STĂNCULESCU AND CHIŢAC v. ROMANIA
Inadmissible
Ján Šikuta;Johannes Silvis;Josep Casadevall;Kristina Pardalos;Luis López Guerra
1. The applicant in application no. 22555/09, Mr Victor Atanase Stănculescu, is a Romanian national who was born in 1928 and lives in Bucharest. He was represented before the Court by Mr C. R. Dancu, a lawyer practising in Bucharest. 2. The applicant in application no. 42204/09, Mr Mihai Chiţac, was a Romanian national who was born in 1928 and lived in Bucharest. He died on 1 November 2010. His wife Naila Chiţac expressed the wish to continue these proceedings. In its decision of 3 July 2014, the Court granted locus standi to his heir. The Court will continue to refer to Mr Chiţac as “the applicant”. The applicant and subsequently his heir were represented before the Court by Mr S. Andon, a lawyer practising in Bucharest. 3. The Romanian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Ms C. Brumar, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 4. The facts of the cases, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows. 5. The cases concern the events of 16-22 December 1989 in Timişoara, when a popular revolt that started in that city led eventually to the fall of the totalitarian regime in Romania. At the time in question, the applicants were high-ranking military officers who were sent to Timişoara to suppress the revolt. Orders were given by the then Head of State to kill the protesters. Seventy-two people were killed and two hundred and fifty sustained gunshot wounds. More details of these events are given in Association “21 December 1989” and Others v. Romania, nos. 33810/07 and 18817/08, 24 May 2011 and Şandru and Others v. Romania, no. 22465/03, 8 December 2009. 6. After the change of regime, the applicants took up appointments in the newly-formed government, since the general perception at that time was that during the December 1989 events they had played a significant role in bringing the army onto the side of the insurgents. They remained in power in the first few governments formed after the revolution. 7. On 14 February 1990 the Government established a truth commission in Timişoara ‒ consisting of military personnel, civil and military prosecutors, members of civil society and specialists (including lawyers and a doctor) ‒ with a view to investigating the events of 1989. On 6 March 1990 twenty-seven written statements about the events were gathered. Mr. Chiţac stated that R.B., a prosecutor and member of the truth commission, had assembled in one room all the army conscripts who had participated in the events and had ordered them to describe the nature of the applicant’s participation in the repression. He claimed that later on, in 1996, R.B. had used these extra-judicial declarations in the criminal proceedings against the applicants. 8. In the same year, the truth commission recommended that criminal investigations be opened in respect of several high-ranking officers, including the applicants, in order to establish the extent of their responsibility for the repression of the revolution in Timişoara. 9. On 12 January 1990, the military prosecutor’s office opened investigations in respect of several officers identified by the commission, as well as various other suspects. Some high-ranking officers of the former regime were convicted over the course of time for their role in the repression and some servicemen were found guilty of having killed or injured individual victims. 10. On an unspecified date, criminal proceedings were instituted against the applicants. On 29 March 1996 the Military Prosecutor’s Office decided not to bring criminal proceedings against a number of high-ranking officers of the former regime, including the applicants, for alleged crimes committed during the 1989 events in Timişoara. On 28 October 1997 that decision was quashed and the prosecution continued. 11. On 30 December 1997 the applicants were informed of the accusations against them and were given access to the prosecution file. On the same day they were committed for trial by the Military Prosecutor’s Office on charges of aggravated murder in the context of the repression of the popular revolt of December 1989. The bill of indictment was some fifty pages long and the prosecution file consisted of several volumes of several hundred pages each, comprising witness testimonies and documents from the time of the revolt – shorthand records of meetings, military logs and medical certificates. Thirty witnesses were summoned by the prosecutor and sixty-five civil parties joined the proceedings. 12. The trial took place before the Supreme Court of Justice, first before the Military Section and then before the Criminal Section, which gave judgment in the case. Mr Stănculescu complained about alleged irregularities in the proceedings, but his requests were dismissed by the court on 29 April 1998. The Supreme Court examined the prosecution file and heard testimonies from several witnesses for both the prosecution and the defence. The applicants also made statements before the court. 13. On 14 June 1998 the defence lodged a constitutional complaint alleging an interference with the applicants’ right to two levels of jurisdiction; on the same day it was rejected by the Supreme Court, which then proceeded with its examination of the merits. 14. On 15 July 1999 the Supreme Court of Justice, sitting as a threejudge bench, convicted the applicants of aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder and sentenced each of them to fifteen years’ imprisonment, restriction of the exercise of certain civil rights, and demotion. It also ordered the applicants, together with the Ministry of Defence, to pay damages to 217 victims who had suffered injuries while the two applicants were in command of the military forces. 15. On 25 February 2000 the Supreme Court of Justice dismissed appeals that had been lodged by the applicants, the Ministry of Defence and some of the civil parties. The judgment thus became final. 16. The Ministry of Defence paid the compensation to the victims. The two applicants were imprisoned. 17. On 7 August 2001 the Procurator General lodged an extraordinary appeal, seeking to have the previous decisions set aside (recurs în anulare), on four grounds: (i) that the courts had failed to order a psychiatric evaluation of Mr Stănculescu to be conducted, even though that requirement was mandatory for murder trials; (ii) that the first-instance court had dismissed the constitutional complaint raised by the defence instead of allowing the Constitutional Court to examine its merits; (iii) that Mr Stănculescu’s right to be assisted by counsel had been infringed by the appeal court; and (iv) that the acts committed by the applicants had not constituted crimes. 18. On 22 March 2004 the extraordinary appeal was allowed by the two Chambers of the Supreme Court of Justice sitting together. The Supreme Court also nullified the execution of the sentences. The applicants were thus released from prison. 19. A three-judge bench of the High Court of Cassation and Justice (formerly the Supreme Court of Justice) took over the case. On 18 January 2005 it also referred to the Constitutional Court the constitutional complaint which Mr Stănculescu had reiterated before it. The Constitutional Court dismissed it on 7 June 2005. The High Court granted requests for new evidence made by the applicants, in particular requests to adduce documents and to summon fourteen witnesses; it heard statements from the applicants and some of the witnesses and re-examined the whole body of evidence administered during the criminal prosecution and in the first set of proceedings. 20. Mr Stănculescu complained of alleged irregularities in the prosecution proceedings. On 15 February 2006 his complaints were dismissed in a thoroughly reasoned interlocutory judgment. With regard to the merits of the case, the applicants denied committing the crimes of which they had been accused. 21. In a judgment of 3 April 2007 the High Court found the applicants guilty of aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder and imposed a final sentence of fifteen years’ imprisonment each, together with an additional penalty restricting the exercise of certain civil rights, and demotion. It also granted the compensation claims on the same terms as in the judgment of 15 July 1999 (see paragraph 14 above). It noted that the Ministry of Defence had already paid those damages. 22. The applicants appealed and in a final decision of 15 October 2008 a nine-judge bench of the High Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the judgment delivered by the three-judge bench. 23. The applicants were imprisoned once again in execution of their sentence.