  []

ROTARU v. ROMANIA

Right to respect for private life – violation Article 8

Right to an effective remedy – violation Article 13
Right to a fair trial – violation Article 6

Romanian law did not indicate with reasonable clarity the scope and manner of exercise of the discretion
conferred on the intelligence service in gathering, keeping and using information on a person’s private
life. It was not possible to challenge the holding, by the Romanian intelligence services, of information
on a person’s private life or to refute the truth of such information. Romanian Court of Appeal had failed
to consider claim which fell within the terms of domestic law.

In a judgment delivered on  May  in the case of Rotaru v. Romania, the

European Court of Human Rights held by  votes to  that there had been a
violation of Article  (right to respect for private life) of the European Convention
on Human Rights and unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 
(right to an effective remedy) and Article  (right to a fair trial) of the Convention.
Under Article  (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded the
applicant , French francs (FRF) for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage
and for legal costs and expenses.

1. Principal facts
The applicant, Aurel Rotaru, a Romanian national, was born in  and lives in
Bârlad (Romania).
In  the applicant, who in  had been sentenced to a year’s imprisonment
for having expressed criticism of the communist regime established in , brought
an action in which he sought to be granted rights that Decree No.  of 
afforded persons who had been persecuted by the communist regime. In the
proceedings which followed in the Bârlad Court of First Instance, one of the
defendants, the Ministry of the Interior, submitted to the court a letter sent to it
on  December  by the Romanian Intelligence Service, which contained,
among other things, information about the applicant’s political activities between
 and . According to the same letter, Mr Rotaru had been a member of the
Christian Students’ Association, an extreme right-wing “legionnaire” movement,
in .


  []

The applicant considered that some of the information in question was false
and defamatory – in particular, the allegation that he had been a member of the
legionnaire movement – and brought proceedings against the Romanian Intelligence
Service, claiming compensation for the non-pecuniary damage he had sustained
and amendment or destruction of the file containing the untrue information. The
claim was dismissed by the Bârlad Court of First Instance in a judgment that was
upheld by the Bucharest Court of Appeal on  December . Both courts held
that they had no power to order amendment or destruction of the information in
the letter of  December  as it had been gathered by the State’s former security
services, and the Romanian Intelligence Service had only been a depositary.
In a letter of  July  the Director of the Romanian Intelligence Service
informed the Ministry of Justice that after further checks in their registers it appeared
that the information about being a member of the “legionnaire” movement referred
not to the applicant but to another person of the same name.
In the light of that letter the applicant sought a review of the Court of Appeal’s
judgment of  December  and claimed damages. In a decision of  November
 the Bucharest Court of Appeal quashed the judgment of  December 
and declared the information about the applicant’s past membership of the
“legionnaire” movement null and void. It did not rule on the claim for damages.

2. Procedure of the Court

The application was lodged with the European Commission of Human Rights on
 February . Having declared the application admissible, the Commission
adopted a report on  March  in which it expressed the unanimous opinion
that there had been a violation of Articles  and  of the Convention. It referred
the case to the Court on  June . The applicant also brought the case before
the Court on  June .
Under the transitional provisions of Protocol No.  to the Convention, a panel
of the Grand Chamber decided on  July  that the case would be heard by the
Grand Chamber. On  January  the Grand Chamber held a public hearing.

3. Summary of the judgment

Complaints
The applicant complained of an infringement of his right to private life in that the
Romanian Intelligence Service held a file containing information on his private
life and that it was impossible to refute the untrue information. He relied on Article

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