MARDARE AND OTHERS v. ROMANIA

Published on 24 February 2025   FOURTH SECTION Application no. 10421/24 Veta MARDARE and Others against Romania lodged on 26 March 2024 communicated on 7 February 2025 SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE The application concerns the alleged ineffective investigation into the death of the first and third applicants’ son, who was also brother to the second applicant, occurred in a traffic accident in Slovenia in December 2015. In 2017, the case was transferred to the Romanian authorities for continuing the investigation, as all the parties involved were Romanian citizens. The prosecutor’s decision to dismiss the charges was upheld by a final decision of the Craiova District Court of 6 October 2023 (served on 6 December 2023). On the basis of the evidence in the file, the District Court found that it could not be established to a sufficient degree whether the other two drivers involved in the accident had acted recklessly and were responsible for causing the accident. According to the applicants, when the Romanian authorities took over the investigation on 8 June 2017, they received from the Slovenian counterparts a substantial case file, containing the initial crime scene report, the details of the persons and vehicles involved, the conclusions of the Slovenian pre-trial judge, statements given to Slovenian police by the persons involved in the accident and forensic examinations of two of the vehicles involved. In the six years that followed, Romanian police questioned the father and brother of the victim (on 26 April 2018), the suspect (on 13 March 2019) and performed four technical forensic examinations. Two of the technical forensic reports were delivered approximately one year after they were requested, exceeding the maximum duration allowed by the Code of Criminal Procedure. The forensic institute informed the police that these delays were due to a high demand for forensic reports and insufficient human resources. The applicants allege breaches of Article 6 (fair trial and excessive duration of proceedings), Article 2 (ineffective investigation) and Article 13 (lack of domestic remedy against the decision to discontinue the investigation). QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES Since the Court is the master of the characterisation to be given in law to the facts of the case (see Radomilja and Others v. Croatia [GC], nos. 37685/10 and 22768/12, §§ 114 and 126, 20 March 2018), was the investigation in the present case by the domestic authorities in breach of Article 2 of the Convention (see Nicolae Virgiliu Tănase v. Romania [GC], no. 41720/13, §§ 157-71, 25 June 2019, and Marius Alexandru and Marinela Ștefan v. Romania, no. 78643/11, §§ 85-86, 24 March 2020)? In particular, did the investigation by the Romanian authorities satisfy the requirement of promptness under Article 2 of the Convention?     APPENDIX Application no. 10421/24 No. Applicant’s Name Year of birth Nationality Place of residence 1. Veta MARDARE 1971 Romanian Galaţi 2. Bogdan-Tudorel MARDARE 1988 Romanian Galaţi 3. Gheorghe MARDARE 1965 Romanian Galaţi