4.  The applicant was born in 1942 and lives in Montreal. 5.  On 27 August 1993 the applicant’s mother lodged a civil action against her niece, A.M., to have set aside a sale contract concerning a flat entered into on 3 April 1986 between the applicant’s parents and A.M. On 9 September 1993 the applicant’s mother died and the applicant pursued the application. 6.  On 14 September 1993 the bailiff certified the existence of an action regarding the flat, and on 13 October 1993 the applicant notified A.M. not to enter into the flat, as it contained the goods inherited from her parents. 7.  In 1994, on an unknown date, she also filed a criminal complaint against A.M. According to the applicant, she had not received any answer to her letters from the prosecuting authorities. 8.  On 9 November 1994 the applicant supplemented the civil action, seeking to have the sale contract set aside for vitiated consent. She alleged that A.M. had deluded her parents into thinking that she would take care of them until their death and had thus persuaded them to sell her their flat. 9.  On 21 December 1994 the Câmpina Court of First Instance rejected the applicant’s action as being brought by a person with no capacity to take part in court proceedings. 10.  The applicant appealed. The five hearings held between 22 March 1996 and 29 May 1998 were adjourned on account of the lack of an acknowledgment of receipt in respect of summonses served on the applicant in Canada. Between 26 June 1998 and 31 May 1999 the proceedings were stayed for unjustified absence of the parties. 11.  On 31 May 1999 the applicant requested resumption of the proceedings. According to the applicant, on 17 December 1999 the proceedings were stayed again and on 13 October 2000 she requested resumption of proceedings. The applicant expressed her wish to be summoned at her address in Canada. 12.  On 19 April 2001 the judges entrusted with the archives informed the President of the Prahova Regional Court of the disappearance of the file and of the necessity to reconstruct it. Of the seven hearings held between 4 May 2001 and 6 March 2002 for the reconstruction of the file, two were adjourned at the applicant’s request. 13.  On 25 April 2002 the Prahova Regional Court upheld the applicant’s appeal and quashed the judgment of the first-instance court, keeping the case for retrial. This ruling was upheld on 12 September 2002 by a final decision of the Ploieşti Court of Appeal. 14.  During retrial, of the seventeen hearings held between 22 May 2002 and 27 June 2003 three were adjourned at the applicant’s request. 15.  On 30 June 2003 the Prahova Regional Court allowed in part the applicant’s action and declared the sale contract partly null and void. As to the plea of limitation, the court considered that the three-year time-limit had to be calculated from 1993, when the applicant’s mother died, and not from the date of the sale contract, as the applicant had heard of this contract only in 1993.
On the merits, the court considered that the lack of discernment of the applicant’s father, when executing the sale contract, had been certified by a medical report, whereas there was insufficient medical data of a psychiatric nature to establish the mental capacity of the applicant’s mother in understanding the legal content and consequences of the contract. 16.  On 16 September 2003 the Ploieşti Court of Appeal by a final decision allowed A.M.’s appeal and therefore rejected the applicant’s action as time-barred. In so doing, it noted that according to Articles 3 and 9 of Decree no. 167/1958 the limitation period for the annulment of the sale contract had expired, at the latest, three years after a period of eighteen months following the date when the contract had been executed. 17.  The applicant used two extraordinary remedies, lodging applications for the setting-aside and review of the final decision of 16 September 2003, but on 10 December 2003 and 27 February 2004, respectively, the Ploieşti Court of Appeal rejected those applications as groundless. 18.  On an unknown date, A.M. notified the applicant at least twice to delegate a person in Romania to take her possessions out of the flat, as the applicant had been evicted from it, or otherwise A.M. would have to sell them and to pay the applicant according to their value.