FOURTH SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 33196/03 Ion POSTOLACHI against Romania and 8 other applications (see appended table)

The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 21 September 2017 as a Committee composed of:

Vincent A. De Gaetano, President, Georges Ravarani , Marko Bošnjak , judges,

and Liv Tigerstedt, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above applications lodged on the various dates indicated in the appended table,

Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicants,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

FACTS AND PROCEDURE

1 . The list of applicants and the relevant details of the application s are set out in the appended table.

2 . The applicants ’ complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of the Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, concerning the non-enforcement or delayed enforcement of domestic decisions, were communicated to the Romanian Government (“the Government”) . In applications nos. 33196/03, 31566/04, 27200/05, 3651/09 and 52486/10 the applicants also raised other complaints under the provisions of the Convention.

THE LAW

A. Joinder of the applications

3 . Having regard to the similar subject matter of the applications, the Court finds it appropriate to examine them jointly in a single decision.

B. Complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of the Protocol No. 1 ( non-enforcement or delayed enforcement of domestic decisions )

1. Locus standi

4 . Assuming that the applicants Terezia Varga (application no. 27200/05) and Elena Stolerenco (application no. 23498/0 8 ), the grandmothers of Rita ‑ Larisa Varga and Ionel Adrian Ciobanu , respectively, are entitled to bring proceedings before the Court not only in their own name, but also on behalf of their grandchildren, these complaints are inadmissible, for the reasons stated below.

2. The applicants ’ complaints relating to Article 6 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1

5 . In the present application s, the Court finds that it does not need to rule on the preliminary objections raised by the Government, because the complaints are inadmissible in any event, as presented below.

6 . Having examined all the material before it, t he Court considers that the respondent Government cannot be held liable for the non-enforcement or the delayed enforcement of the outstanding judgments given in the applicants ’ favour.

7 . In particular, the Court notes that the applicants failed to make appropriate use of the available domestic legal avenues and to comply with all the procedural and substantial requirements of the domestic law, as follows: instituting enforcement proceedings (applications nos. 33196/03, 23498/08 and 3651/09); acting diligently so as to prevent the enforcement proceedings from becoming obsolete (application no. 49475/09; see also Topciov v. Romania, ( dec. ), no . 17369/02, 16 June 2006); instituting enforcement proceedings against all debtors and filing a revocation action (“ acțiune pauliană ”, application no. 76957/14; see also Ciprova v. the Czech Republic ( dec. ), no. 33273/03, 22 March 2005, and Costic ă Moldovan and others v. Romania (dec .), no. 8229/04, §§ 153-154, 15 February 2011).

8 . As regards applications nos. 31566/04, 27200/05, 44771/07 and 52486/10, the Court considers that the authorities acted diligently and assisted the applicants in the process of enforcing the outstanding judgments. The Court notes however that the outstanding judgments remained unenforced on account of the existence of an objective impossibility thereto, in particular in view of the fact that the debtors, private parties, either did not have any assets or had gone abroad (see Tanasenko v. Moldova ( dec. ), no . 77608/01, 28 February 2006).

9 . In view of the above, the Court finds that these complaints are manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

C. Other alleged violations und er well-established case-law

10 . In application no. 31566/04, the applicants also complained of a breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, arguing that the length of the civil proceedings, finalised by decision of 27 April 2004, was excessive and failed to meet the “reasonable time” requirement.

11 . The Court observes that the period under consideration, namely from 11 July 2001 until 27 April 2004, amounted to a total of 2 years, 9 months and 17 days for 3 levels of jurisdiction which cannot be considered excessive .

12 . It follows that this part of the application no. 31566/04 is manifestly ill ‑ founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

13 . In application no. 52486/10, t he applicants complained of the lack of any effective remedy in domestic law in respect of their complaint of non ‑ enforcement.

14 . The Court notes that Article 13 applies only where an individual has an “arguable claim” to be the victim of a violation of a Convention right (see Boyle and Rice v. the United Kingdom , judgment of 27 April 1988, Series A no. 131, § 52).

15 . The Court has found that the applicants ’ complaint under Article 6 and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention is manifestly ill-founded. It follows that the applicants do not have an arguable claim under Article 13.

16 . Consequently, this complaint is also manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.

D. Remaining complaints

17 . In applications nos. 33196/03, 31566/04, 27200/05, 3651/09 and 52486/10 the applicants also raised other complaints under various articles of the Convention.

18 . The Court has examined the applications listed in the appended table and considers that, in the light of all the material in its possession and in so far as the matters complained of are within its competence, these complaints either do not meet the admissibility criteria set out in Articles 34 and 35 of the Convention or do not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Convention or the Protocols thereto.

19 . It follows that this part of the applications must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 § 4 of the Convention .

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Decides to join the applications;

Declares the application s inadmissible.

Done in English and notified in writing on 12 October 2017 .

Liv Tigerstedt Vincent A. De Gaetano Acting D eputy Registrar President

APPENDIX

List of applications raising complaints under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of the Protocol No. 1 (non-enforcement or delayed enforcement of domestic decisions)

No.

Application no.

Date of introduction

Applicant name

Date of birth

Representative name and location

Relevant domestic decision

Start date of non-enforcement period

End date of non-enforcement period Length of enforcement proceedings

Other complaints under well-established case-law

33196/03

16/09/2003

Ion Postolachi

01/08/1948

Cluj-Napoca District Court, 19/04/2000

16/11/2000

pending

More than 16 years and 7 months and 1 day

31566/04

12/08/2004

Gabriel Emil Popa

05/10/1967, application lodged on 12/08/2004

Florica Popa

01/11/1970, application lodged on 01/08/2005

Organizația Pentru Apărarea Drepturilor Omului

Bucharest

Bucharest Court of Appeal, 27/04/2004

27/04/2004

pending

More than 13 years and 1 month and 21 days

Art. 6(1) - excessive length of civil proceedings

27200/05

22/07/2005

Terezia Varga

18/10/1953

Rita-Larisa Varga

21/04/2002

MaramureÈ™ County Court, 22/02/2007

19/10/2007

pending

More than 9 years and 7 months and 29 days

44771/07

10/08/2007

Zvjezdana Halapir Ramsay

03/06/1967

Zagreb District Court, 21/07/2004

11/12/2006

pending

More than 10 years and 6 months and 6 days

23498/08

15/12/2007

Elena Stolerenco

20/03/1950

Ionel Adrian Ciobanu

08/01/1992

CaraÈ™-Severin County Court, 01/04/2004

CaraÈ™-Severin County Court, 22/07/2004

11/11/2004

11/11/2004

pending

More than 12 years and 7 months and 6 days

pending

More than 12 years and 7 months and 6 days

3651/09

05/01/2009

Sanda Doina Pitei

25/07/1960

Ploiești District Court, 15/11/1999

15/11/1999

pending

More than 17 years and 7 months and 2 days

49475/09

07/09/2009

Octavian Stancescu

05/08/1951

Dâmbovița County Court, 13/04/2007

13/04/2007

pending

More than 10 years and 2 months and 4 days

52486/10

18/08/2010

(3 applicants)

Mihaela Chis

15/06/1965

Alexandru Tudor ChiÈ™

05/09/1990

Iulian Antoniu ChiÈ™

29/06/1996

Cluj-Napoca District Court, 13/11/2008

09/06/2009

pending

More than 8 years and 8 days

Art. 13 - lack of any effective remedy in domestic law in respect of non-enforcement or delayed enforcement of domestic decisions.

76957/14

24/11/2014

Constanţa Dumitru

07/08/1955

Roxana Elena Dumitru

20/05/1986

Prahova County Court, domestic case file no. 2490/94/2007, 15/04/2011

27/10/2011

pending

More than 4 years and 5 months and 27 days