at least at Ministry of Defence level ”.
80. According to a press release issued by the Ministry of Health on 15 June 1990 and reproduced in the decision of 17 June 2009, during the period between 13 June and 6 a.m. on 15 June 1990, 467 persons went to hospital following the violent incidents; 112 were kept in hospital and 5 deaths were recorded.
81. According to the same decision of 17 June 2009, police officers, miners and later the military conscripts responsible for supervising the miners used excessive force against the 574 demonstrators and the other persons – including children, elderly persons and blind people – who had been arrested and detained in the Măgurele military barracks. The decision states that the detainees on those premises were subjected to violence and assaults of a “psychological, physical and sexual” nature and held in inappropriate conditions, and that they received belated and inadequate medical care.
82. The violent events of June 1990, in the course of which the husband of the applicant Anca Mocanu was killed and Mr Stoica was allegedly ill-treated, and which resulted in the ransacking of the applicant association ’ s headquarters, gave rise to the opening of an investigation. It was initially divided up into several hundred different case files.
83. On 29 May 2009 the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice sent a letter to the Government ’ s Agent, in which the facts were summarised as follows:
“ Over the period from 1990 to 1997, hundreds of complaints were registered on the rolls of the prosecutor ’ s office at the Bucharest County Court and the district prosecutor ’ s offices concerning the offences of theft, destruction, armed robbery, assault causing bodily harm, unlawful deprivation of liberty and other offences committed in the context of the acts of violence committed by miners in Bucharest on 14 and 15 June 1990. In the majority of those cases, it having proved impossible to identify the perpetrators, a decision was issued not to bring a prosecution.”
84. No decision to discontinue the proceedings was communicated to Mrs Mocanu or to the applicant association, which had joined the proceedings as a civil party.
85. Those case files were subsequently joined and the scope of the investigation was broadened from 1997 onwards, the events having been given a different legal classification involving aggravated criminal responsibility. Senior army officers and State officials were successively charged and the entire investigation was transferred to the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the Supreme Court of Justice ( Parchetul de pe lângă Curtea Supremă de Justiţie – Secţia Parchetelor Militare ) as case no. 160/P/1997.
86. Between 22 October 1997 and 27 October 1999, 183 previously opened cases were joined to case no. 160/P/1997, of which 46 were joined on 22 October 1997, 90 on 16 September 1998 and 69 on 22 October 1999.
87. On 26 June 2000 the same military prosecutor ’ s section was assigned 748 cases concerning the events of 13 to 15 June 1990, including, in particular, the unlawful deprivations of liberty on 13 June 1990.
88. In the decision of 17 June 2009, the state of the file as it existed after the joinder of all those cases is described as follows :
“ Many of the documents included in the 250 volumes of the file are photocopies which have not been stamped or have not been certified as corresponding to the original. The documents in each of those volumes are not filed by date, subject or another criterion, but in a disorderly fashion. Some of them have nothing to do with the case ( for example, volume 150 contains files concerning disappearances which occurred after June 1990 ). ... ”
89. On 16 September 1998 case no. 160/P/1997 was split into four cases and the subsequent investigation was assigned to the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the Supreme Court of Justice.
90. On 8 January 2001 three of those four cases were joined. After that date the investigation focused on two main cases.
91. The first concerned charges of incitement to or participation in aggravated unlawful killing, particularly that of Velicu -Valentin Mocanu. The persons accused of that offence were the President of Romania at the relevant time and five senior army officers, including the Minister of the Interior.
92. The decision of 19 June 2007 to bring charges, and the subsequent decision of 19 July 2007 to sever the charges, state that, on orders from the then President, on the evening of 13 June and the night of 13 to 14 June 1990 the security forces and army personnel used their weapons and heavy ammunition against demonstrators, killing four persons, injuring three others and endangering the lives of other persons.
93. The charges against the former President were subsequently severed from those against the other defendants, who were high-ranking military officers, and a decision to discontinue proceedings against him was issued.
94. At 2 October 2013 this first branch of the investigation was still pending in respect of two of the officers in question, the three others having died in the meantime.
95. The other case concerning the events of June 1990, which investigated, in particular, the criminal complaint for violence lodged by Mr Stoica and the ransacking of the applicant association ’ s premises, concerned charges of incitement to commit or participation in acts of sedition ( subminarea puterii de stat ), sabotage ( actele de diversiune ), inhuman treatment ( tratamentele neomenoase ), propaganda in favour of war ( propaganda pentru război ) and genocide, within the meaning of Article 357 (a) to (c) of the Criminal Code.
96. The persons accused of those acts were the former President, several high-ranking officers and dozens of civilians. Proceedings were brought in respect of these charges against the former President on 9 September 2005 and against the former head of the SRI on 12 June 2006.
97. This second branch of the investigation was closed by a decision not to bring a prosecution, adopted on 17 June 2009. That decision was upheld by a judgment delivered on 9 March 2011 by the High Court of Cassation and Justice following an appeal by Mr Stoica.
98. The main stages of the investigation are described below.
1. The decision adopted on 16 September 1998
99. On 16 September 1998 the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the Supreme Court of Justice issued its decision in case no. 160/P/1997, following an investigation concerning sixty-three persons who had been victims of violence and unlawful arrests, including Mrs Mocanu and three members of the applicant association, as well as the applicant association itself and eleven other legal entities whose premises had been ransacked during the events of 13 to 15 June 1990.
100. Of the sixty-three victims listed in the table contained in the decision of 16 September 1998, three had been assaulted and deprived of their liberty at the headquarters of the State television station. In the final column, indicating the stage reached in the investigations, the table notes that “the case has not been investigated ” ( cauza nu este cercetată ) in respect of those three persons.
101. In its decision, the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office indicated that other complaints were pending before the civilian prosecutors ’ offices.
102. It added that its decision also concerned “the presumed unlawful killing of about one hundred individuals during the events of 13 to 15 June 1990, [whose corpses] were allegedly incinerated or buried in common graves in cemeteries in villages near Bucharest (notably Străuleşti )”.
103. It also indicated that, to date, the investigation had been unable to identify the persons who had implemented in practice the executive ’ s decision to summon civilians to restore order in Bucharest. According to the prosecution service, this failing in the investigation was due to the “fact that none of the persons who held posts of responsibility at the relevant time [had] been questioned”, particularly the then President of Romania, the Prime Minister and his deputy, the Minister of the Interior, the head of the police, the director of the SRI and the Minister of Defence.
104. In its decision, the military section ordered that the case be split into four separate case files.
105. The first of those files was to focus on the continued investigation into the unlawful killing by gunfire of four civilians, including the first applicant ’ s husband.
106. The second file targeted those persons who had exercised functions pertaining to civilian and military command. The authorities decided to pursue the investigation in respect of them, in particular for abuse of power against the public interest entailing serious consequences, an offence punishable under Article 248 § 2 of the Criminal Code, and also to investigate the fact that one social group had been enlisted alongside the security forces to combat other social groups.
107. The third file concerned the continuing investigations into the possible existence of other victims who had been killed during the violent incidents of 13 to 15 June 1990 (see paragraph 102 above).
108. Lastly, considering that the prosecution was statute-barred, the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office decided to discontinue the proceedings against unidentified members of the security forces and groups of miners in respect of the offences of armed robbery, unlawful deprivation of liberty, abusive conduct, improper investigation, abuse of power against private interests, assault, actual bodily harm, destruction of property, theft, breaking and entering homes, malfeasance and rape, committed between 13 and 15 June 1990.
109. This part of the decision of 16 September 1998 was set aside in a decision issued on 14 October 1999 by the head of the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office ( Şeful Secţiei Parchetelor Militare ) at the Supreme Court of Justice, which ordered that the proceedings and investigations intended to identify all the victims be resumed, specifying in that respect that it had been established that the number of victims greatly exceeded that of the injured parties listed in the impugned decision.
110. In addition, the decision of 14 October 1999 noted that the investigators had so far failed to conduct investigations into the “known collusion” between the Ministry of the Interior and the leaders of the mining companies “with a view to organising a veritable apparatus of unlawful repression ”, that collusion having been established, according to the decision by the evidence contained in the case file.
2. Subsequent developments in the investigation in respect of senior army officials for participation in unlawful killing
111. After the decision of 16 September 1998, the investigations into the unlawful killing of Mr Velicu -Valentin Mocanu continued under case no. 74/P/1998 (see paragraph 105 above).
112. Mrs Mocanu and the two children she had had with the victim joined the proceedings as civil parties.
113. Two generals – the former Minister of the Interior and his deputy – and three senior-ranking officials were charged with the unlawful killings committed on 13 June 1990, including that of the applicant ’ s husband, on 12, 18 and 21 January and 23 February 2000 respectively.
114. All five were committed for trial on the basis of a decision to that effect ( rechizitoriu ) of 18 May 2000, on the ground that they had called for – and, in the case of the two generals, ordered – the opening of fire with heavy ammunition, an act which resulted in the death of four individuals and which caused serious injury to nine other persons.
115. By a decision of 30 June 2003, the Supreme Court of Justice remitted the case to the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the Supreme Court of Justice for additional investigation intended to remedy various deficiencies, and reclassified the offence as participation in aggravated unlawful killing. It also ordered a series of investigative measures to be taken.
116. Mrs Mocanu, other civil parties and the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office appealed against that decision on points of law. Their appeals were dismissed by the High Court of Cassation and Justice ( as the Supreme Court of Justice was renamed in 2003, see paragraph 14 above) in a judgment of 16 February 2004.
117. After the investigation was resumed, the proceedings against the five defendants were discontinued by a decision of 14 October 2005. That decision having been overturned on 10 September 2006, the proceedings were reopened.
118. After carrying out an additional investigation in line with the instructions set out in the judgment of 30 June 2003, the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice committed the former Minister of the Interior, his deputy and two other senior army officers for trial in a decision to that effect of 27 July 2007. It discontinued proceedings against the fifth officer, who had died in the meantime.
According to the decision to commit for trial, “the lack of reaction by the public authorities” and the lack of an immediate effective investigation “[had] endangered the very existence of democracy and the rule of law”.
119. By a judgment of 17 December 2007, the High Court of Cassation and Justice ordered that the case be sent back to the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office for a breach of procedural rules, primarily on the ground that criminal proceedings against a former minister could only be brought through a special procedure requiring prior authorisation by Parliament.
120. On 15 April 2008 the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice lodged an appeal on points of law against that decision, but this was dismissed on 23 June 2008.
121. On 30 April 2009 the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice stated that it did not have jurisdiction to examine this branch of the case, mainly because members of the police force – including the Minister of the Interior – had become civil servants following a legislative amendment, and the military courts and prosecutors thus no longer had jurisdiction over their criminal acts, even where those had been committed while they were still military officers. It therefore relinquished jurisdiction to one of the ordinary criminal sections of the same prosecutor ’ s office, namely the Criminal Proceedings and Criminalistics Section ( Secţia de urmărire penală şi criminalistică ).
122. By a decision of 6 June 2013, that Section discontinued the proceedings against the former minister and his deputy, both of whom had died on 2 November 2010 and 4 February 2013 respectively.
123. By the same decision, the same Section of the prosecutor ’ s office declared that it did not have jurisdiction in respect of the last two surviving defendants, Colonels C.V. and C.D., and referred their cases to the military prosecutor ’ s office at the Bucharest regional military court.
124. This investigation was pending before that prosecutor ’ s office on 2 October 2013.
3. The charges against the former President of the Republic in respect of the death of Mrs Mocanu ’ s husband
125. This part of the investigation concerned the charges against the former President of the Romanian Republic with regard to the victims who were killed or injured by gunshots fired by the army on 13 June 1990.
126. The former President of Romania, in office from 1989 to 1996 and from 2000 to 2004, was charged on 19 June 2007, by which date he was exercising the functions of senator and was a member of parliament. He was accused of having “deliberately incited servicemen to use force against the demonstrators in University Square and in other districts of the capital, an act which resulted in the death or injury by gunfire of several persons”. Those facts were characterised as participation lato sensu in aggravated unlawful killing, a crime punishable under Articles 174, 175 (e) and 176 (b) of the Criminal Code, taken together with Article 31 § 2 of that Code.
127. On 19 July 2007 those charges were severed from case no. 74/P/1998. The investigation continued under case no. 107/P/2007.
128. In the meantime, on 20 June 2007 the Constitutional Court, ruling in a case unrelated to the present one, had delivered a judgment ruling that the military courts did not have jurisdiction to judge or prosecute civilian defendants. In consequence, by a decision of 20 July 2007 the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office held that it did not have jurisdiction to examine case no. 107/P/2007 and relinquished jurisdiction to one of the ordinary criminal sections.
129. On 7 December 2007 the Procurator General of Romania set aside, for procedural errors, the indictment of 19 June 2007, and ordered that the investigation be resumed.
130. By a decision of 10 October 2008, the Criminal Proceedings and Criminalistics Section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice issued a decision not to bring a prosecution, on the ground that there was no causal link between the order to clear University Square issued by the former President and the decision taken by three officers, with the agreement of their superiors – General A. and General C. ( Minister of the Interior ) – to give the order to open fire on the demonstrators.
In so ruling, the prosecutor ’ s office held that the objectives of the action plan drawn up on 12 June 1990 had been fulfilled by 9 a.m. on the following morning, and that the following events, including the subsequent orders to open fire, had had nothing to do with that plan and could not have been foreseen by those who prepared it.
131. On 3 November 2008 Mrs Mocanu and other injured parties challenged this decision not to bring a prosecution.
132. On 18 December 2009 a three-judge bench of the High Court of Cassation and Justice dismissed their appeals, finding them inadmissible, out of time or unfounded, depending on the case. It concluded that there was no causal link between the acts imputed to the former President and the unpredictable consequences of the demonstrations which had resulted in the deaths of several persons. Moreover, it noted that three of the injured parties – widows or relatives of the victims who died on 13 and 14 June 1990 –, including Mrs Mocanu, had stated at a hearing on 11 December 2009 that they did not intend to challenge the decision not to bring a prosecution in respect of the former President and that they wished only that those responsible for the unlawful killings be identified and that they be held liable. Following an appeal on points of law by the civil parties, that decision was upheld by a nine-judge bench of the High Court in a judgment of 25 October 2010.
4. The investigative measures regarding the circumstances of Mr Velicu ‑ Valentin Mocanu ’ s death
133. According to the forensic autopsy report carried out on Mrs Mocanu ’ s husband, he died as a result of gunshot wounds inflicted by a third party.
134. The applicant made her first specific request to join the proceedings as a civil party on 11 December 2000. On the same date the applicant and the other civil parties – relatives of the three other persons who had been killed during the events of 13 and 14 June 1990 – filed joint pleadings containing their observations as to the identity of those responsible for the deaths of their relatives, and their claims for compensation.
135. On 14 February 2007 the applicant was questioned for the first time by the prosecutor ’ s office for the purposes of the investigation. Assisted by a lawyer of her own choice, she stated that her husband had not returned home on the evening of 13 June 1990, that this had worried her, that she had searched for him the following day without success, and that she had subsequently learned from the press that he had been killed by a shot to the head. No investigator or official representative had visited her, nor had she been summoned for the purposes of the investigation; only a few journalists had come to see her. She stated that, aged 20 and without employment at the relevant time, since her husband ’ s death she had raised their two children, a daughter of two months (born in April 1990) and a two-year-old son, alone.
136. The documents in the file submitted to the Court do not indicate whether Mrs Mocanu was kept informed about developments in the investigation into the aggravated unlawful killing of her husband following the High Court of Cassation and Justice ’ s judgment of 17 December 2007 ordering that the case be remitted to the prosecutor ’ s office.
5. Subsequent developments in the investigation into charges of inhuman treatment
137. Between 26 November 1997 and 12 June 2006, criminal proceedings were brought against 37 persons – 28 civilians and 9 servicemen – essentially for acts of sedition committed in the course of the events of June 1990. The former President of Romania was among those prosecuted. He was charged on 9 June 2005 with participation in genocide (paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of Article 357 of the Criminal Code), propaganda in favour of war (Article 356), inhuman treatment (Article 358), sedition (Article 162) and acts of sabotage (Article 163).
The vast majority of the 28 civilians charged were directors of mining companies, heads of miners ’ trade unions and senior civil servants in the Ministry of Mines.
138. On 16 September 1998 this branch of the investigation was allocated the file number 75/P/1998 (see paragraph 106 above).
139. On 19 December 2007 the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice ordered that the case in file no. 75/P/1998 be split into two parts, one concerning the criminal charges against the 28 civilians, including the former President of Romania and the former head of the SRI, and the other concerning the charges against the 9 servicemen. The investigation with regard to the 28 civilians was to be pursued before the relevant civilian section of the same prosecutor ’ s office.
140. By a decision of 27 February 2008, the head prosecutor in the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office set aside the decision of 19 December 2007, finding that, given the close connection between the events, a single prosecutor ’ s office, namely the relevant civilian section, was to examine the entirety of the case in respect of all of the defendants, both civilians and servicemen.
141. In line with that decision, on 29 April 2008 the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice also relinquished jurisdiction to the relevant civilian section for examination of the criminal charges against the 9 servicemen – including several generals, the former head of police and the former Minister of the Interior.
142. The decision of 29 April 2008 contained a list of more than a thousand victims who had been held and subjected to ill-treatment, notably on the premises of the Băneasa Officers ’ School and the Măgurele military unit. Mr Stoica was included in this list of victims. The decision also contained a list of the legal entities which had sustained damage during the crackdown of 13 to 15 June 1990, including the applicant association.
143. That decision also referred to “identification of the approximately 100 persons who died during the events of 13 to 15 June 1990 ”.
144. It also contained a list of the State-owned companies which had provided workers for the intervention in Bucharest. That list included, in particular, twenty mining companies from all around the country and factories in eleven towns ( Călăraşi, Alexandria, Alba-Iulia, Craiova, Constanţa, Deva, Giurgiu, Galaţi, Braşov, Slatina and Buzău), as well as three factories in Bucharest.
145. Following that decision, on 5 May 2008 the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office sent the 209 volumes, containing a total of some 50,000 pages, from case no. 75/P/1998 to the relevant civilian section of the prosecutor ’ s office.
146. On 26 May 2008 the section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice which had received the entire file, namely the Criminal Proceedings and Criminalistics Section, stated that it did not have jurisdiction, and relinquished jurisdiction to another section of the same prosecutor ’ s office, namely the Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism ( Direcţia de Investigare a Infracţiunilor de Criminalitate Organizată şi Terorism – DIICOT ).
147. By a decision of 10 March 2009, the relevant directorate of the prosecutor ’ s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice, namely the DIICOT, decided that no prosecution would be brought against the former head of the SRI on the charge of sedition, as that offence had become time-barred, and that no prosecution would be brought against the majority of the 27 civilian defendants – directors of mining companies, heads of miners ’ trade unions, senior civil servants at the Ministry of Mines and in local government – on the ground that the constituent elements of the offence had not been made out.
148. In so ruling, the prosecutor ’ s office considered that, in their respective capacities as Head of State, Minister of the Interior, deputy minister or Head of Police, some of the defendants exercised State authority, and it would have been illogical to think that they could have committed acts capable of undermining their own power. As to the miners and other workers who had travelled to Bucharest on 14 June 1990, the prosecutor ’ s office considered that they had “turned themselves into security forces” and been persuaded that their actions served State power. In addition, it noted that their intervention had been pointless, since the operation conducted by the parachutists at the television headquarters had enabled order to be restored in the capital at about 1 a.m. on 14 June 1990.
149. The prosecution also discontinued the proceedings against three of the defendants, who had died in the meantime.
150. Lastly, the DIICOT decided to relinquish jurisdiction to the Criminal Proceedings and Criminalistics Section with regard to the remainder of the case, namely the charges of inhuman treatment, propaganda in favour of war and genocide, within the meaning of Article 357 ( a) to ( c) of the Criminal Code. Those facts concerned only nine of the persons who had been charged during the period 2000 - 06, including the former president.
151. On 17 June 2009 a decision was taken not to bring a prosecution in respect of those charges; its content is set out below.
6. The decision of 17 June 2009 not to bring a prosecution
152. On 17 June 2009 the prosecutor ’ s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice issued a decision not to bring a prosecution in the case, concerning essentially charges of inhuman treatment arising from 856 complaints by persons injured as a result of the violence committed from 13 to 15 June 1990.
153. The decision in question indicated that the former Head of State had not been examined as a defendant in the course of the investigation.
154. It gave a comprehensive description of the violence – classified as extreme cruelty – inflicted on several hundred persons.
155. It was indicated that the investigations conducted over approximately nineteen years by the civilian prosecutor ’ s offices and, subsequently, by the military prosecuting authorities, had not made it possible to establish the identity of the perpetrators or the degree of involvement of the security forces. The relevant passage from the decision reads as follows:
“The investigations carried out over a period of about nineteen years by the civilian prosecutors ’ offices and, subsequently, by the military prosecuting authorities, the findings of which are contained in case file ... have not made it possible to establish the identity of the miners who committed the attack, the degree of involvement in their actions by the security forces and members and sympathisers of the FSN and their role and degree of involvement in the acts of violence carried out against the residents of the capital on 14 and 15 June 1990. ”
156. This decision ordered that proceedings be discontinued against one of the defendants, who had died in the meantime, and that no prosecution would be brought ( scoatere de sub urmărire penală ) in respect of the eight remaining defendants for those offences which had become statute -barred, in particular harbouring a criminal.
157. With regard to the offences which had not become time-barred, especially those of inhuman treatment, the decision stated that there was no case to answer, since the constituent elements of the offences had not been made out or because the reality of the events complained of had not been proven.
158. In this connection, it was indicated that the then Head of State could not be criticised for any form of participation in the joint actions by the miners and the armed forces, as he had merely approved the actions which occurred on the morning of 13 June 1990 and the army ’ s intervention on the afternoon of the same date, for the stated purpose of restoring order. It was also mentioned that there was no information ( date certe ) to substantiate accusations against him with regard to the preparations for the miners ’ arrival in Bucharest and the instructions they had been given. It was noted that his request to the miners to protect the State institutions and to restore order – following which 1,021 persons had been deprived of their liberty and subjected to physical assault – could only be classified as incitement to commit assault and that criminal liability in that respect was time-barred.
159. The prosecutor ’ s office considered that the demonstrators and other persons targeted by the miners belonged to various ethnic groups (Romanians, Roma, Hungarians) and social categories ( intellectuals, students, school pupils, but also workers ), and that they could not therefore be regarded as a single group or an identifiable community on objective geographical, historical, social or other grounds, and for that reason the events complained of could not be classified as genocide. Relying on the case-law of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the prosecutor ’ s office also considered that the persons deprived of liberty had not been systematically subjected to ill-treatment.
160. The decision further indicated that the speech by which the Head of State had encouraged the miners to occupy and defend University Square against the demonstrators camping out there could not be interpreted as propaganda in favour of war, as the accused had not sought to instigate a conflict of any kind, but had, on the contrary, asked the miners “ to put an end to excess and acts of bloodshed ”.
161. It was also indicated that the miners had been motivated by simplistic personal convictions, developed on the basis of collective hysteria, which had led them to act as arbitrators of the political situation and zealous guardians of the political regime – the leaders of which had recognised them as such –, authorised to “correct” those who opposed its legitimacy. The prosecutor further noted the legal requirement that, to be punishable, the inhuman treatment had to target “individuals who [had] fallen into enemy hands” and considered that this criterion had not been met here, since the miners no longer had any enemy against whom to fight on 14 June 1990.
162. With regard to the accusations of torture, the prosecutor considered that Romanian law contained no provisions against torture at the material time.
163. The decision of 17 June 2009 analyses each of the charges in respect of each defendant, but refers to none of the victims by name and does not mention the individual acts of violence complained of by each of them, referring to an appendix which has not been submitted to the Court. It mentions the number of victims and their membership of such or such a category, noting, for example, the 425 persons who were arrested and held on the premises of the Băneasa Officers ’ School or the 574 demonstrators who were arrested and imprisoned on the premises of the Măgurele military base.
7. Appeals lodged against the decision not to bring a prosecution of 17 June 2009
164. The applicant association, other legal entities and individuals lodged an appeal against the decision of 17 June 2009 not to bring a prosecution, which was dismissed on 3 September 2009 by the head prosecutor of the relevant section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice. In so ruling, the prosecutor ’ s office considered that no actions which could be classified as a crime against humanity, such as inhuman treatment or genocide, had been committed.
165. Mr Stoica and four other injured parties also lodged an appeal against the same decision. It was dismissed on 6 November 2009. Mr Stoica lodged on appeal on points of law before the High Court of Cassation and Justice.
166. On 9 March 2011, having dismissed the plea of res judicata raised by the former Head of State, the High Court of Cassation and Justice ruled on the merits of the decision not to bring a prosecution, and dismissed the applicant ’ s appeal.
167. In its judgment, it classified the assault against the applicant as grievous bodily harm ( Article 182 of the Criminal Code ), unlawful arrest, ill-treatment ( Article 267), torture, unjust repression and blackmail. It considered that the decision of 17 June 2009 had been correct in ruling that no prosecution was to be brought, on the ground that the offences in question had become time-barred and that torture had not been a criminal offence at the material time.
168. In contrast, it did not rule on the criminalisation of inhuman treatment ( Article 358 of the Criminal Code), which had been the subject of the decision of 29 April 2008, in which the applicant was named as a victim of the inhuman treatment imputed to five generals.
8. Summary and clarifications concerning the investigative measures
169. According to the Government, the main investigative measures carried out in the period between 1990 and 2009 were as follows: more than 840 interviews with injured parties; hearing of witnesses on more than 5,724 occasions; and more than 100 forensic medical reports. The results of those measures were set out in several thousand pages of documents.
( a) Investigative measures concerning Mr Stoica in particular
170. On 18 June 2001, when he was received by a prosecutor at the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the Supreme Court of Justice, Mr Stoica lodged an official complaint concerning the violence of which he claimed to have been victim on the night of 13 to 14 June 1990.
171. His complaint was joined to the investigation file already opened in respect of other charges, especially inhuman treatment ( case file no. 75/P/1998).
172. On 18 October 2002, for the purposes of the investigation into the alleged assault against him, the applicant underwent an examination at the State Institute of Forensic Medicine, which produced a forensic medical report. That report indicated that the injuries described in the medical file opened by the emergency unit on 14 June 1990 had required three to five days of medical treatment and had not been such as to endanger the applicant ’ s life.
173. It was also indicated that the applicant had been hospitalised for major epileptic fits from 31 October to 28 November 1990, in February 1997, March 2002 and August 2002, and that he had been diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic secondary epilepsy and other cerebral and vascular disorders (transient ischemic attacks – TIAs). The expert report noted that the post-traumatic epilepsy had appeared following an injury sustained in 1966.
174. On 9 and 17 May 2005 the applicant was questioned and was able to give his point of view on the events complained of and submit his claims for compensation in respect of the alleged pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage.
175. By a letter of 23 May 2005, he was informed by the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice that his complaint concerning the injuries inflicted on 13 June 1990 by unidentified servicemen, which had resulted in his hospitalisation “in a coma”, was being investigated in the context of case no. 75/P/1998.
176. A certificate issued on 26 April 2006 indicates that, according to the entries in the register held by the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the High Court of Justice and Cassation, the applicant had been received by a prosecutor in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, mainly for the purposes of the investigation or to enquire about progress in the investigation. The applicant lodged two additional complaints, on 12 September and 4 October 2006 respectively.
177. On 23 April 2007 the prosecutor questioned two witnesses indicated by the applicant.
178. When questioned on 9 May 2007 as an injured party, the applicant asked the military prosecutor to order a second forensic medical report, since he considered that the 2002 report had entirely failed to emphasise the seriousness of the injuries sustained in 1990 and the continuing after-effects of those injuries.
179. The prosecutor ordered a new report. Among other things, he asked the forensic specialists to examine whether a causal link existed between the injury sustained by the applicant in June 1990 and the medical conditions from which he was suffering on the date on which the report was ordered.
180. During his questioning, the applicant was invited to watch a video recording of the events of 13 June 1990, including those at the headquarters of the State television station. He recognised himself, and asked that the video recording be added to the investigation file.
181. On 25 June 2007 the new medical report was added to the case file. It specified, again on the basis of the medical records drawn up on 14 June 1990, that the applicant ’ s injuries had required three to five days of medical treatment and that they had not been life-threatening. It specified that there was no causal link between the injuries sustained on the night of 13 to 14 June 1990 and the applicant ’ s medical problems, which had subsequently required numerous periods of hospitalisation.
182. On 30 October 2007, at the applicant ’ s request, the medical observation files on his condition prepared by the emergency unit of Bucharest Hospital in 1992 were added to the file.
183. The medical board at the National Social Security Fund had previously issued the applicant with a certificate, dated 24 May 2007, indicating that he was suffering from “overall accentuated impairment” resulting in total inability to work. The relevant passages of this certificate read as follows:
“ In view of the medical records in the patient ’ s file, the documents which have been added recently ... and the clinical psychiatric examination conducted on 24 May 2007, the specialist committee and the higher committee reach the following clinical diagnosis: mixed personality disorders, aggravated by organic causes. Acute traumatic brain injury 1990 (assault ). Epilepsy with partial generalised secondary crises, confirmed clinically and by EEG, currently rare .... , supraventricular incidents in his medical history ( irregular heart rhythm ( flutter ) and atrioventricular block ..., with a return to sinus rhythm ... after cardioversion ).
Functional diagnosis: overall accentuated impairment.
Fitness for work: totally lost, 2 nd level invalidity.
184. In the meantime, on 10 May 2004 the prosecutor ’ s office at the Bucharest County Court had issued a decision not to bring a prosecution in another case, following a complaint of attempted murder lodged by the applicant on the basis of the same facts.
( b) Clarifications regarding the examination of the criminal complaint, with a request to join the proceedings as a civil party, lodged by the applicant association
185. On 9 July 1990 Bucharest military unit no. 02515 sent the applicant association a letter informing it that “an inventory of the items found on 14 June 1990 [at the association ’ s headquarters] [had] been drawn up by the representatives of the Procurator General ’ s Office ( Procuratura Generală ) and placed, with an official report, at the headquarters of the Bucharest Prosecutor ’ s Office ( Procuratura Municipiului Bucureşti )”.
186. On 22 July 1990 two police officers went to the applicant association ’ s headquarters. They noted that the windows had been broken and the locks destroyed, and that the items in the headquarters had “all been ransacked”. They drew up a report in the presence of the association ’ s leaders and a witness.
187. On 26 July 1990 the applicant association lodged a criminal complaint with the Bucharest Prosecutor ’ s Office, complaining about the ransacking of its headquarters and the attacks sustained by some of its members on 14 June 1990, and demanded the restitution of all the materials and documents which had been confiscated. It requested leave to join the criminal proceedings as a civil party.
188. On 22 October 1997 the General Inspectorate of Police sent the prosecutor ’ s office at the Supreme Court of Justice twenty-one case files, opened following criminal complaints by several individuals and legal entities with regard to the events of 13 and 14 June 1990. Those files included case file no. 1476/P/1990, which concerned the applicant association ’ s complaint regarding the ill-treatment inflicted on several of its members. The General Inspectorate of Police invited the prosecutor ’ s office to inform it of the steps to be taken with a view to conducting interviews for the purpose of the investigation.
189. The applicant association contacted the prosecutor ’ s office at the Supreme Court of Justice, subsequently the High Court of Cassation and Justice, on a regular basis for information concerning progress in the investigation or to request additional investigative measures, until the investigation was closed by the decision of 17 June 2009 not to bring a prosecution.
II. RELEVANT DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL LAW AND PRACTICE
A. International legal documents
1. United Nations legal sources
190. The United Nations Committee against Torture issued General Comment No. 3 (2012) on the Implementation by States parties of Article 14 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the relevant parts of which read as follows:
“ Obstacles to the Right to Redress
37. A crucial component of the right to redress is the clear acknowledgement by the responsible State party that the reparative measures provided or awarded to a victim are for violations of the Convention, by action or omission. The Committee is therefore of the view that a State party may not implement development measures or provide humanitarian assistance as a substitute for redress for victims of torture or ill-treatment. The failure of a State party to provide the individual victim of torture with redress may not be justified by invoking a State ’ s level of development. The Committee reminds that change of government as well as successor states still have the obligations to guarantee access to the right of redress.
38. States parties to the Convention have an obligation to ensure that the right to redress is effective. Specific obstacles that impede the enjoyment of the right to redress and prevent effective implementation of article 14 include, but are not limited to: inadequate national legislation, discrimination in accessing complaints and investigation mechanisms and procedures for remedy and redress; inadequate measures to secure the custody of alleged perpetrators, state secrecy laws, evidential burdens and procedural requirements that interfere with the determination of the right to redress; statutes of limitations, amnesties and immunities; the failure to provide sufficient legal aid and protection measures for victims and witnesses; as well associated stigma, and the physical, psychological and other related effects of torture and ill-treatment. In addition, the failure of a State party to execute judgments providing reparative measures for a victim of torture, handed down by either national, international or regional courts, constitute a significant impediment to the right to redress. States parties should develop coordinated mechanisms to enable victims to execute judgments across State lines, including recognizing the validity of court orders from other States parties and assisting in locating the assets of perpetrators.
39. With regard to the obligations in article 14, States parties shall ensure both de jure and de facto access to timely and effective redress mechanisms for members of groups marginalized and/or made vulnerable, avoid measures that impede the ability of members of such groups to seek and obtain redress, and address formal or informal obstacles that they may face in obtaining redress. These may include, for example, inadequate judicial or other procedures for quantifying damages which may have a negative disparate impact on such individuals in accessing or keeping money. As the Committee has emphasized in its General Comment No. 2, “gender is a key factor. Being female intersects with other identifying characteristics or status of the person ... to determine the ways that women and girls are subject to or at risk of torture or ill-treatment”. States parties shall ensure due attention to gender in providing all the elements cited above in the process of ensuring that everybody, in particular members of groups made vulnerable, including LGBT must be treated fairly and equally and obtain fair and adequate compensation, rehabilitation and other reparative measures which respond to their specific needs
40. On account of the continuous nature of the effects of torture, statutes of limitations should not be applicable as these deprive victims of the redress, compensation, and rehabilitation due to them. For many victims, passage of time does not attenuate the harm and in some cases the harm may increase as a result of post-traumatic stress that requires medical, psychological and social support, which is often inaccessible to those whom have not received redress. States parties shall ensure that all victims of torture or ill-treatment, regardless of when the violation occurred or whether it was carried out by or with the acquiescence of a former regime, are able to access their rights to remedy and to obtain redress ... ”
2. Case-law of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights and of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
191. International case-law provides examples of cases where the alleged victims of mass violations of fundamental rights, such as the right to life and the right not to be subjected to ill-treatment, have been authorised to wait many years before bringing proceedings at national level and subsequently applying to the international courts, although the admissibility criteria for their applications, with regard to exhaustion of domestic remedies and time-limits for submitting complaints, were similar to those provided for by the Convention (see, inter alia, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Community of Rio Negro of the Maya Indigenous People and its Members v. Guatemala, report no. 13/2008 of 5 March 2008, application no. 844/05; Inter-American Court of Human Rights (“ IACtHR ”), “ Las Dos Erres ” Massacre v. Guatemala, 24 November 2009 and IACtHR, and García Lucero et al. v. Chile, 28 August 2013 ).
192. The relevant parts of the first case cited above ( Community of Rio Negro of the Maya Indigenous People and its Members, §§ 88-89) read as follows:
“The rule of a reasonable time for filing petitions with the inter-American human rights system must be analyzed in each case, mindful of the activity of the victims ’ next-of-kin to seek justice, the conduct of the state, and the situation and context in which the alleged violation occurred. Therefore, in view of the context and characteristics of the instant case, as well as of the fact that several investigations and judicial proceedings are still pending, the Commission considers that the petition was presented within a reasonable time, and that the admissibility requirement referring to the time for submission has been met.”
B. Provisions concerning the statutory limitation of criminal liability
193. Article 121 of the Criminal Code, in force at the material time, is worded as follows:
“ The statutory limitation of criminal liability does not apply to crimes against peace and humanity. ”
194. Article 122, in force at the material time, governs the statutory limitation periods in respect of criminal liability. The relevant parts are worded as follows:
“ Criminal liability shall be statute-barred after :
( a) fifteen years, where the law provides for a maximum sentence of life imprisonment or fifteen years ’ imprisonment for the offence committed;
( b) ten years, where the law provides for a maximum sentence of more than ten years ’ and less than fifteen years ’ imprisonment for the offence committed;
( c) eight years, where the law provides for a maximum sentence of more than five years ’ and less than ten years ’ imprisonment;
( d) five years, where the law provides for a maximum sentence of more than one year ’ s and less than five years ’ imprisonment for the offence committed;
( e) three years, where the law provides for a maximum sentence not exceeding one year ’ s imprisonment or a fine for the offence committed.
These limitation periods shall start to run from the date on which the offence was committed ...”
195. Article 123 lays down a ground for interrupting the limitation period, namely the carrying out of any act that, under the law, must be notified to the accused.
196. Article 124, as in force at the material time, governs the special limitation period. The relevant parts are worded as follows :
“ Criminal liability shall be time-barred regardless of how many interruptions have occurred, if the time-limit provided for in Article 122 is exceeded by half of the period in question.”
C. Article 358 of the Criminal Code and case-law concerning its application
197. Article 358 of the Criminal Code read as follows:
Inhuman treatment ( Tratamentele neomenoase )
“ 1. The fact of inflicting inhuman treatment on wounded or ill persons, on civilian health personnel or members of the Red Cross or other similar organisations, on the shipwrecked, on prisoners of war and, in general, on any other person who has fallen into enemy hands ( şi în general a oricărei persoane căzute sub puterea adversarului ), or of subjecting them to medical or scientific experiments which are not justified by medical treatment administered for their benefit, shall be punishable by a prison sentence of between five and twenty years and the deprivation of certain rights.
2. The fact of committing the following acts against the persons mentioned in the previous paragraph shall be punishable by the same penalty:
(a) forcible conscription in the enemy ’ s armed forces;
(d) forcible transfer ( dislocarea ) or deprivation of liberty without a legal basis;
(e) conviction or execution, without prior judgment by a court established by law in compliance with the basic requirements of due process as provided for by law.
3. The torture, mutilation or extermination of the persons mentioned in the first paragraph shall be punishable by life imprisonment or a prison sentence of between fifteen and twenty-five years and the deprivation of certain rights.
4. Where the offences punishable under this Article are committed in wartime, the applicable penalty shall be life imprisonment.”
198. By judgment no. 2579, delivered on 7 July 2009, the High Court of Cassation and Justice upheld a decision on the applicability of Article 358 of the Criminal Code – a provision which penalises inhuman treatment – adopted by the military court of appeal in a case concerning the arrest and death in prison in 1948 of an opponent of the totalitarian regime which had then just been established in Romania. The relevant passages of that judgment read as follows :
“ By a judgment of 28 January 2009, the Military Court of Appeal decided ... to allow the appeal by the appellant ... against the decision ... not to bring a prosecution, issued in respect of D. Z. and the staff of the Medical Service of the Ministry of the Interior ( in 1948) with regard to the crime of inhuman treatment, penalised by Article 358 of the Criminal Code ...
... the case was sent to the Military Prosecutor ’ s Office at the Military Court of Appeal with a view to the opening of criminal proceedings ( în vederea începerii urmăririi penale ) for the reasons, facts and circumstances established by means of the evidence set out in the judgment ...
In so ruling, the Court of Appeal noted that : ...
Relying on the definition of inhuman treatment given by the European Court [of Human Rights], the High Court notes in the instant case that, in 1948, the period in which the events coming under Article 358 of the Criminal Code were committed, there existed a situation of conflict – a precondition [for this crime to be established] – between the authorities of the Communist State, who not only tolerated but even authorised “State agents” to behave like genuine torturers, and the victims of this regime of physical and psychological repression. In those circumstances, there is nothing to prevent the accused from being the subject of an investigation in relation to this offence.
The actus reus of the offence of inhuman treatment as applicable in this case consists in subjecting injured or ill persons to inhuman treatment, that is, treatment which is difficult to endure physically and is humiliating.
In consequence, the Military Court of Appeal was correct in ordering that the case be sent back to the prosecutor ’ s office so that proceedings could be brought, including in respect of this crime, the respondents Z. and D. having ordered the arrest of D.A. on 21 April 1948 on the charge of undermining State security, based on an anonymous denunciation and in the absence of any evidence that that offence had been committed. ”
I. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLES 2 AND 3 OF THE CONVENTION
199. Mrs Anca Mocanu and Mr Marin Stoica alleged that the respondent State had failed in its obligations under the procedural aspect of Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention. They alleged that those provisions required the State to conduct an effective, impartial and thorough investigation capable of leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible for the armed repression of the demonstrations of 13 and 14 June 1990, in the course of which Mr Mocanu, the first applicant ’ s husband, was killed by gunfire and the second applicant was subjected to ill ‑ treatment.
The relevant part of Article 2 provides :
“1. Everyone ’ s right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally ... ”
“No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
A. The Court ’ s jurisdiction ratione temporis
200. The Court notes that the respondent Government made no plea before the Grand Chamber as to the Court ’ s lack of jurisdiction ratione temporis. However, they submitted that the Court could examine the complaints brought before it only in so far as they related to the period after 20 June 1994, the date on which the Convention came into force in respect of Romania.
201. The Court reiterates that it has to satisfy itself that it has jurisdiction in any case brought before it, and is therefore obliged to examine the question of its jurisdiction at every stage of the proceedings even where no objection has been raised in this respect ( see Blečić v. Croatia [GC], no. 59532/00, § 67, ECHR 2006 ‑ III).
202. The Chamber held that the procedural obligation to conduct an effective investigation arising out of Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention had evolved into a separate and autonomous duty which could be considered capable of binding the State even when the infringement of life or of personal integrity occurred before the entry into force of the Convention with regard to that State. In so ruling, it reiterated the principles outlined in the Šilih v. Slovenia judgment ([GC], no. 71463/01, §§ 159-63, 9 April 2009) and subsequently applied in cases brought against Romania in which the events of December 1989 were in issue ( see Agache and Others v. Romania, no. 2712/02, §§ 70-73, 20 October 2009; Şandru and Others v. Romania, no. 22465/03, § 59, 8 December 2009; and Association “ 21 December 1989 ” and Others v. Romania, nos. 33810/07 and 18817/08, §§ 114-18, 24 May 2011 ).
203. It also considered that, in order for this procedural obligation to be applicable, it must be established that a significant proportion of the procedural steps were or ought to have been implemented following ratification of the Convention by the country concerned. Applying those principles in this case, the Chamber noted that the criminal proceedings concerning the violent suppression of the demonstrations of June 1990 had been instituted in 1990, that they had continued after 20 June 1994 and that a significant proportion of the procedural measures had been carried out after that date.
204. The Chamber therefore declared that it had jurisdiction ratione temporis to examine the allegation of a procedural violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention, dismissing the objection which had been raised by the Government in this connection with regard to Mr Stoica ’ s application alone.
205. In Janowiec and Others v. Russia ([GC], nos. 55508/07 and 29520/09, §§ 128-51, ECHR 2013), the Court provided additional clarifications on the temporal limitations of its jurisdiction – previously defined in the Šilih judgment ( cited above, §§ 162-63) – with regard to the procedural obligation to investigate deaths or ill-treatment which occurred prior to the entry into force of the Convention in respect of the respondent State ( the “critical date ” ).
206. It found, in essence, that this temporal jurisdiction was strictly limited to procedural acts which were or ought to have been implemented after the entry into force of the Convention in respect of the respondent State, and that it was subject to the existence of a genuine connection between the event giving rise to the procedural obligation under Articles 2 and 3 and the entry into force of the Convention. It added that such a connection was primarily defined by the temporal proximity between the triggering event and the critical date, which could be separated only by a reasonably short lapse of time that should not normally exceed ten years ( see Janowiec and Others, cited above, § 146); at the same time, the Court specified that this time period was not in itself decisive. In this regard, it indicated that this connection could be established only if much of the investigation – that is, the undertaking of a significant proportion of the procedural steps to determine the cause of death and hold those responsible to account – took place or ought to have taken place in the period following the entry into force of the Convention ( see Janowiec and Others, cited above, § 147).
207. In the instant case, the Court reiterates that the complaints in respect of the procedural aspect of Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention concern the investigation into the armed repression conducted on 13 and 14 June 1990 against the anti-government demonstrations, and that this repression cost the life of the first applicant ’ s husband and interfered with the second applicant ’ s physical integrity. That investigation began in 1990, shortly after those events, giving rise, inter alia, to investigative measures, the primary aim of which was to identify the victims who had been killed by gunfire, including the first applicant ’ s husband.
208. It should thus be noted that four years passed between the triggering event and the Convention ’ s entry into force in respect of Romania, on 20 June 1994. This lapse of time is relatively short. It is less than ten years and less than the time periods in issue in similar cases examined by the Court ( see Şandru and Others, cited above, §§ 55-59; Paçacı and Others v. Turkey, no. 3064/07, §§ 63-66, 8 November 2011; and Jularić v. Croatia, no. 20106/06, §§ 45-51, 20 January 2011).
209. Prior to the critical date, few procedural acts were carried out in the context of the investigation. It was after that date, and especially from 1997 onwards, that the investigation took shape through the joinder of dozens of cases which had previously been dispersed and the bringing of charges against senior military and civilian figures. Equally, the prosecutors ’ decisions to commit for trial and judicial decisions concerning this case were all issued after the critical date ( see, inter alia, the decision to commit for trial of 18 May 2000, the Supreme Court of Justice ’ s judgment of 30 June 2003, the decision to commit for trial of 27 July 2007 and the High Court of Cassation and Justice ’ s judgments of 17 December 2007 and 9 March 2011).
210. In other words, the majority of the proceedings and the most important procedural measures were carried out after the critical date.
211. Consequently, the Court finds that it has jurisdiction ratione temporis to examine the complaints raised by Mrs Mocanu and Mr Stoica under the procedural aspect of Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention, in so far as those complaints relate to the criminal investigation conducted in the present case after the entry into force of the Convention in respect of Romania.
B. Objection of failure to exhaust domestic remedies
212. The Government, alleging that the applicants had not brought an action in tort against the State, repeated the objection of failure to exhaust domestic remedies submitted by them to the Chamber in respect both of the complaint lodged by Mrs Anca Mocanu under Article 2 and that lodged by Mr Marin Stoica under Article 3.
213. After pointing out that the Court had already dismissed a similar objection in its Association “ 21 December 1989 ” and Others judgment ( cited above, §§ 119-125) and that the State ’ s obligations under Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention could not be satisfied merely by an award of damages, the Chamber also dismissed the objection raised by the Government in this case. In addition, it considered that a single final judgment by a first-instance court did not demonstrate with sufficient certainty the existence of effective and accessible domestic remedies for complaints similar to those of the applicants.
2. The Government ’ s submissions
214. According to the Government, an action for damages based on the provisions of Articles 998 and 999 of the former Civil Code, and seeking to establish the State ’ s civil liability in tort on account of the lack of an effective investigation into the events of June 1990, would have enabled the two applicants to obtain fair compensation for the alleged damage and acknowledgement of a violation of the rights guaranteed by the Convention.
215. In support of that argument, the Government indicated that the domestic courts had found in favour of other persons who were in similar situations to the applicants. In this connection, they referred to the decision which they had already mentioned in their observations before the Chamber.
216. The decision in question, which the Government had cited in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of this remedy, was a judgment of 12 June 2008 by which the Bucharest Fifth District Court had ordered the Ministry of Finance to pay compensation to a claimant for the shortcomings in an investigation opened following the repression of the demonstrations held in Bucharest in December 1989. The Government had indicated before the Chamber that the fact that they were submitting only one example of a judicial decision of this type could be explained by the absence of other proceedings for the same purpose.
217. The Government further referred to the judgment in Floarea Pop v. Romania (no. 63101/00, 6 April 2010 ), while distinguishing the present case from those of Branko Tomašić and Others v. Croatia (no. 46598/06, 15 January 2009 ) and Kats and Others v. Ukraine (no. 29971/04, 18 December 2008). They alleged that, contrary to the remedies in issue in these two cases, the remedy in issue here would have provided satisfaction to the applicants in respect of the procedural aspect of Articles 2 and 3 also, since the domestic courts had jurisdiction to examine possible breaches in that regard.
3. The applicants ’ submissions
218. In his submissions to the Grand Chamber, Mr Marin Stoica alleged that an action in tort did not constitute an adequate remedy in that it could not oblige those responsible for the investigation to establish what had happened, and that the prospects of success for such an action were purely hypothetical. In consequence, the exhaustion of this remedy had not been necessary.
219. Mrs Anca Mocanu made no comment on this point before the Grand Chamber. In her observations before the Chamber, she had submitted that the decision cited by the Government did not warrant the conclusion that this was an effective remedy, since the court concerned had not obliged the relevant authorities to expedite the criminal proceedings in question. In addition, she alleged that the case had been generated by the Government for the purposes in hand, namely the proceedings before the Court. She had added that nothing could dispense the State from its obligation to conduct an effective investigation as required by Article 2 of the Convention.
220. It is a fundamental feature of the machinery of protection established by the Convention that it is subsidiary to the national systems safeguarding human rights. This Court is concerned with the supervision of the implementation by Contracting States of their obligations under the Convention. It should not take on the role of Contracting States, whose responsibility it is to ensure that the fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined therein are respected and protected on a domestic level. The rule of exhaustion of domestic remedies is based on the assumption – reflected in Article 13 of the Convention, with which it has close affinity – that there is an effective remedy available in respect of the alleged violation. The rule is therefore an indispensable part of the functioning of this system of protection ( Vučković and Others v. Serbia [GC], no. 17153/11, § 69, 25 March 2014).
221. States are dispensed from answering before an international body for their acts before they have had an opportunity to put matters right through their own legal system, and those who wish to invoke the supervisory jurisdiction of the Court as concerns complaints against a State are thus obliged to use first the remedies provided by the national legal system (see, among many authorities, Akdivar and Others v. Turkey, 16 September 1996, § 65, Reports 1996 ‑ IV; and Vučković and Others, cited above, § 70).
222. The obligation to exhaust domestic remedies therefore requires an applicant to make normal use of remedies which are available and sufficient in respect of his or her Convention grievances. The existence of the remedies in question must be sufficiently certain not only in theory but in practice, failing which they will lack the requisite accessibility and effectiveness (see Akdivar and Others, cited above, § 66; and Vučković and Others, cited above, § 71). To be effective, a remedy must be capable of directly redressing the impugned state of affairs and must offer reasonable prospects of success (see Balogh v. Hungary, no. 47940/99, § 30, 20 July 2004; and Sejdovic v. Italy [GC], no. 56581/00, § 46, ECHR 2006 ‑ II).
223. On the contrary, there is no obligation to have recourse to remedies which are inadequate or ineffective (see Akdivar and Others, cited above, § 67, and Vučković and Others, cited above, § 73 ). However, the existence of mere doubts as to the prospects of success of a particular remedy which is not obviously futile is not a valid reason for failing to exhaust that avenue of redress (see Akdivar and Others, cited above, § 71; Scoppola v. Italy (no. 2) [GC], no. 10249/03, § 70, 17 September 2009; and Vučković and Others, cited above, § 74).
224. The Court has, however, also frequently underlined the need to apply the exhaustion rule with some degree of flexibility and without excessive formalism (see Ringeisen v. Austria, 16 July 1971, § 89, Series A no. 13; Akdivar and Others, cited above, § 69; and Vučković and Others, cited above, § 76). The Court has therefore specified that the application of the rule must make due allowance for the fact that it is being applied in the context of machinery for the protection of human rights that the Contracting Parties have agreed to set up and without excessive formalism. It has therefore recognised that the rule of exhaustion is not capable of being applied automatically (see Akdivar and Others, cited above, § 69; and Kurić and Others v. Slovenia [GC], no. 26828/06, § 286, ECHR 2012 (extracts) ).
225. As regards the burden of proof, it is incumbent on the Government claiming non-exhaustion to satisfy the Court that the remedy was an effective one, available in theory and in practice at the relevant time. Once this burden has been satisfied, it falls to the applicant to establish that the remedy advanced by the Government was in fact exhausted, or was for some reason inadequate and ineffective in the particular circumstances of the case, or that there existed special circumstances absolving him or her from this requirement (see Akdivar and Others, cited above, § 68; Demopoulos and Others v. Turkey ( dec. ) [GC], nos. 46113/99 et al, § 69, ECHR 2010; McFarlane v. Ireland [GC], no. 31333/06, § 107, 10 September 2010; and Vučković and Others, cited above, § 77).
226. In those circumstances, in ruling on the issue of whether an applicant has met this admissibility criterion having regard to the specific circumstances of his or her case, the Court must first identify the act of the respondent State ’ s authorities complained of by the applicant ( see Haralambie v. Romania, no. 21737/03, § 70, 27 October 2009).
227. In this connection, the Court has held that, in the area of unlawful use of force by State agents – and not mere fault, omission or negligence –, civil or administrative proceedings aimed solely at awarding damages, rather than ensuring the identification and punishment of those responsible, were not adequate and effective remedies capable of providing redress for complaints based on the substantive aspect of Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention ( see, inter alia, Yaşa v. Turkey, 2 September 1998, § 74, Reports 1998 ‑ VI).
228. Lastly, in several cases lodged against Romania, the Court has dismissed similar objections raised by the Government based on the same final judgment dating from 2008 that they rely upon in the present case ( see Association “ 21 December 1989 ” and Others, cited above, §§ 119-125; Lăpuşan and Others v. Romania, nos. 29007/06, 30552/06, 31323/06, 31920/06, 34485/06, 38960/06, 38996/06, 39027/06 and 39067/06, § 69, 8 March 2011; and Pastor and Ţiclete v. Romania, nos. 30911/06 and 40967/06, § 58, 19 April 2011 ).
229. In the judgments in question, the Court dismissed the objections of non-exhaustion on the ground that the availability of the remedy referred to by the Government was not certain in practice. Indeed, the Government had been able to submit only one example of a final judgment allowing an action engaging the State ’ s civil liability on account of the failure to conduct an effective investigation into the deaths by shooting committed in December 1989.
( b) Application of the above principles to the present case
230. In the present case, the Court notes that Mrs Anca Mocanu and Mr Marin Stoica alleged that the State had failed to comply with the obligations imposed on it under the procedural aspect of Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention to conduct an effective investigation capable of leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible for the armed repression of the demonstrations of 13 and 14 June 1990, in the course of which Mr Velicu ‑ Valentin Mocanu, the first applicant ’ s husband, was killed by gunfire and the second applicant was subjected to ill-treatment.
231. In this connection, it notes that the investigation concerning the first applicant has been pending before the domestic authorities and courts for more than twenty-three years, while the branch of the investigation concerning the second applicant was terminated by a judgment delivered on 9 March 2011.
232. However, the Government have not specified in what way an action in tort against the State in respect of the failure to conduct an effective investigation into the events of June 1990, the subject matter of the present applications, could have provided redress for the applicants, by ensuring the effectiveness of that investigation, closing the alleged gaps in it, or, at the very least, expediting it.
233. The Court notes that the only judicial decision produced by the Government merely awarded damages to an injured party concerned by the investigation into the events of December 1989 which was uncompleted at the time that that decision was delivered ( see Association “ 21 December 1989 ” and Others, cited above, §§ 119 and 136).
234. The Contracting Parties ’ obligation under Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention to conduct an investigation capable of leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible in cases of assault could be rendered illusory if, in respect of complaints under those Articles, an applicant were required to bring an action leading only to an award of damages ( see Isayeva and Others v. Russia, nos. 57947/00, 57948/00 and 57949/00, § 149, 24 February 2005).
235. For the reasons set out above, the Court considers that the remedy put forward by the Government is not sufficient, in that it is not capable of providing redress for the situation complained of by the applicants.
236. It follows that the preliminary objection is unfounded and must therefore be dismissed.
C. The allegation that Mr Stoica ’ s complaint was lodged out of time
237. Without explicitly reiterating the preliminary objection that they had raised before the Chamber, the Government alleged, with regard to the complaint lodged under Article 3 by Mr Stoica, that he ought to have displayed diligence, firstly in submitting his criminal complaint to the domestic authorities, and secondly in introducing his application before the Court.
238. The Chamber considered that this second objection – alleging that Mr Stoica had lodged his criminal complaint with the relevant authorities out of time – should be joined to the examination of the merits of the complaint alleging a violation of the procedural aspect of Article 3 of the Convention, and declared the complaint admissible.
2. The Government ’ s submissions
239. The Government indicated that the criminal investigation into the violent acts committed on 13 and 14 June 1990 had been opened in 1990 and observed that, in spite of the opening of this investigation and the difficulties encountered by the authorities in identifying all the victims, the applicant did not join the proceedings until 2001.
240. In this regard, the Government considered that it was unacceptable for a presumed victim to benefit from steps taken by other persons to obtain the opening of an investigation without calling into question the fundamental principle of the Convention mechanism, namely exhaustion of domestic remedies, focused on the individual dimension of the right of petition.
241. Referring to the cases of Toma v. Romania ( ( dec. ), no. 34403/05, 18 September 2012) and Petyo Popov v. Bulgaria (no. 75022/01, 22 January 2009), the Government pointed out that the Court had criticised the conduct of applicants who had failed to bring their complaints concerning violations of Article 3 of the Convention before the domestic prosecuting authorities in due form.
242. In so far as the applicant sought to justify his passivity by an alleged vulnerability which prevented him from joining the investigation proceedings, the Government observed that the violence to which the applicant claimed to have been subjected in June 1990 had required only three to five days of medical care, that he had not been hospitalised for long and that he had not submitted medical certificates attesting to a physical or psychological impairment having a causal link with the events complained of.
243. The Government added that, after 1990, the social and political climate had been favourable to the victims and that the fears referred to by the applicant were accordingly unfounded. In this connection, they submitted that the Court had taken victims ’ vulnerability into account only in extremely critical situations, where the applicants had expressed well-founded fears in the light of the national context.
244. Referring to the cases of Narin v. Turkey (no. 18907/02, 15 December 2009) and Frandes v. Romania ( ( dec. ), no. 35802/05, 17 May 2011), the Government submitted that the Court, called on to assess the diligence shown by parties in applying to it, had considered that applications could be rejected as out of time even in cases concerning continuing situations. The Government considered that this rule applied to the situation of applicants who, like Mr Stoica in the instant case, had delayed excessively or without apparent reason before applying to the Court after realising that the investigation conducted by the authorities was losing effectiveness, or after the point that they ought to have realised this. In their opinion, Mr Stoica ’ s situation was very different from that of the applicants in Er and Others v. Turkey (no. 23016/04, 31 July 2012), as the applicant in the present case had been able at any moment to contact the authorities, who had not attempted to hide the facts or deny the circumstances.
3. The applicant ’ s submissions
245. The applicant explained that he had waited until 18 June 2001 before lodging a criminal complaint with regard to his experiences during the night of 13 to 14 June 1990 on account of the scale of the repression conducted by the authorities at that time, of which he among more than a thousand others had been a victim. He considered that the investigation in issue here did not concern ordinary incidents of unlawful use of force by State agents, but rather mass violations of human rights, orchestrated by the highest State authorities.
In this connection, he alleged that, following the events of June 1990, he was in such a state of distress that he had hardly been able to leave his house for three months, for fear of the oppressive authorities, and that his mental and physical health had subsequently deteriorated to such an extent that he had sustained permanent psychological problems.
246. He pleaded that, in such circumstances, only a prompt reaction by the judicial authorities could have reassured him and encouraged him to lodge a complaint. He alleged that no such reaction had been forthcoming until 2000 and submitted that he had lodged a complaint at that point on learning that, for the first time, high-ranking State officials had been charged and committed for trial.
247. He observed that his complaint had not been dismissed as out of time by the national authorities, that it had been joined immediately to the wider investigation file opened into the impugned events, and that it had given rise to investigative acts in his respect without any allegations of passivity being made.
248. He considered that his failure to lodge a complaint before 2001 had not compromised the effectiveness of the investigation in any way. In this respect, he submitted that the authorities could have identified him from the video recordings that the State television service had made of the events which occurred in its own headquarters, or from the medical records drawn up, inter alia, during the night of 13 to 14 June 1990 by the emergency ward in which he was hospitalised.
In addition, he noted that the fourth point of the operative provisions in the decision to commit for trial of 18 May 2000 ordered that the investigation be continued into the deprivation of liberty inflicted on 1, 300 persons by servicemen and miners from the morning of 13 June 1990 onwards, and also into the assaults sustained by hundreds of persons during the same period.
249. He claimed to have played a very active part in the investigation from 2001 onwards and to have regularly requested information on progress in the proceedings, submitting as evidence the entries made in the register of the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice.
250. Lastly, he considered that lodging a complaint more rapidly would have had no impact on the outcome of that investigation, since the decision not to bring a prosecution, issued on 17 June 2009, also concerned those victims who had had the courage to lodge a complaint prior to 2001.
4. The third party ’ s observations
251. According to the non-governmental organisation Redress, the third-party intervener, the adverse psychological effects of ill-treatment on victims ’ capacity to complain represented a significant obstacle to redress. The reality of this phenomenon had been recognised, inter alia, by the United Nations Committee against Torture ( General Comment No. 3 ( 2012 ), § 38, cited above ).
252. Moreover, the Court had admitted that where abuses were perpetrated by State agents, their psychological effects could be even greater ( Tyrer v. the United Kingdom, 25 April 1978, § 33, Series A no. 26).
253. Scientific research showed that the experience of ill-treatment at the hands of social and political institutions charged with responsibility for ensuring individuals ’ safety and well-being could have particular psychological consequences which could explain a delay in making a complaint, or not making a complaint at all ( they referred, among other sources, to L. Piwowarczyk, A. Moreno, M. Grodin, “ Health Care of Torture Survivors ”, Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 284 (2000), pp. 539-41). From a psychological perspective, the cause of this attitude was to be found in the shattering of the victims ’ ability to trust others, especially State agents. The victims of State agents felt more vulnerable than those of ordinary criminals, since they had little or no hope that the authorities would investigate their case, a fortiori where the State continued to repress peaceful demonstrations or showed no signs of pursuing an effective investigation ( A. Burnett, M. Peel, “ The Health of Survivors of Torture and Organised Violence ”, British Medical Journal, vol. 322 (2001), pp. 606-09).
254. This research also indicated that victims who did not identify themselves as activists or demonstrators suffered from ill-treatment more greatly, and could even be disproportionally impacted by the violence inflicted.
255. Given the difficult situation of victims, both in terms of their vulnerability and the obstacles to obtaining access to evidence, there was an increased tendency on the part of national courts to take these realities into account and to block limitation periods when agreeing to rule on complaints lodged many years after the events complained of by persons who had been tortured ( District Court of The Hague, Wisah Binti Silan and Others v. the Netherlands, 14 September 2011, §§ 4.15-4.18, Nederlandse Jurisprudentie 2012, no. 578; High Court (England and Wales), Mutua and Others v. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 5 October 2012, [2012] EWHC 2678 (QB); and the House of Lords (United Kingdom), A. v. Hoare, 30 January 2008, [2008] UKHL 6, §§ 44-49 ).
256. The Court notes that the Government referred to the applicant ’ s tardiness in lodging a complaint with the domestic authorities concerning the events at the origin of this application. In this context, they also referred to the duty of diligence on persons wishing to apply to the Court.
257. The Court considers that the issue of the diligence incumbent on the applicant is closely linked to that of any tardiness in lodging a criminal complaint within the domestic legal system. Taken together, these arguments may be regarded as an objection alleging a failure to comply with the six-month time-limit under Article 35 § 1 of the Convention. This objection must therefore now be examined ( see Micu v. Romania, no. 29883/06, § 108, 8 February 2011).
258. The Court reiterates that the six-month time-limit provided for by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention has a number of aims. Its primary purpose is to maintain legal certainty by ensuring that cases raising issues under the Convention are examined within a reasonable time, and to prevent the authorities and other persons concerned from being kept in a state of uncertainty for a long period of time ( see Sabri Güneş v. Turkey [GC], no. 27396/06, § 39, 29 June 2012; El - Masri v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia [GC], no. 39630/09, § 135, ECHR 2012; and Bayram and Yıldırım v. Turkey ( dec. ), no. 38587/97, ECHR 2002-III ). That rule marks out the temporal limit of the supervision exercised by the Court and signals, both to individuals and State authorities, the period beyond which such supervision is no longer possible (see Walker v. the United Kingdom ( dec. ), no. 34979/97, ECHR 2000 ‑ I; Sabri Güneş, cited above, § 40; and El - Masri, cited above, § 135).
259. As a rule, the six-month period runs from the date of the final decision in the process of exhaustion of domestic remedies. Where it is clear from the outset, however, that no effective remedy is available to the applicant, the period runs from the date of the acts or measures complained of, or from the date of knowledge of that act or its effect on or prejudice to the applicant, and, where the situation is a continuing one, once that situation ends ( see, among other authorities, Dennis and Others v. the United Kingdom ( dec. ), no. 76573/01, 2 July 2002; Sabri Güneş, cited above, § 54; and El- Masri, cited above, § 136 ).
260. Article 35 § 1 cannot be interpreted in a manner which would require an applicant to seise the Court of his complaint before his position in connection with the matter has been finally settled at the domestic level, otherwise the principle of subsidiarity would be breached. Where an applicant avails himself of an apparently existing remedy and only subsequently becomes aware of circumstances which render the remedy ineffective, it may be appropriate for the purposes of Article 35 § 1 to take the start of the six-month period from the date when the applicant first became or ought to have become aware of those circumstances ( see Edwards v. the United Kingdom ( dec. ), no. 46477/99, 7 June 2001, and El ‑ Masri, cited above, § 136 ).
261. In cases of a continuing situation, the period starts to run afresh each day and it is in general only when that situation ends that the six - month period actually starts to run (see Varnava and Others v. Turkey [GC], nos. 16064/90, 16065/90, 16066/90, 16068/90, 16069/90, 16070/90, 16071/90, 16072/90 and 16073/90, § 159, ECHR - 2009, and Sabri Güneş, cited above, § 54 ).
262. However, not all continuing situations are the same. Where time is of the essence in resolving the issues in a case, there is a burden on the applicant to ensure that his or her claims are raised before the Court with the necessary expedition to ensure that they may be properly, and fairly, resolved ( see Varnava and Others, cited above, § 160). This is particularly true with respect to complaints relating to any obligation under the Convention to investigate certain events. As the passage of time leads to the deterioration of evidence, time has an effect not only on the fulfilment of the State ’ s obligation to investigate but also on the meaningfulness and effectiveness of the Court ’ s own examination of the case. An applicant has to become active once it is clear that no effective investigation will be provided, in other words once it becomes apparent that the respondent State will not fulfil its obligation under the Convention ( see Chiragov and Others v. Armenia ( dec. ) [GC], no. 13216/05, § 136, 14 December 2011, and Sargsyan v. Azerbaijan ( dec. ) [GC], no. 40167/06, § 135, 14 December 2011, both referring to Varnava and Others, cited above, § 161).
263. The Court has already held that, in cases concerning an investigation into ill-treatment, as in those concerning an investigation into the suspicious death of a relative, applicants are expected to take steps to keep track of the investigation ’ s progress, or lack thereof, and to lodge their applications with due expedition once they are, or should have become, aware of the lack of any effective criminal investigation ( see the decisions in Bulut and Yavuz v. Turkey ( dec. ), no. 73065/01, 28 May 2002; Bayram and Yıldırım, cited above; Frandes, cited above, §§ 18-23; and Atallah v. France ( dec. ), no. 51987/07, 30 August 2011).
264. It follows that the obligation of diligence incumbent on applicants contains two distinct but closely linked aspects: on the one hand, the applicants must contact the domestic authorities promptly concerning progress in the investigation – which implies the need to apply to them with diligence, since any delay risks compromising the effectiveness of the investigation – and, on the other, they must lodge their application promptly with the Court as soon as they become aware or should have become aware that the investigation is not effective ( see Nasirkhayeva v. Russia ( dec. ), no. 1721/07, 31 May 2011; Akhvlediani and Others v. Georgia ( dec. ), nos. 22026/10, 22043/10, 22078/10, 22097/10, 22128/10, 27480/10, 27534/10, 27551/10, 27572/10 and 27583/10, §§ 23-29, 9 April 2013; and Gusar v. the Republic of Moldova and Romania ( dec. ), no. 37204/02, §§ 14-17, 30 April 2013).
265. That being so, the Court reiterates that the first aspect of the duty of diligence – that is, the obligation to apply promptly to the domestic authorities – must be assessed in the light of the circumstances of the case. In this regard, it has held that applicants ’ delay in lodging a complaint is not decisive where the authorities ought to have been aware that an individual could have been subjected to ill-treatment – particularly in the case of assault which occurs in the presence of police officers – as the authorities ’ duty to investigate arises even in the absence of an express complaint ( see Velev v. Bulgaria, no. 43531/08, §§ 59-60, 16 April 2013). Nor does such a delay affect the admissibility of the application where the applicant was in a particularly vulnerable situation, having regard to the complexity of the case and the nature of the alleged human rights violations at stake, and where it was reasonable for the applicant to wait for developments that could have resolved crucial factual or legal issues ( see El - Masri, cited above, § 142 ).
266. With regard to the second aspect of this duty of diligence – that is, the duty on the applicant to lodge an application with the Court as soon as he realises, or ought to have realised, that the investigation is not effective – the Court has stated that the issue of identifying the exact point in time that this stage occurs necessarily depends on the circumstances of the case and that it is difficult to determine it with precision ( see the decision in Nasirkhayeva, cited above ).
267. In establishing the extent of this duty of diligence on applicants who wish to complain about the lack of an effective investigation into deaths or ill-treatment, the Court has been largely guided in recent years by the case-law on the duty of diligence imposed on applicants who complain about the disappearance of individuals in a context of international conflict or state of emergency within a country ( see Varnava and Others, cited above, § 16 5; Yetişen and Others v. Turkey ( dec. ), no. 21099/06, §§ 72-85, 10 July 2012; and Er and Others, cited above, § 52), despite the differences between those two types of situation.
268. Thus, the Court has rejected as out of time applications where there had been excessive or unexplained delay on the part of applicants once they had, or ought to have, become aware that no investigation had been instigated or that the investigation had lapsed into inaction or become ineffective and, in any of those eventualities, there was no immediate, realistic prospect of an effective investigation being provided in the future ( see, inter alia, Narin, cited above, § 51; Aydınlar and Others v. Turkey ( dec. ), no. 3575/05, 9 March 2010; and the decision in Frandes, cited above, §§ 18-23 ).
In other words, the Court has considered it indispensable that persons who wish to bring a complaint about the ineffectiveness or lack of such investigation before the Court do not delay unduly in lodging their application. Where there has been a considerable lapse of time, and there have been significant delays and lulls in investigative activity, there will come a time when the relatives must realise that no effective investigation has been, or will be, provided.
269. The Court has held, however, that so long as there is some meaningful contact between relatives and authorities concerning complaints and requests for information, or some indication, or realistic possibility, of progress in investigative measures, considerations of undue delay by the applicants will not generally arise ( see Varnava and Others, cited above, § 165 ).
( b) Application of the above principles to the present case
270. The Court notes that the alleged attack on the applicant at the State television headquarters, in the presence of police officers and servicemen, took place on the night of 13 to 14 June 1990. A criminal investigation was opened shortly afterwards. On 18 June 2001, more than eleven years after the events, the applicant lodged a criminal complaint with a prosecutor at the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the Supreme Court of Justice (see paragraph 170 above). On 25 June 2008, more than eighteen years after the events, the applicant lodged his application with the Strasbourg Court. On 17 June 2009 the prosecutor ’ s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice decided to discontinue the proceedings against the surviving defendants either on the ground that the offences had become statute -barred or that there was no case to answer (see paragraphs 156-62 above). On 9 March 2011 the High Court of Cassation and Justice dismissed the applicant ’ s appeal against that decision (see paragraph 166 above).
271. The Court further notes that, in their objection, the Government criticises the applicant ’ s inactivity from 1990 to 2001.
272. From the point of view of the six-month rule, the Court has to ascertain whether the applicant, at the time of lodging his application with the Court, had been aware, or should have been aware, for more than six months, of the lack of any effective criminal investigation. His inactivity before lodging a criminal complaint at the domestic level is not as such relevant for the assessment of the fulfilment of the six-month requirement. However, if the Court were to conclude that before the applicant petitioned the competent domestic authorities he was already aware, or ought to have been aware, of the lack of any effective criminal investigation, it is obvious that his subsequent application with the Court has a fortiori been lodged out of time (see the decisions in Bayram and Yıldırım, and Bulut and Yavuz, both cited above), unless new evidence or information arose in the meantime which would have given rise to a fresh obligation on the authorities to take further investigative measures (see Brecknell v. the United Kingdom, no. 32457/04, § 71, 27 November 2007, and Gürtekin and Others v. Cyprus ( dec. ), nos. 60441/13, 68206/13 and 68667/13, 11 March 2014 ).
273. Given that he formally lodged his complaint while being interviewed by a prosecutor in the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the Supreme Court of Justice, there is evidence that the applicant was keeping track of developments in the criminal investigation prior to 18 June 2001. He justified his reluctance to lodge a complaint by his vulnerability, which was explained not only by the deterioration in his health following the ill-treatment allegedly sustained in June 1990, but also by the feeling of powerlessness which he experienced on account of the large number of victims of the repression conducted by the security forces and the judicial authorities ’ failure to react in a prompt manner, capable of reassuring him and encouraging him to come forward.
274. Like the United Nations Committee against Torture, quoted by the third-party intervener, the Court acknowledges that the psychological effects of ill-treatment inflicted by State agents may also undermine victims ’ capacity to complain about treatment inflicted on them, and may thus constitute a significant impediment to the right to redress of victims of torture and other ill-treatment ( see General Comment No. 3 ( 2012 ), § 38, at paragraph 190 above ). Such factors may have the effect of rendering the victim incapable of taking the necessary steps to bring proceedings against the perpetrator without delay. Accordingly, as the third-party intervener pointed out, these factors are increasingly taken into account at national level, leading to a certain flexibility with regard to the limitation periods applicable to claims for reparation in respect of claims for compensation for personal injury (see paragraph 25 5 above).
275. The Court observes that very few victims of the events of 13 to 15 June 1990 lodged a complaint in the first few years (see paragraph 99 above). It does indeed appear that the majority of them found the courage to lodge a complaint only after the developments in the investigation arising from the decision of 16 September 1998 and the decision to commit for trial of 18 May 2000. The Court can only conclude, having regard to the exceptional circumstances in issue, that the applicant was in a situation in which it was not unreasonable for him to wait for developments that could have resolved crucial factual or legal issues ( see, by contrast, the decision in Akhvlediani and Others, cited above, § 27).
Regard being had to the foregoing, the Court considers that the applicant ’ s vulnerability and his feeling of powerlessness, which he shared with numerous other victims who, like him, waited for many years before lodging a complaint, amount to a plausible and acceptable explanation for his inactivity from 1990 to 200 1.
276. The Court also notes that certain other elements – particularly the video recording made by the State television service and the confiscation of identity documents belonging to the applicant and other persons who were held and filmed at the television station – indicate that the authorities knew or could have discovered without any real difficulties at least some of the names of the victims of the abuses committed on 13 June 1990 on the premises of the State television service and the surrounding area, and those committed over the following night, in the presence of the numerous servicemen who were gradually deployed there ( see Velev, cited above, §§ 59-60). Furthermore, the decision of 14 October 1999 and the decision to commit for trial of 18 May 2000 had ordered the investigators to identify all of those victims.
277. Moreover, the Court notes that the decision of 17 June 2009 not to bring a prosecution, upheld by the judgment of the High Court of Cassation and Justice of 9 March 2011, applied to all of the victims. The conclusion adopted with regard to the statutory limitation of criminal liability applied equally to those victims who had lodged complaints in the days following their assault and to those who, like the applicant, had complained at a later date.
278. In those circumstances, it cannot be concluded that Mr Stoica ’ s delay in lodging his complaint was capable of undermining the effectiveness of the investigation ( see, by contrast, the decision in Nasirkhayeva, cited above ).
In any event, the applicant ’ s complaint was added to investigation case file no. 75/P/1998, which concerned a large number of victims of the events of 13 to 15 June 1990. The Court also notes that the decision of 29 April 2008, by which the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office stated that it did not have jurisdiction and referred the case to the ordinary criminal section for examination – inter alia – of the charges of inhuman treatment made against the highest-ranking army officers and the State leaders of the time, included the names of more than a thousand victims (see paragraph 14 2 above). Thus, the investigation was undertaken in entirely exceptional circumstances.
279. Moreover, the Court notes that from 2001 onwards, there was meaningful contact between the applicant and the authorities with regard to the former ’ s complaint and his requests for information, which he submitted annually by going to the prosecutor ’ s office in person to enquire about progress in the investigation. In addition, there were tangible indications that the investigation was progressing, particularly the successive decisions to bring charges against high-ranking civilian and military figures and the investigative measures in respect of the applicant, including the two forensic medical examinations which were carried out.
280. Having regard to the developments in the investigation subsequent to 2001, its scope and its complexity, all of which are accepted by the Government, the Court considers that after having lodged his complaint with the competent domestic authorities, the applicant could legitimately have believed that the investigation was effective and could reasonably have awaited its outcome, so long as there was a realistic possibility that the investigative measures were moving forward ( see, mutatis mutandis, Palić v. Bosnia and Herzegovina, no. 4704/04, § 52, 15 February 2011 ).
281. The applicant lodged his application with the Court on 25 June 2008, more than seven years after he had lodged his criminal complaint with the prosecuting authorities. The investigation was still pending at that time, and investigative steps had been taken. For the reasons indicated above ( see paragraph 27 9 ), which remained valid at least until the time when the applicant lodged his application before the Court, he cannot be criticised for having waited too long.
282. Moreover, the Court notes that the final domestic decision in the applicant ’ s case is the above - mentioned judgment of 9 March 2011.
283. In the light of the foregoing, the Court considers that the application has not been lodged out of time. The Government ’ s objection must therefore be dismissed.
D. Alleged violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention
284. The Chamber examined separately the merits of the complaints under Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention. It concluded that there had been a violation of the procedural aspect of Article 2 in respect of Mrs Mocanu and that there had been no violation of the procedural aspect of Article 3 of the Convention in respect of Mr Stoica.
( a ) The part of the judgment concerning Mrs Mocanu
285. With regard to Mrs Mocanu, the Chamber noted that the criminal investigation into the unlawful killing of the applicant ’ s husband had been opened in 1990 and that it was still pending more than twenty years later. It concluded that the investigation had not complied with the requirement of promptness.
286. It also noted that in 1994 the case was pending before the military prosecuting authorities, which was not an independent investigative body, and that the shortcomings in the investigation, acknowledged by the national courts themselves, had not subsequently been remedied.
287. It also observed that Mrs Mocanu had been given access to the investigation belatedly, and that she had not been correctly informed about its progress.
288. Further, the Chamber considered that what was at stake in this case – that is, the right of the numerous victims to know what had happened and, by implication, the right to an effective judicial investigation and, where appropriate, compensation – were of such importance for Romanian society that they ought to have prompted the domestic authorities to deal with the case speedily and without unnecessary delay, in order to prevent any appearance of impunity for certain acts.
289. In view of these considerations, the Chamber concluded that there had been a violation of the procedural aspect of Article 2 of the Convention.
( b) The part of the judgment concerning Mr Marin Stoica
290. With regard to Mr Stoica, the Chamber considered that, just as it was imperative that the relevant domestic authorities launch an investigation and take measures as soon as allegations of ill-treatment were brought to their attention, it was also incumbent on the persons concerned to display diligence and initiative. Thus, the Chamber attached particular importance to the fact that the applicant had not brought his complaint concerning the violence to which he was subjected on 13 June 1990 to the authorities ’ attention until eleven years after those events.
291. It noted that the complaint in question had been joined to case file no. 75/P/1998, which concerned, inter alia, the investigation into the charges of inhuman treatment, and that, in the context of that case, several investigative acts, including two forensic medical examinations, were carried out in respect of the applicant.
292. However, it noted that the case file indicated that, when the applicant lodged his complaint, certain offences – notably assault and wrongful conduct – had already become statute -barred, in application of domestic law.
293. Although the Chamber could accept that in situations of mass violations of fundamental rights it was appropriate to take account of victims ’ vulnerability, especially a possible inability to lodge complaints for fear of reprisals, it found no convincing argument that would justify the applicant ’ s passivity and decision to wait eleven years before submitting his complaint to the relevant authorities.
294. Accordingly, the Chamber concluded that there had been no violation of the procedural aspect of Article 3 of the Convention.
2. The applicants ’ submissions
295. The applicants alleged that the procedural aspect of Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention had been breached in this case. They considered that the duty to investigate of their own motion contained in those Convention provisions was incumbent on the authorities under both domestic and international law. That duty was all the stronger in that the present case did not concern ordinary incidents of unlawful use of force by State agents, but a conflict which was fuelled by the authorities then in power and which set various groups of the population – including ethnic groups – against one another.
296. In this connection, they emphasised that, having regard to the high number of victims of the impugned events, the investigations which concerned them as victims related to crimes that were not subject to statutory limitation, such as genocide or inhuman treatment. They argued that this imposed on the authorities an even greater duty to investigate, which they had not fulfilled.
Mrs Mocanu indicated also that she had not been informed of progress in the investigation after 2009.
297. Mr Stoica considered that the Court ought to examine the entirety of the investigation in the present case, in which senior State officials had been charged, and that it should not limit itself to examining that part of the investigation concerning the violence inflicted on him. He submitted that, for the purpose of evaluating the case under the procedural aspect of Article 3, the investigation ought not to be broken up and that the acts of violence to which he had been subjected could not be viewed in isolation.
298. Mr Stoica submitted that those events – on which the investigation ought to have shed light – were particularly significant in Romania ’ s recent history, since they had occurred in the context of the transition towards a democratic society and were part of a process which dated back to the dictator ’ s fall in December 1989. Adding that those events had affected very many people, the applicant considered that the investigation in question had been the only means for Romanian society to discover the truth about this episode in the country ’ s recent history, a factor which ought to have prompted the competent authorities to take appropriate action, something they had failed to do.
299. In this connection, he submitted in particular that, by closing the investigation into inhuman treatment on the ground that the constituent elements of the offence had not been made out, the prosecutor in his decision not to bring a prosecution of 17 June 2009 had incorrectly interpreted the law, since his conclusion was not consistent with the High Court of Cassation and Justice ’ s relevant case-law.
300. In addition, with regard to the offences under investigation which had become time-barred, he considered that the limitation period ought to have been suspended as long as the accused leaders held high-ranking public office.
301. Lastly, the applicant submitted that, having regard to the special features of the case, his lateness in bringing a complaint was irrelevant in examining the complaint alleging a violation of the procedural aspect of Article 3 and that it had not been such as to obstruct the investigation. In this connection, he noted that the decision of 14 October 1999 and the fourth point of the decision to commit for trial of 18 May 2000 placed an obligation on the investigators to identify all the victims of the repression. He also alleged that the authorities had been informed directly about his case.
3. The Government ’ s submissions
302. Referring to certain investigative measures in the domestic proceedings, the Government alleged that the national authorities had complied with their obligation to conduct an effective investigation into the circumstances of the death of Mrs Mocanu ’ s husband, all necessary procedural acts to establish the truth about that death – and particularly the factual circumstances in which it occurred – having been carried out in the context of that investigation.
303. They specified that the judicial authorities had been obliged to separate the investigation into several cases, depending on the accused, the offences or the civil parties concerned, given the complexity of the events which took place in June 1990 in Bucharest, and that for the same reason they had had to bring together a complex body of evidence, including more than 5, 700 witness statements.
304. In this connection, they invited the Court to take into consideration the unusual nature of the investigation, which was due not only to the large number of persons involved, but also to the fact that it concerned a sensitive historical event for Romania. They emphasised that the applicants ’ particular situations represented only one part of the vast nexus of events which occurred at the time of the large-scale demonstrations held in Bucharest and which had led to acts of violence, and that those situations could not therefore be analysed in isolation from the general context of the case file.
305. They submitted that there had not been any period of inactivity imputable to the authorities from 2000 to the present date.
306. They also specified that they did not challenge the Chamber ’ s findings with regard to the length of the investigations, but added that this was explained by the need to remedy the initial shortcomings in the investigation and the wish to ensure that the applicant was involved in the proceedings.
( b) With regard to Mr Marin Stoica
307. With regard to Mr Stoica, the Government indicated that the authorities had encountered difficulties in identifying all of the victims and involving them in the proceedings, given that they had not all lodged a complaint promptly.
308. They alleged that the criminal investigation had correctly concluded that criminal liability had become statute -barred, as the ill-treatment inflicted on the applicant did not fall within the category of crimes against humanity. They stressed that that conclusion was not intended to introduce a climate of impunity for the tragic events of 1990, but to apply the procedural rules of domestic law, particularly the reasonable limitation periods, which ranged from three to fifteen years.
309. There were no particular circumstances in this case which would justify imposing on the authorities an enhanced duty to investigate.
310. Furthermore, in the case of multiple violations of fundamental rights, the overall truth was not necessarily established by clarifying each individual situation. In those circumstances, an investigation could attain its objective – establishing the overall truth – even where it was obstructed in a particular individual case by the failure of the victim concerned to take any action.
4. The third party ’ s comments
311. The third-party intervener indicated that, over the past ten years, European and international law had attached increasing importance to the fight against impunity in respect of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or sentences, and to the recognition of the right of victims to an effective remedy and to redress. In this regard, it referred to several international texts, in particular the Guidelines of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on eradicating impunity for serious human rights violations (adopted on 30 March 2011). According to those Guidelines, “the fact that the victim wishes not to lodge an official complaint, later withdraws such a complaint or decides to discontinue the proceedings does not absolve the authorities from their obligation to carry out an effective investigation, if there are reasons to believe that a serious human rights violation has occurred”.
312. The third-party intervener emphasised that Article 3 of the Convention required States to put in place criminal laws which effectively punished serious human rights violations by appropriate sanctions (it referred to the judgments in M.C. v. Bulgaria, no. 39272/98, § 150, ECHR 2003 ‑ XII; Çamdereli v. Turkey, no. 28433/02, § 38, 17 July 2008; and Gäfgen v. Germany [GC], no. 22978/05, § 117, ECHR 2010). It concluded that the statutory limitation periods should be adapted to the special features of such cases, which were characterised, inter alia, by the victims ’ vulnerability, particularly in the event of ill-treatment inflicted by State agents.
313. Relying on a case brought before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ( Trial Chamber, Prosecutor v. Furundžija, case no. IT-95-17/1-T, judgment of 1 0 December 1998), it submitted that the inapplicability of statutory limitation of criminal liability with regard to war crimes and crimes against humanity was a unanimously recognised principle, but that it was not, however, limited to this type of crimes. It added that the United Nations Human Rights Committee shared this position in so far as it concerned flagrant violations of fundamental rights, and that the Committee had also stated that statutes of limitations should not be applicable to other forms of ill-treatment ( General Comment No. 3 ( 2012 ), § 40, see paragraph 190 above ).
314. The Court will examine together the complaints submitted by Mrs Mocanu and by Mr Stoica under Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention, in the light of the converging principles deriving from both those provisions, principles which are well-established and have been summarised, inter alia, in the judgments in Nachova and Others v. Bulgaria ([GC], nos. 43577/98 and 43579/98, §§ 110 and 112-13, ECHR 2005-VII ); Ramsahai and Others v. the Netherlands ([GC], no. 52391/99, §§ 324-25, ECHR 2007 ‑ II ); Al ‑ Skeini and Others v. the United Kingdom ([GC], no. 55721/07, §§ 162 ‑ 67, ECHR 2011); and El- Masri ( cited above, §§ 182-85).
315. The Court has already stated that, in interpreting Articles 2 and 3, it must be guided by the knowledge that the object and purpose of the Convention as an instrument for the protection of individual human beings requires that its provisions be interpreted and applied so as to make its safeguards practical and effective.
It reiterates that Article 3, like Article 2, must be regarded as one of the most fundamental provisions of the Convention and as enshrining core values of the democratic societies making up the Council of Europe ( see Soering v. the United Kingdom, 7 July 1989, § 88, Series A no. 161). In contrast to the other provisions in the Convention, it is cast in absolute terms, without exception or proviso, or the possibility of derogation under Article 15 of the Convention ( see Al- Skeini and Others, cited above, § 162 ).
316. The general legal prohibition of arbitrary killing and torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment by agents of the State would be ineffective in practice if there existed no procedure either for reviewing the lawfulness of the use of lethal force by State authorities, or for investigating arbitrary killings and allegations of ill-treatment of persons held by them ( see Al- Skeini and Others, cited above, § 163, and El- Masri, cited above, § 182).
317. Thus, having regard to the general duty on the State under Article 1 of the Convention to “secure to everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in [the] Convention”, the provisions of Articles 2 and 3 require by implication that there should be some form of effective official investigation, both when individuals have been killed as a result of the use of force by, inter alia, agents of the State ( see McCann and Others v. the United Kingdom, 27 September 1995, § 161, Series A no. 324), and where an individual makes a credible assertion that he has suffered treatment infringing Article 3 of the Convention at the hands, inter alia, of the police or other similar authorities ( see Assenov and Others v. Bulgaria, 28 October 1998, § 102, Reports 1998 ‑ VIII).
318. The essential purpose of such an investigation is to secure the effective implementation of the domestic laws safeguarding the right to life and prohibiting torture and inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment in cases involving State agents or bodies, and to ensure their accountability for deaths and ill-treatment occurring under their responsibility ( see Nachova and Others, cited above, § 110, and Ahmet Özkan and Others v. Turkey, no. 21689/93, §§ 310 and 358, 6 April 2004 ).
319. The Court has already held that the procedural obligation under Articles 2 and 3 continues to apply in difficult security conditions, including in a context of armed conflict. Even where the events leading to the duty to investigate occur in a context of generalised violence and investigators are confronted with obstacles and constraints which compel the use of less effective measures of investigation or cause an investigation to be delayed, the fact remains that Articles 2 and 3 entail that all reasonable steps must be taken to ensure that an effective and independent investigation is conducted ( see Al- Skeini and Others, cited above, § 164).
320. Generally speaking, for an investigation to be effective, the persons responsible for carrying it out must be independent from those targeted by it. This means not only a lack of hierarchical or institutional connection but also a practical independence ( see Nachova and Others, cited above, § 110, and Halat v. Turkey, no. 23607/08, § 51, 8 November 2011).
321. Whatever mode is employed, the authorities must act of their own motion. In addition, in order to be effective, the investigation must be capable of leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible. It should also be broad enough to permit the investigating authorities to take into consideration not only the actions of the State agents who directly and unlawfully used lethal force, but also all the surrounding circumstances ( see Al- Skeini and Others, cited above, § 163).
322. Although this is not an obligation of result, but of means, any deficiency in the investigation which undermines its ability to establish the circumstances of the case or the person responsible will risk falling foul of the required standard of effectiveness ( see El- Masri, cited above, § 18 3 ).
323. A requirement of promptness and reasonable expedition is implicit in this context. While there may be obstacles or difficulties which prevent progress in an investigation in a particular situation, a prompt response by the authorities in investigating a use of lethal force or allegations of ill-treatment may generally be regarded as essential in maintaining public confidence in their adherence to the rule of law and in preventing any appearance of collusion in or tolerance of unlawful acts ( see McKerr v. the United Kingdom, no. 28883/95, § 114, ECHR 2001-III).
324. In all cases, with regard to the obligations arising under Article 2 of the Convention, the next of kin of the victim must be involved in the procedure to the extent necessary to safeguard his or her legitimate interests. Equally, with regard to Article 3 of the Convention, the victim should be able to participate effectively in the investigation ( see McKerr, cited above, § 115).
325. Lastly, the investigation must be thorough, which means that the authorities must always make a serious attempt to find out what happened and should not rely on hasty or ill-founded conclusions to close their investigation ( see El- Masri, cited above, § 183).
326. The Court has also held that in cases concerning torture or ill-treatment inflicted by State agents, criminal proceedings ought not to be discontinued on account of a limitation period, and also that amnesties and pardons should not be tolerated in such cases ( see Abdülsamet Yaman v. Turkey, no. 32446/96, § 55, 2 November 2004; Yeter v. Turkey, no. 33750/03, § 70, 13 January 2009; and Association “ 21 December 1989 ” and Others, cited above, § 144). Furthermore, the manner in which the limitation period is applied must be compatible with the requirements of the Convention. It is therefore difficult to accept inflexible limitation periods admitting of no exceptions ( see, mutatis mutandis, Röman v. Finland, no. 13072/05, § 50, 29 January 2013).
( b) Application of the above principles to the present case
327. In the present case, the Court notes that a criminal investigation was opened of the authorities ’ own motion shortly after the events of June 1990. From the outset, that investigation concerned the death by gunfire of Mrs Mocanu ’ s husband and other persons, and also the ill-treatment inflicted on other individuals in the same circumstances.
The Court also notes that this investigation was initially divided up into several hundred separate case files (see paragraphs 82-87 above), and that it was subsequently brought together before being again split on several occasions into four, two and then three branches.
328. It appears from the decision issued on 14 October 1999 by the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the Supreme Court of Justice that that investigation was also tasked with identifying all of the victims of the repression carried out from 13 to 15 June 1990. It therefore concerned Mr Stoica, at least with effect from 18 June 2001, the date on which he officially lodged a complaint.
The Court notes that a very high number of case files were opened at national level. However, given that all of these cases originated in the same events – which indeed resulted in their being regrouped by a decision of the prosecutor ’ s office at the Supreme Court of Justice into one single case in 1997 – the Court considers that it is essentially dealing with one and the same investigation. Even if the Court considered that the case concerns two distinct investigations, one in respect of Mrs Mocanu and the other in respect of Mr Stoica, its findings as to their effectiveness would be the same, for the reasons set out below.
329. The Court notes that this investigation is still pending in respect of Mrs Anca Mocanu. The judgment adopted by the High Court of Cassation and Justice on 17 December 2007, returning to the prosecutor ’ s office the file on the charges initially brought against five army officers, is the most recent judicial decision delivered in respect of the first applicant.
330. The Court notes that the part of the investigation concerning Mr Stoica and implicating thirty-seven high-ranking civilian and military officials – including a former Head of State and two former Ministers of the Interior and of Defence – was terminated by a judgment delivered on 9 March 2011 by the High Court of Cassation and Justice.
331. It reiterates that its competence ratione temporis permits it to consider only that part of the investigation which occurred after 20 June 1994, the date on which the Convention came into force in respect of Romania (see paragraph 2 11 above). Accordingly, it will examine whether, after that date, the investigation conducted in the present case met the criteria of effectiveness set out above.
( i ) Independence of the investigation
332. The Court notes that from 1997, a few years after the date on which the Convention came into force in respect of Romania, until early 2008 the case was pending before the military section of the prosecutor ’ s office at the Supreme Court of Justice (from 2003, the High Court of Cassation and Justice ). It also notes that, with regard to Mrs Mocanu, the investigation is still pending before the military prosecutor ’ s office, after the ordinary prosecutor ’ s office declined jurisdiction on 6 June 2013 (see paragraph 123 above).
333. In this connection, the Grand Chamber endorses the Chamber ’ s finding that the investigation was entrusted to military prosecutors who, like the accused ( two of whom were generals), were officers in a relationship of subordination within the military hierarchy, a finding which has already led the Court to conclude that there has been a violation of the procedural aspect of Article 2 and Article 3 of the Convention in previous cases against Romania ( see Barbu Anghelescu v. Romania, no. 46430/99, § 67, 5 October 2004; Bursuc v. Romania, no. 42066/98, § 107, 12 October 2004; and, more recently, Şandru and Others, cited above, § 74; Association “ 21 December 1989 ” and Others, cited above, § 137; and Crăiniceanu and Frumuşanu v. Romania, no. 12442/04, § 92, 24 April 2012).
334. The number of violations found in cases similar to the present case is a matter of particular concern and casts serious doubt on the objectivity and impartiality of the investigations that the military prosecutors are called upon to conduct ( see, mutatis mutandis, Nachova and Others, cited above, § 117). The Government have not put forward any fact or argument capable of persuading the Court to conclude otherwise in the present case.
( ii ) Expedition and adequacy of the investigation
335. The Court notes that the investigation concerning Mrs Mocanu has been pending for more than twenty-three years, and for more than nineteen years since the Convention was ratified by Romania. Over this period, three of the five high-ranking army officers implicated in the killing of the applicant ’ s husband have died.
336. It also notes, in respect of Mr Stoica, that the relevant investigation was terminated by a judgment delivered on 9 March 2011, twenty-one years after the opening of the investigation and ten years after the official lodging of the applicant ’ s complaint and its joinder to the investigation case file.
337. Yet the very passage of time is liable not only to undermine an investigation, but also to compromise definitively its chances of being completed ( see M.B. v. Romania, no. 43982/06, § 64, 3 November 2011).
338. While acknowledging that the case is indisputably complex, as the Government have themselves emphasised, the Court considers that the political and societal stakes referred to by the latter cannot justify such a long period. On the contrary, the importance of those stakes for Romanian society should have led the authorities to deal with the case promptly and without delay in order to avoid any appearance of collusion in or tolerance of unlawful acts ( see, inter alia, Lăpuşan and Others, cited above, § 94, concerning a lapse of more than sixteen years since the opening of an investigation intended to lead to the identification and punishment of those responsible for repression of the anti-communist demonstrations of 1989, and more than eleven years since the entry into force of the Convention ).
339. The Court observes, however, that lengthy periods of inactivity occurred in the investigation in the present case, both at the initial stages and in recent years. It notes, in particular, that no significant progress was made in the investigation from 20 June 1994, date of the Convention ’ s entry into force, to 22 October 1997, the date on which joinder began of the numerous files which had been opened separately but which were part of the same factual context as that in which the present applications originated. It was only after that date that the prosecutor ’ s office began to conduct a wider investigation into all of the circumstances surrounding the concerted use of force by State agents against the civilian population ( see Al- Skeini and Others, cited above, § 163).
340. Furthermore, the Court notes that the decision of 16 September 1998 mentions that no investigative measure into the complaints of the persons assaulted at the State television headquarters had been conducted prior to that date (see paragraph 100 above).
341. In addition, the only procedural acts carried out in the case concerning Mrs Mocanu since the last referral to the prosecutor ’ s office, ordered on 17 December 2007, are the decision to discontinue proceedings, issued on 6 June 2013 in respect of two co-defendants who had died in the meantime, and two statements declining jurisdiction, issued on 30 April 2009 and 6 June 2013 respectively.
342. The Court also notes that the national authorities themselves found numerous shortcomings in the investigation. Thus, the decision adopted on 16 September 1998 by the prosecutor ’ s office at the Supreme Court of Justice indicated that none of the individuals who had held high office at the relevant time – in particular, the Head of State, the Prime Minister and his deputy, the Minister of the Interior and the Head of Police – had yet been questioned.
343. Further, the subsequent investigation did not enable all the defects to be remedied, as the Supreme Court of Justice and the High Court of Cassation and Justice noted in their respective decisions of 30 June 2003 and 17 December 2007, referring to the shortcomings in the previous proceedings.
344. Moreover, the Court notes that the investigation – severed since 1998 from the rest of the case – into the violence inflicted on numerous demonstrators and other persons who had been present by chance at the scene of the crackdown was terminated by the decision not to bring a prosecution, issued on 17 June 2009 and upheld by the judgment of 9 March 2011. Those persons included Mr Stoica, who, having lodged a complaint in 2001, had to wait ten years for the investigation to be completed. However, in spite of the length of time involved and the investigative acts carried out in respect of the applicant and listed by the Government, none of the above-cited decisions succeeded in establishing the circumstances of the ill-treatment which the applicant and other persons claimed to have sustained at the State television headquarters.
345. The decision adopted by the prosecutor ’ s office on 17 June 2009 indicated in substance that it had been impossible to establish the assailants ’ identity and the security forces ’ degree of involvement at the close of the investigations carried out by the civilian and then the military prosecution services. However, the authorities did not indicate what evidence had been used with a view to establishing the facts and for what tangible reasons their actions had not produced results. Moreover, at domestic level they had never called into question the applicant ’ s conduct in respect of the investigation, and had failed to make any comment concerning the date on which the applicant lodged his complaint.
346. The Court notes that this branch of the investigation was terminated essentially on account of the statutory limitation of criminal liability. In this connection, it reiterates that the procedural obligations arising under Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention can hardly be considered to have been met where an investigation is terminated, as in the present case, through statutory limitation of criminal liability resulting from the authorities ’ inactivity ( see Association “ 21 December 1989 ” and Others, cited above, § 14 4 ).
347. With regard to the other major finding of the investigation, namely the conclusion that the constituent elements of inhuman treatment, punishable under Article 35 8 of the Romanian Criminal Code, had not been made out in respect of Mr Stoica, the Court considers that the conformity of the prosecutor ’ s interpretation with the relevant domestic case-law is open to doubt, in view of the judgment delivered by the High Court of Cassation and Justice on 7 July 2009. Moreover, the Government have not adduced other examples of case-law in support of the decision given in this case. The Court also considers that the conclusion to the effect that the miners no longer had an enemy against whom to fight on 14 June 1990 ( see paragraph 16 1 above ) appears doubtful, since it manifestly disregards the violence which occurred on 13 June 1990 in the presence of large numbers of servicemen, equipped with heavy ammunition and tanks, as attested to in the above-cited decision itself. Furthermore, this conclusion is contrary to the facts established by the same decision, which describes in detail the acts of violence perpetrated on 14 June 1990 by the miners, who targeted, without distinction, the demonstrators, students who were present on the university premises and passers-by. In addition, in its judgment of 9 March 2011 dismissing Mr Stoica ’ s appeal against the decision not to bring a prosecution, the High Court of Cassation and Justice made no assessment whatsoever of the question of the applicability of Article 35 8 of the Criminal Code, and merely verified how the rules on statutory limitation had been applied in this case.
348. Accordingly, it appears that the authorities responsible for the investigation in this case did not take all the measures reasonably capable of leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible.
( iii ) The first applicant ’ s involvement in the investigation
349. With regard to the obligation to involve victims ’ relatives in the proceedings, the Court observes that Mrs Mocanu was not informed of progress in the investigation prior to the decision of 18 May 2000 committing for trial the persons accused of killing her husband.
350. Moreover, the Court notes that the applicant was questioned by the prosecutor for the first time on 14 February 2007, almost seventeen years after the events, and that, following the High Court of Cassation and Justice ’ s judgment of 17 December 2007, she was no longer informed about developments in the investigation.
351. The Court is not therefore persuaded that Mrs Mocanu ’ s interests in participating in the investigation were sufficiently protected ( see Association “ 21 December 1989 ” and Others, cited above, § 141).
352. In the light of the foregoing, the Court considers that Mrs Mocanu did not have the benefit of an effective investigation as required by Article 2 of the Convention, and that Mr Stoica was also deprived of an effective investigation for the purposes of Article 3.
353. There has, accordingly, been a breach of the procedural aspect of those provisions.
II. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 6 § 1 OF THE CONVENTION
354. The applicant association complained of the length of the criminal proceedings which it had joined as a civil party in order to claim reparation for the damage caused by the ransacking of its headquarters on 14 June 1990, the destruction of its property and the assaults on its members.
355. It alleged on that account a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the relevant part of which provides :
“In the determination of his civil rights and obligations ... everyone is entitled to a ... hearing within a reasonable time by [a] ... tribunal ...”
356. The Chamber considered that the length of the impugned proceedings had been excessive and found a violation of Article 6 § 1.
357. The applicant association stated that it had welcomed the Chamber judgment.
358. The Government stated that they did not contest, in principle, the Chamber ’ s conclusions as to the length of the criminal proceedings which the applicant association had joined as a civil party.
359. The Grand Chamber sees no reason to depart from the Chamber ’ s finding. Like the Chamber, it observes that on 26 July 1990 the association had lodged an official complaint with a request to join the proceedings as a civil party, referring to the damage sustained by it during the events of 13 to 15 June 1990. That criminal complaint was examined as part of the investigation which was closed by the decision of 17 June 2009 not to bring a prosecution. The proceedings with regard to the applicant association thus lasted almost nineteen years.
360. The Court ’ s competence ratione temporis being limited, the Chamber had been able to examine the complaint about the length of proceedings only in so far as it concerned the period after 20 June 1994, the date on which the Convention entered into force in respect of Romania. The length of the proceedings to be taken into account was therefore fifteen years.
361. The Court reiterates that it has found a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention on numerous occasions in cases raising similar issues to those in the instant case ( see Frydlender v. France [GC], no. 30979/96, § 46, ECHR 2000 ‑ VII, and, in particular, Gheorghe and Maria Mihaela Dumitrescu v. Romania, no. 6373, §§ 26-28, 29 July 2008, also concerning the length of criminal proceedings to which a civil party had been joined ).
362. After examining all the evidence submitted to it, the Court considers that there are no reasons justifying a different conclusion in the present case.
363. In the light of the criteria established in its case-law and having regard to all the circumstances of the case, the Court considers that the length of the impugned proceedings was excessive and failed to meet the “reasonable time” requirement.
364. There has accordingly been a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.
III. APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION
365. Article 41 of the Convention provides:
“If the Court finds that there has been a violation of the Convention or the Protocols thereto, and if the internal law of the High Contracting Party concerned allows only partial reparation to be made, the Court shall, if necessary, afford just satisfaction to the injured party.”
A. Damage alleged by Mrs Anca Mocanu
366. Before the Chamber the applicant had claimed 200,000 euros (EUR) in respect of the non-pecuniary damage allegedly sustained on account of the excessive length of the investigation into the killing of her husband, then aged 22. She submitted that she herself had been aged 20 at the time, and had found herself alone with their two children, one aged two years and the other a few months old. She indicated that over the following twenty years, during which she had waited for the investigation to be terminated and those responsible for her husband ’ s death to be identified, she had been obliged to provide for her own needs and those of her children, working as a cleaner and enduring wretched living conditions. She had also claimed EUR 100,000 in respect of pecuniary damage, without explaining its exact nature.
367. Considering those claims for just satisfaction to be excessive and unsubstantiated, the Government had invited the Court to dismiss them.
368. With regard to the sum claimed in respect of pecuniary damage, the Chamber found no causal link between the violation found and the alleged pecuniary damage. Accordingly, it rejected that claim.
369. In contrast, it considered that just satisfaction should be awarded on account of the fact that the domestic authorities had failed to investigate the killing of the applicant ’ s husband with the degree of diligence required by Article 2 of the Convention. It awarded the applicant EUR 30, 000 under this head.
370. In addition, the Chamber reiterated that the application of the principle of restitutio in integrum implied that the applicants were put, as far as possible, in the same situation as that in which they would have found themselves had there not been a breach of the requirements of the Convention and concluded that the respondent State was to take the necessary measures to expedite the investigation into the killing of Mr Velicu -Valentin Mocanu, so that a decision which met the requirements of the Convention could be given.
371. Having regard to the foregoing, to the reasons set out by the Chamber and to the fact that the applicant did not change the claim initially submitted to the Chamber, the Court considers that the applicant sustained significant non-pecuniary damage arising from the violation of the procedural aspect of Article 2. It awards her the sum of EUR 30, 000 in this respect.
B. Damage alleged by Mr Marin Stoica
372. The applicant had claimed EUR 200,000 before the Chamber in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
373. Considering this claim excessive, the Government had submitted that the finding of a violation would constitute in itself sufficient just satisfaction in respect of the alleged non-pecuniary damage.
374. The Chamber having held that there had been no violation of the Convention in respect of Mr Stoica, it had not examined the claim for just satisfaction submitted by him.
375. The Court considers that Mr Stoica undeniably sustained non-pecuniary damage. Taking into account the violation of Article 3 found in respect of the applicant and ruling on an equitable basis as required by Article 41 of the Convention, the Court awards him EUR 1 5, 000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
C. The applicant association ’ s claim
376. The Chamber concluded that the applicant association had not submitted a claim for just satisfaction within the time allowed.
377. During the proceedings before the Grand Chamber, the association resubmitted to the Court a fax which it had sent on 22 December 2009, stating that this constituted a claim for just satisfaction.
378. The Court notes that, through this unsigned request, the applicant association claimed compensation amounting to EUR 42, 519, allegedly corresponding to the amount, adjusted for inflation, of the pecuniary damage which it had sustained on account of the ransacking of its headquarters, and stated that it wished to use this sum, inter alia, for “the restoration of [his] health [ sic ]”. As this claim is confused, it cannot be taken into consideration. Even supposing that it could be considered as a properly submitted claim for just satisfaction, it relates solely to pecuniary damage that is unconnected to the finding of a violation of Article 6 of the Convention arising from the excessive length of the proceedings.
379. The Court therefore rejects the applicant association ’ s claim.
1. Costs and expenses in respect of the applications by Mrs Anca Mocanu and the applicant association ( nos. 10865/09 and 4 5 886/07 )
380. The applicants claimed the sum of EUR 18, 050 in respect of the costs and expenses incurred in the proceedings before the Court, of which EUR 2, 800 related to the proceedings before the Grand Chamber, including the fees for their three lawyers.
381. The Government considered, with regard to the proceedings before the Chamber, that this claim was out of time, as it had not been submitted within the time allowed.
382. They also considered that, with regard to the proceedings before the Grand Chamber, this claim was excessive, and pointed out that it was not accompanied by any supporting documentation.
383. The Chamber concluded that the applicants had not submitted a claim for just satisfaction within the time allowed.
384. According to the Court ’ s established case-law, an award can be made 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 Iatridis v. Greece ( just satisfaction) [GC], no. 31107/96, § 54, ECHR 2000 ‑ XI).
385. In the present case, regard being had to the documents in its possession and its case-law, the Court considers it reasonable to award the sum of EUR 2,800 claimed for the costs and expenses incurred in the proceedings before the Grand Chamber, this being the only claim submitted in a timely manner. From that amount must be deducted the sum of EUR 600 already paid jointly to two of the applicants ’ three lawyers by the Council of Europe by way of legal aid.
2. Costs and expenses in respect of the application by Mr Marin Stoica ( no. 32431/08 )
386. The applicant claimed EUR 11, 507. 39 in respect of the costs and expenses incurred in the proceedings before the Grand Chamber, namely EUR 10, 394 in lawyer ’ s fees, EUR 300 in postal charges and EUR 813. 39 for the travel costs incurred by the applicant and his lawyer in attending the hearing before the Grand Chamber.
387. The Government considered that the time spent by the applicant ’ s lawyer in preparing the request for referral to the Grand Chamber, namely 15 hours, was unreasonable. They made the same comments in respect of the time spent in preparing the applicant ’ s additional observations – 20 hours – and the 15 hours spent in preparing counsel ’ s address.
388. In addition, the Government submitted that the costs incurred by the applicant to attend the hearing had not been necessary, given that only his lawyer ’ s presence had been justified. They opposed the claim for reimbursement of the applicant ’ s travel costs.
389. In the present case, regard being had to the documents in its possession and its case-law, the Court considers it reasonable to award the sum of EUR 11,507.39 claimed for the costs and expenses incurred in the proceedings before it, to be paid directly to Ms Hatneanu. From that amount must be deducted the sum of EUR 1, 638. 47 already paid by the Council of Europe by way of legal aid, and covering the travel costs incurred by the applicant and his lawyer.
390. The Court considers it appropriate that the default interest rate should be based on the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank, to which should be added three percentage points.
1. Holds, by sixteen votes to one, that it has jurisdiction ratione temporis to examine the complaints raised by Mrs Anca Mocanu and Mr Marin Stoica under the procedural aspect of Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention, in so far as those complaints relate to the criminal investigation conducted in the present case after the entry into force of the Convention in respect of Romania;