CASE OF FĂLIE v. ROMANIA
Violation of Article 6 - Right to a fair trial (Article 6 - Civil proceedings;Article 6-1 - Access to court)
Branko Lubarda;Ján Šikuta;Johannes Silvis;Josep Casadevall;Kristina Pardalos;Luis López Guerra
5. The applicant was born in 1951 and lives in Bucharest. 6. In 1999 he purchased a house and the land on which it was built, located in Bucharest. The applicant’s parcel of land was adjacent to a parcel of land purchased by two other third parties in 1948. 7. On 13 November 2001 the applicant lodged a civil action against the two third parties, seeking to obtain the demarcation of the adjacent parcels of land and an order requiring the defendants to return to him an 11 sq. m parcel of land which was allegedly being illegally occupied by them. 8. In a judgment of 4 April 2002 the Bucharest District Court held that the defendants had been illegally occupying a parcel of 10.78 sq. m of the applicant’s land since 1965. It established the boundaries of the properties on the basis of a technical report prepared by an expert and ordered the defendants to return the land in question to the applicant. 9. The defendants lodged an appeal with the Bucharest County Court. The court ordered a new expert report. On 22 May 2003 the court dismissed the appeal as ill-founded endorsing the reasoning of the first-instance court. 10. The defendants lodged an appeal on points of law on the ground that the courts had misinterpreted the facts and the applicable legal provisions. 11. In a final decision of 26 November 2003 the Bucharest Court of Appeal allowed the appeal on points of law, quashed the decisions of the first two courts and dismissed the applicant’s action. It held that both the applicant and the defendants had in their possession smaller areas of land than those mentioned in their respective contracts of acquisition, and invited the parties to reach a friendly settlement. It also held that the parties could bring a fresh action only if they could not reach an agreement.