Romania, head of convictions at the ECHR

Legislative stability and consistency in law enforcement are the main recommendations of specialists with regards to property restitution and convictions on this matter at the European Court of Human Rights.

Authorities from nearly twenty countries attended a debate on this matter, held in Bucharest.

Even though property restitution has been a common issue in former communist countries, Romania is one of the countries with the most numerous ECHR convictions.

Minister of Justice Cătălin Predoiu blames political instability for Romania’s lack of success in dealing with property restitution, which led to excessive legislative instability.

He added that laws were change too often, making them difficult to be enforced by pertinent authorities.

"The means by which Romania attempted to solve the issue of property restitution in the last twenty years was a total failure. However, it created problems to both litigants and the judicial system and, at the same time, it has gradually worsen the image of Romania abroad due to the lack of reasonable criteria in solving or at least trying to solve this issue", Cătălin Predoiu stated.

According to head of the High Court of Cassation and Justice Livia Stanciu, Romania lacks legislation in the domain of property restitution.

"The topic of discussion today should start with the demands of the above-mentioned European court upon Romania, which means an absolute law amendment in the domain of property restitution, a new legislation with coherent rules of procedure, which will lead to a more effective compensation system, more coherent when applied unlike the current system, which proved to be ineffective despite the plurality of laws and ordinances", Livia Stanciu declared.

Romania is the European member state with the most numerous ECHR convictions, according to the 2009 report of the Strasbourg Court.

In this report, Romania is only outrun by Russia and Turkey, which are not EU member states.

According to Romanian Government agent for ECHR Răzvan-Horaţiu Radu, Romania registered 136 cases of conviction last year.

Translated by Mihaela Grigoraş
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University