Nationalized houses situation, resolved until “the election”

The vice-president of European Court of Human Rights (CEDO) Joseph Casadevall declares that the authorities from Bucharest should finish the legislation and the mechanism of retrocession the nationalized houses before the election of this year.

CEDO did not receive until now any request from Romania of extending this period in order to solve the problem of compensations which should be given by the state to those who lost their properties after the communist nationalization, announced Friday at Bucharest the vice-president of CEDO, Joseph Casadevall.

According to a decision of European Court, Romanian state will have 18 months, until July 12 , this year, to adopt the necessary measures in order to solve the compensation matter, and during this period, CEDO has suspended the trial of retrocession cases.

The dead-line expires on July 12 and it is still not clear if until then Romania will be able to finish a functional system of compensations, given that the situation has complicated, after the Parquet was apprised for a series of irregularities detected at the National Agency for Properties Restitution (ANPR).

After an audit at ANPR were discovered serious irregularities regarding the distribution of compensation files.

Presently, there are 38,000 unsolved files.

The vice-president of CEDO declared at Bucharest that the institution would want this situation to be solved and the mechanism of compensation to be finished before the election in Romania.
“Logically, this happens when a new legislator is elected or when a new mandate begins; the projects in progress have the tendency to be delayed or blocked.It would be wishful that Romania makes some efforts and obey to this decision, if not until July 12, at least until August 12 or September 12, this year”, declared Joseph Casadevall.

Presently, a draft is in progress which could include not only clear terms and a certain order of solving the compensation files at local and central level, but also a restriction of compensations which has to be given to the ex-owners.

It is still unknown which will be this restriction.

The vice-president of CEDO declared at Bucharest that he cannot pronounce if this restriction is correct or not, but he stated that, in the past, the compensations varied, for instance from 30 percent from the property value to 100 percent.

CEDO “does not necessarily care about integral compensations”, stated Joseph Casadevall.
If Romania does not have until July, at latest August, a coherent and unitary system of compensations for the ex-owners, CEDO will resume the trial of cases.

Translated by
Alexandra-Diana Mircea
MTTLC, Bucharest University