Submission to the Committee of Ministers: Association 21 December 1989 and Others v Romania

The Open Society Justice Initiative and the Romanian Helsinki Committee are requesting that the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe classify Association 21 December 1989 and Others v. Romania for enhanced supervision at its 1136th DH meeting in March 2012.

This judgment merits priority attention by the Committee of Ministers because the European Court of Human Rights identified major structural and complex problems that Romania must address in order to implement the decision.

The case concerns the brutal crackdown on anti-government protests in Romania in December 1989, after the overthrow of then Head of State, Nicolae Ceauşescu. The crackdown resulted in more than 1,200 deaths, more than 5,000 injuries and the ill-treatment and unlawful deprivation of liberty of thousands. Various severely flawed investigations and thwarted trials over the past two decades left the victims without remedy. Long delays, communication failures, prosecution lapses, and a lack of institutional cooperation plagued the minimal efforts at investigation and prosecution.

At the same time, the applicants uncovered evidence of government invasion into their private lives, and the prolonged retention of records obtained by secret and unlawful surveillance in 1990 and held at least through 2006.