CASE OF ALEXANDRESCU AND OTHERS v. ROMANIA
Violation of Article 6 - Right to a fair trial (Article 6 - Criminal proceedings;Article 6-1 - Reasonable time)
András Sajó;Egidijus Kūris;Krzysztof Wojtyczek;Nona Tsotsoria;Vincent A. De Gaetano
5. The facts of the cases, as submitted by the parties, are similar to those presented in Association “21 December 1989” and Others v. Romania (nos. 33810/07 and 18817/08, §§ 12-41, 24 May 2011) and in Bosnigeanu and Others v. Romania (nos. 56861/08 and 33 others, §§ 5-15, 4 November 2014). They belong within the same historical context and relate to the same domestic criminal proceedings as those at issue in the above-mentioned case. 6. Between 21 and 23 December 1989, the applicants took part in the anti-communist demonstrations in Bucharest which led to the fall of the communist regime. 7. In 1990, following the overthrow of the communist regime, the military prosecutor’s office opened a criminal investigation in respect of the December 1989 armed crackdown on the anti-communist demonstration in Bucharest. 8. According to the documents submitted to the Court by the parties, all the applicants were interviewed at the military prosecutor’s office as witnesses in connection with the use of violence against civilian demonstrators. Subsequently, they lodged criminal complaints and joined the criminal proceedings as civil parties, citing the psychological suffering they had experienced following the violent crackdown on the anticommunist demonstration. It appears from the medical certificates issued between April 2008 and February 2009 and submitted by the applicants to the domestic criminal investigation file that they did not present any medical symptoms when they were examined following their involvement in the tragic events. Nevertheless, it could not be ruled out that they suffered psychological trauma at the time of the events in question. 9. The criminal investigation appears to be still pending before the prosecuting authorities. The most important procedural steps were summarised in Association “21 December 1989” and Others, cited above (§§ 12-41). Subsequent developments in the investigation are as follows. 10. On 18 October 2010 the military prosecutor’s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice decided not to institute criminal proceedings with regard to the acts committed by the military, finding that the applicants’ complaints were partly statute-barred and partly ill-founded. The investigation into crimes committed by civilians, members of the Patriotic Guards, members of militia and prison staff was severed from the case file and jurisdiction was relinquished in favour of the prosecuting authorities at the High Court of Cassation and Justice. 11. On 15 April 2011 the chief prosecutor at the military prosecutor’s office set aside the decision of 18 October 2010 on the grounds that the investigation had not yet been finalised and not all victims and perpetrators had yet been identified. 12. On 18 April 2011 the military prosecutor’s office relinquished jurisdiction in favour of the prosecutor’s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice on the ground that the investigation concerned both civilians and military. 13. On 9 March 2012 – following the opening to the public in 2010 of the classified information in the criminal investigation file – the case was reregistered with a view to an investigation in the light of the recently available data. 14. This investigation appears to be still pending before the domestic authorities. 15. The main facts of these cases concerning the crackdown on antigovernment demonstrations between 13 to 15 June 1990 are similar to those presented in Mocanu and Others v. Romania [GC] (nos. 10865/09, 45886/07 and 32431/08, §§ 14-49, 55-72, 78-110, and 137-168, ECHR 2014 (extracts)). 16. Between 13 and 15 June 1990 a violent crackdown took place against demonstrators who were occupying University Square and other areas of Bucharest and protesting against the newly installed government. The armed intervention of military forces, followed by the arrival of thousands of miners transported to Bucharest (mainly from the Jiu Valley mining region) to take part in the crackdown on the demonstrators, resulted in more than a thousand civilian casualties, of whom a hundred were killed and several hundred injured or arrested. The applicants in the abovementioned cases participated in the events, during which they allegedly suffered injuries. No relevant medical documents were appended to the case file. 17. Separate criminal investigations into the crimes committed during the violent repression of the demonstrations were opened in 1990 by several prosecutors’ offices in Bucharest under different files. Subsequently, these cases were joined and, in 1997, jurisdiction over them was relinquished in favour of the military prosecutor’s office at the High Court of Cassation and Justice. During the military prosecutor’s investigations, several decisions were adopted in which decisions were reversed, charges were disjoined and jurisdiction relinquished to other domestic authorities. The applicants joined the domestic criminal proceedings as civil parties. 18. A decision not to bring a prosecution was adopted on 17 June 2009. An appeal lodged against that decision 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. Those decisions have been upheld in several judgments of the High Court of Cassation and Justice.