Published on 2 December 2024
 
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 28140/20
Marinela CUCU against Romania
and 3 other applications
(see list appended)
communicated on 12 November 2024
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The applications concern the death of the applicants’ husbands, employees of a State-owned coal mining company, in a collective work accident which occurred on 5 February 2011.
Criminal proceedings were instituted against four employees of the mining company for non-compliance with the safety and health regulations at work and negligent killing.
The applicants joined civil proceedings to the criminal proceedings seeking compensation for their pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage.
By a final decision of 20 December 2019 (communicated to the applicants one year and two months after its delivery – on 14 January 2021), the Alba Iulia Court of Appeal acquitted the employees of the mining company holding that due to the complexity of the investigation it was impossible to identify those responsible for the accident. It also dismissed the applicants’ civil claims.
The applicants complain, under both, the substantive and procedural limbs of Article 2 of the Convention, about the authorities’ failure to protect their husbands’ lives and their failure to conduct a proper and effective investigation into the cause of the collective work accident.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1.  Was the applicants’ right to life guaranteed by Article 2 of the Convention breached in the present case?
In particular, having regard to the positive obligations imposed on the State by this provision (Öneryıldız v. Turkey [GC], no. 48939/99, §§ 89-90, ECHR 2004‑XII; and Binişan v. Romania, no. 39438/05, §§ 71-75, 20 May 2014), did the State-owned mining company know or ought to have known of the existence of a real and immediate risk and, if so, did it do all that could have been required of it to prevent the lives of the applicants from being avoidably put at risk? Were the existent legislative and administrative regulations concerning safety and health at work implemented effectively?
 
2.  Did the investigation conducted by the domestic authorities satisfy the conditions of adequacy and promptness as required under the procedural head of Article 2 (Nicolae Virgiliu Tănase v. Romania [GC], no. 41720/13, §§ 164‑171, 25 June 2019)? Did the available legal remedies, taken together, and as provided for in law and applied in practice, secure legal means capable of establishing the facts, holding accountable those at fault and providing appropriate redress to the victim?
Appendix
List of cases
No.
Application no.
Case name
Lodged on
Applicant
Year of Birth
Place of Residence
Nationality
1.
28140/20
Cucu v. Romania
12/06/2020
Marinela CUCU
1972
Lupeni
Romanian
2.
28494/20
Borc-Hici v. Romania
15/06/2020
Lucreţia BORC-HICI
1973
Uricani
Romanian
3.
29039/20
Stoi v. Romania
15/06/2020
Mihaela STOI
1975
Uricani
Romanian
4.
30091/20
Nădrag v. Romania
12/06/2020
Alina-Claudia NĂDRAG
1987
Uricani
Romanian