Published on 11 April 2023

FOURTH SECTION

Application no. 39194/20 Eduard MAZILU against Romania lodged on 12 August 2020 communicated on 21 March 2023

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the applicant’s opposition to the enforcement (“ contestație la executare ”) of a loan contract concluded with a bank. His request for the annulment of the enforcement proceedings was based on three grounds: (1) the right to obtain the forced enforcement was time-barred; (2) the mandate of the creditor’s representative to initiate the forced enforcement proceedings had not been submitted to the file and (3) the loan contract contained “unfair terms”.

By a decision of 20 December 2017, the Bucharest District Court, after examining all three arguments raised by the applicant, allowed his opposition to enforcement as well-founded.

By a final decision of 25 June 2019 (served on the applicant on 14 November 2019), the Bucharest County Court allowed the appeal lodged by the bank and the decision of the first instance court was set aside. The appellate court dismissed the applicant’s action after it only examined the applicant’s argument concerning the alleged unfairness of the contractual terms of the loan contract. The other two arguments, although reiterated in the applicant’s statement of defence, were not addressed by the appellate court.

Relying on Article 6, the applicant complains that the appellate court set aside the decision of the first instance court without examining two of the three main arguments raised by him. He claims that in the absence of any reference to his arguments in the final decision it is impossible to ascertain whether these arguments were simply neglected, or the court wanted to reject them and if so for which reasons.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

Did the applicant have a fair hearing in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention as regards the examination of his opposition to the enforcement of a contract loan? In particular, did the appellate court conduct a proper examination of the applicant’s main arguments and sufficiently explain why the applicant’s action was rejected (see Ruiz Torija v. Spain , 9 December 1994, §§ 29-30, Series A no. 303 ‑ A; Perez v. France [GC], no. 47287/99, § 80, ECHR 2004 ‑ I, and Pleş v. Romania , no. 37213/06, §§ 22 ‑ 29, 12 April 2016)?