Request for referral to the Grand Chamber pursuant to article 43 of the Convention and rule 73 of the rules of Court
I. REFERRAL TO THE GRAND CHAMBER. GENERAL PRINCIPLES
1. Article 43 of the Convention and Rule 73 of the Rules of Court govern the procedure for referring a case to the Grand Chamber, after a judgment has been delivered.
2. Either party has three months from the date of the judgment to request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber. The Judgment in the case Anca Mocanu and other v. Romania concerns three joint applications 10865/09, 45886/07 and 32431/08, one of them being lodged by Mr. Marin Stoica. The judgement is dated 13 November 2012 and therefore the request for referral should be submitted by 13 February 2013.
3. Article 43 provides that a request shall be accepted if it raises “ a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or the protocols thereto, or a serious issue of general importance ”. It is clear that there are two, self-standing, bases on which a request may be made, and accepted; namely, where either (1) there is a serious question of interpretation or application of the Convention ; or (2) there is a serious issue raised. Therefore, it is only necessary for the panel to determine that one of these bases is satisfied in order to accept the request for referral.
4. It is the applicant’s contention that the Court’s decision not to find a violation of Article 3 of the Convention in his case raises both (1) a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention; and (2) a serious issue of general importance. The case should therefore be referred to the Grand Chamber, pursuant to Article 43.
II. THE COURT’S JUDGMENT IN THE CASE ANCA MOCANU AND OTHER V. ROMANIA
5. This case relates to failures by the Romanian authorities to effectively investigate the death of Ms. Mocanu’s husband the ill treatment Mr. Stoica was subjected to during the events of 13-15 June 1990 by law enforcement officials, in breach of Article 2 and Article 3 of the Convention. The events of June 1990 have not been ordinary instances of illegal use of force by the law enforcement officials and bear a special significance in the recent history of Romania in the context of the transition to a democratic society. The criminal investigations into the events were at some point directed against the President of Romania at the material time and other high raking state officials. Nevertheless the investigations stalled until 1998 and then, although there were some periods of time when certain investigations were conducted, had not resulted in any concrete results. At the time of the Chamber’s judgement the investigations were still pending or, depending on the circumstances, terminated due to prescription. This context was duly presented in the Chamber’s judgement of 13 November 2012.
6. In respect of Mrs. Mocanu’s complaint the Court found that Article 2 of the Convention was violated due to the lack of effective investigation into the death of applicant’s husband. In holding so the Court recalled the principles on approaching such cases (see §224 of the Chamber judgement):
… en cas de violation massive de droits aussi fondamentaux que le droit à la vie, la Cour a souligné l’importance du droit des victimes et de leurs familles et ayants droit, ainsi que de toute la société ( Şandru et autres c. Roumanie, no 22465/03 , § 79, 8 décembre 2009), de connaître la vérité sur les circonstances de ces évenements, ce qui implique le droit à une enquête judiciaire effective ( Association « 21 Décembre 1989 » et autres , précité, § 144). Dans le contexte des États qui ont connu une transition vers un régime démocratique, il est légitime pour un État de droit d’engager des poursuites pénales à l’encontre de personnes qui se sont rendues coupables de crimes sous un régime antérieur (voir mutatis mutandis Streletz, Kessler et Krenz c. Allemagne [GC], nos 34044/96, 35532/97 et 44801/98, §§ 80-81, CEDH 2001-II).
Dès lors, en cas d’usage massif de la force meurtrière à l’encontre de la population civile, lors de manifestations antigouvernementales précédant la transition d’un régime totalitaire vers un régime plus démocratique, la Cour ne peut pas considérer qu’une enquête est effective lorsqu’elle s’achève par l’effet de la prescription de la responsabilité pénale, alors que ce sont les autorités elles-mêmes qui sont restées inactives. Par ailleurs, comme la Cour l’a déjà indiqué, l’amnistie ou la grâce sont généralement incompatibles avec le devoir qu’ont les États d’enquêter sur des actes de torture et de lutter contre l’impunité des crimes internationaux ( Association « 21 Décembre 1989 » et autres , précité, § 144).
7. It further held (§227-228 and 230) that:
… en 1994 l’affaire était pendante devant le parquet militaire. A ce propos, elle constate que l’enquête a été confiée aux procureurs militaires qui étaient, au même titre que certains des accusés, des militaires soumis au principe de la subordination à la hiérarchie ( Şandru et autres , précité, § 74, et Association « 21 Décembre 1989 » et autres , précité, § 137).
Elle relève de plus que les lacunes de l’enquête ont été constatées par les autorités nationales elles-mêmes. Ainsi, la décision du 16 septembre 1998 du parquet près la Cour suprême de justice indiquait que, jusqu’alors, l’enquête n’avait pas permis de déterminer l’identité des personnes qui avaient effectivement mis en oeuvre la décision de l’exécutif de faire appel à l’aide de civils pour rétablir l’ordre à Bucarest. Cette lacune de l’enquête tenait au « fait qu’aucune des personnes ayant exercé des fonctions à responsabilités à l’époque des faits n’a[vait] été entendue », notamment le président de la Roumanie alors en exercice, le Premier ministre et son adjoint, le ministre de l’Intérieur, le chef de la police, le chef du SRI et le ministre de la Défense (paragraphe 111 ci-dessus).
Cependant, l’enquête subséquente n’est pas parvenue à remédier à toutes les carences, ainsi qu’il a été constaté par les décisions de la Cour suprême de justice du 30 juin 2003 (paragraphe 121 ci-dessus) et de la Haute Cour de cassation et de justice du 17 décembre 2007 (paragraphe 125 ci-dessus), laquelle a relevé des vices de la procédure antérieure.
…
De surcroit, l’importance de l’enjeu pour la société roumaine qui consistait dans le droit des nombreuses victimes de savoir ce qui s’était passé, ce qui implique le droit à une enquête judiciaire effective et l’éventuel droit à la réparation, aurait dû inciter les autorités internes à traiter le dossier promptement et sans retards inutiles afin de prévenir toute apparence d’impunité de certains actes ( Şandru et autres , précité, § 79, et Association « 21 Décembre 1989 » et autres , précité, §§ 142 et 144).
8. As regards Mr. Stoica’s complaint, the Court held, by 5 votes to 2, that Article 3 of the Convention (under its procedural limb) has not been violated. It noted that Mr. Stoica complained of the ill-treatment only in 2001, after 11 years since the events and attached a special importance to this long duration of inactivity on the part of the applicant (see §§279-280 and §273 of the 13 November 2012 judgement). The Court also noted that the Mr. Stoica complained of ill-treatment after the prescription of the deeds he complained of, while still noting that the domestic authorities did took into consideration his complaint. For these reasons, held that Article 3 has not been violated in the case of Mr. Stoica.
9. According to the applicant the Court’s judgment in his respect raises both (1) serious questions affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention and also (2) serious issues of general importance in respect of the right to truth of Romanian public into the events of June 1990.
III. SERIOUS QUESTIONS AFFECTING THE INTERPRETATION AND APPLICATION OF THE CONVESTION
10. In the applicant’s view, the Chamber judgement applied a double standard in analysing the same basic question. Both Mrs. Mocanu’s complaint and Mr. Stoica’s complaint regarded the same events of June 1990, carrying the same importance for the Romanian society. In such cases of importance for a certain society, involving gross and mass violations of human rights in the context of transition to a democratic society, the Court held, both in the present case, Anca Mocanu and others v. Romania, and in Association 21 December and others v. Romania (judgement of 24 May 2011), that the State is under an obligation to investigate that cannot be terminated due to the prescription:
La Cour a déjà souligné ci-dessus l’importance du droit des victimes et de leurs familles et ayants droit de connaître la vérité sur les circonstances d’événements impliquant la violation massive de droits aussi fondamentaux que le droit à la vie, qui implique le droit à une enquête judiciaire effective et l’éventuel droit à la réparation. Pour cette raison, dans le cas de l’usage massif de la force meurtrière à l’encontre de la population civile lors de manifestations antigouvernementales précédant la transition d’un régime totalitaire vers un régime plus démocratique, comme en l’espèce, la Cour ne peut pas accepter qu’une enquête soit effective lorsqu’elle s’achève par l’effet de la prescription de la responsabilité pénale, alors que ce sont les autorités elles-mêmes qui sont restées inactives. Par ailleurs, comme la Cour l’a déjà indiqué, l’amnistie est généralement incompatible avec le devoir qu’ont les États d’enquêter sur des actes de torture ( Ould Dah c. France (déc.), n o 13113/03, du 17 mars 2009) et de lutter contre l’impunité des crimes internationaux. Il en est de même en ce qui concerne la grâce ( Abdülsamet Yaman c. Turquie , n o 32446/96, § 55, 2 novembre 2004) ( Association 21 December and others v. Romania, §144, Anca Mocanu and other v. Romania , §224).
11. It results from the above reasons of the Court that such principles apply to events, irrespective of them resulting into the death or into the torture and ill-treatment of an individual. Nevertheless, the Court failed to apply them consistently in the case of Mr. Stoica. Either the events in question represent mass violations of human rights and have a special importance in the Romanian recent history, therefore none of the complaints in their respect can end due to prescription, such as the applicant’s did but was considered in line with the requirements of Article 3; either they do not have any special importance and represent “ordinary” and accidental breaches of human rights and then the investigations fall under the general domestic rules on prescription.
12. If the events do have a special importance, which brings into question a higher right to truth for the entire society, not only to the victims, and the prescription should not apply, then it is completely irrelevant when a victim complains, as long as it does it before the investigations are closed by the authorities. A justified reason for asking a victim to complain in a timely manner is a proper administration of evidence that can be affected by the lapse of time. But in the instant case, as the Court held in the part of the judgement that concerns Mrs. Mocanu, the investigations had not properly advanced until 1998 and then again, not even after this moment, where they ever efficient. Moreover, the acts of investigations that were carried out in respect of Mr. Stoica after 2001 either have not been affected by the lapse of time (such as the forensic report based on medical documents), either have been affected by the lapse of time just as they would have been if carried in 1998, for example, when the investigations seems to finally took an important step further. In this respect, the applicant stresses once more that the Court already found that the investigations of the early 1990s have not been effective at all. In this context, asking him to complain earlier seems to the applicant as completely arbitrary and unjustified.
13. The Court made no reference to the above findings as regards the inefficiency of the investigation into the events of June 1990, nor did explain why an earlier complaint on the part of Mr. Stoica would have led to a different result. This would not have required the Court to speculate, as long as none of the complaints into the events of June 1990, irrespective of the moment of lodging, led to effective investigations and sending the culprits to justice. Most certainly, even if lodged as early as 1990, the applicant’s complaint would have ended the same way, as part of the same criminal investigation file, by the same decision of 17 June 2009, as all the others did. It is obviously impossible that an earlier complaint on the part of the applicant would have been subjected to a different treatment and not joined to the file opened by the authorities into the events, as long as all other complaints were.
14. Moreover, the Court failed to consider the fact that the domestic authorities themselves have taken his complaint into consideration, joined it to one of the investigation files on the events of June 1990, proceeded with several investigations, including the forensic report on Mr. Stoica (based on medical records at the relevant time) and closed the case due to prescription and not due to the lack of foundation into the allegations. The various acts of investigations in respect of Mr. Stoica’s complaint have been carried out during a long period of time and the decision to close the investigations was taken only on 17 June 2009, after 8 years since the complaint, and communicated to Mr. Stoica on 24 November 2011. If the prescription was already met in 2001 and such an aspect was important for the domestic authorities, then why did they bother with the investigations into the applicant’s complaint for another 8 years? Such circumstances into the way the complaint was taken into consideration by the domestic authorities, the ones which have the margin of appreciation on the application of domestic law, have been completely ignored in the Court’s judgement.
15. This aspect raises another question affecting the interpretation and application of the Convention. Can the Court override the margin of appreciation of the domestic authorities in taking into consideration a criminal complaint? Where the domestic authorities fail to investigate a credible allegation of a violation of Article 2 or 3, the Court jurisprudence is consistent in holding a positive answer. But when the domestic authorities do proceed with an investigation, it is the applicant’s opinion that the Court cannot override the validity of such a decision. As long as an investigation into allegations of violations of Articles 2 and 3 is opened, it must satisfy the procedural guarantees of the Convention on a consistent basis and it is in the interest of the rule of law that victims do trust that such guarantees apply in every and each case. Holding that the guarantees do not apply because the investigation should not have been open (as it results from the fact the authorities did open an investigation is of no importance whatsoever to the Court in reaching it decision that Article 3 – procedural limb – was not violated) opens a large door to arbitrariness in applying the Convention at domestic level.
16. Back to the general principle that the State is under the obligation to carry out effective investigations, that cannot end due to prescription, into mass violations of human rights as there is a higher right of the society at large to know the truth into such serious events and to avoid the culprits’ impunity, the applicant maintains that a logical and consistent application of such a principle means that the victim was not required to lodge a complaint at all, as long as the State could become aware of the violations of his rights by investigating the events as a whole. The applicant reminds the Court that he was filmed during his deprivation of liberty at the Public Television where he was first subjected to treatments contrary to Article 3 and that he also went to a hospital right after he was freed, but still during the events. Records were made at the hospital in his respect, mentioning his name, and they were still available long after the events (for example for the purposes of a forensic report). Therefore the authorities, while investigating ex officio the events of June 1990, at least after the ratification of the European Convention on Human Rights in 1994, were under the obligation to look into the circumstances of the treatment of the applicant that was contrary to Article 3. In this context, the fact that he did complain of the treatment at some point after the events was just helping the authorities with the investigations that they had to carry out anyway and cannot be held against him.
17. Finally, the applicant maintains that holding against him his inactivity for a long duration of time while ignoring the much longer and extensive inactivity of the state authorities, of which the most massive part overlaps the period of inactivity of the applicant, benefits exactly the party at fault. Or, according to an old principle of law still generally accepted, nemo auditur propriam turpitudinem allegans . Allowing the party at fault to benefit from its own fault is, in the applicant’s view, entirely against the purpose of the European Convention on Human Rights.
IV. SERIOUS ISSUE OF GENERAL IMPORTANCE
18. The Chamber judgement also raises a serious issue of general importance. Holding that there was no violation of Article 3 under its procedural limb in the case of the applicant, means that the Romanian society has only a partial right to know the truth in respect of the June 1990 events and that the culprits can only be held responsible for a part of their crimes.
19. The applicant maintains that the criminal investigation into the events was and still is the only mean for the Romanian society to find the truth on an important event in its recent history and for holding the culprits responsible, even if only under a moral aspect. Therefore the Chamber judgement drastically limits the possibility of the Romanian society of finding out the whole truth on the events, as it takes away some of the facts and victims. It might be not only the case of the applicant but of others who, at domestic level, approached the domestic authorities at a latter time.
20. In respect of Mrs. Mocanu’s complaint the effect of the Chamber judgement is that all other cases of death during the events of June 1990 should still be investigated by the domestic authorities, leading to the finding of truth. In respect of Mr. Stoica’s complaint, the effect is quite the opposite, turning certain acts of torture and ill-treatment into unimportant aspects of the 1990 events, and limiting the right to truth of the Romanian society, due to an alleged inactivity of the victim which has no relevance for the society as a whole and its right to truth.
V. CONCLUSION
21. The Court’s judgment in the case Anca Mocanu v. Romania , in respect of Mr. Stoica’s complaint, raises both (1) serious questions affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention and also (2) serious issues of general importance. Besides the above-mentioned reasons, the applicant also asks the panel of five judges to take into consideration the reasoning in the dissenting opinion of Judge Zimele, joined by Judge Sikuta, to the judgement in question. The applicant therefore request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber, pursuant to Article 43.
Bucharest , 12 February 2013
Diana-Olivia Hatneanu, avocat
Article 43: “ (1) Within a period of three months from the date of the judgment of the Chamber, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber. (2) A panel of five judges of the Grand Chamber shall accept the request if the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or the protocols thereto, or a serious issue of general importance. (3) If the panel accepts the request, the Grand Chamber shall decide the case by means of a judgment .”
Article 43(1).
Article 43(2).