LEONTE v. ROMANIA
Inadmissible
András Sajó;Egidijus Kūris;Krzysztof Wojtyczek;Vincent A. De Gaetano;Gabriele Kucsko-Stadlmayer
1. The applicant, Mr Florin Leonte, is a Romanian national, who was born in 1963 and lives in Podul Iloaiei. He was represented before the Court by Mr T.C. Baltag, a lawyer practising in Iaşi. 2. The Romanian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Ms C. Brumar, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 3. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows. 4. On 26 June 2007 the Iaşi County Court convicted the applicant of driving under influence of alcohol and without a licence, of leaving the place of an accident and of manslaughter. He was sentenced to fourteen years’ imprisonment. In application of Article 71 of the Criminal Code, his right to vote and to be elected was withdrawn during detention. 5. The applicant appealed against the decision, complaining mainly about the manner in which the evidence had been assessed and the prison sentence established. 6. On 6 March 2008 the Iaşi Court of Appeal upheld the decision, after reexamination of the evidence in the file. 7. The applicant appealed on points of law reiterating the arguments advanced in the appeal proceedings. The applicant complained again about the prison sentence imposed on him. The first hearing took place on 18 September 2008. The applicant’s lawyer filed the reasons for appeal for that hearing. In its final decision adopted on 22 October 2009, the High Court of Cassation and Justice upheld the previous decisions. 8. The relevant provisions of the Criminal Code providing the automatic withdrawal of the right to vote and to be elected during the execution of a prison sentence, read as follows: “Disqualification from exercising one or more of the rights mentioned below may be imposed as an additional penalty: (a) the right to vote and to be elected to bodies of a public authority or to public elective office; ...” “The secondary penalty shall consist in disqualification from exercising all the rights listed in Article 64. (2) A life sentence or any other prison sentence shall automatically entail disqualification from exercising the rights referred to in the preceding paragraph from the time at which the conviction becomes final until the end of the term of imprisonment or the granting of a pardon waiving the execution of the sentence ...” 9. In its decision of 5 November 2007 (following an appeal in the interest of the law), the High Court of Cassation and Justice advised the domestic courts to interpret Article 71 § 2 of the Criminal Code in the light of the Convention, and thus assess the necessity of the withdrawal of the right to vote in each case. This decision became mandatory on the date of its publication in the Official Monitor on 18 July 2008.