Press release – Panel for the Clarification of Certain Points of Law in Civil Matters in its session of 7 March 2022

High Court of Review and Justice 

PRESS RELEASE

 

In its hearing of 7 March 2022, the Panel for the Clarification of Law Matters in the Civil Law Area of the High Court of Review and Justice, legally established in the case, settled a referral for a preliminary ruling for the clarification of law matters, and rendered the following judgment:

 

Judgment no. 13 in case no. 2928/1/2021

The Panel dismisses, as inadmissible, a referral filed by Bucharest Court of Appeals – Fourth Civil Chamber, in case no. 42192/3/2018, for a preliminary ruling concerning the following law matters: 

Whether the interpretation of the provisions of Art. 21 of Law no. 165/2013 on Steps for Finalizing the Process of Restitution, in Kind or by Equivalent, of Properties Taken Abusively during the Communist Regime in Romania, as subsequently amended and supplemented, in consideration of the Constitutional Court’s Decision no. 189 of 18 March 2021, published in Part I of Official Journal of Romania no. 466 of 4 May 2021, confers to an entitled person a right to benefit from compensation measures, namely to make use of his/her right of claim/his/her legitimate hope to obtain a right of claim (arisen as a result of an impossibility to return the taken property in-kind) under the provisions of Art. 1.516 of the Civil Code. 

Does the sanction for the state’s failure to observe its positive obligation to harmonize the provisions of Art. 21 para. (6) of Law no. 165/2013 with the Constitutional Court’s Decision no. 189 of 18 March 2021 offer an entitled person a possibility to benefit from liquidated damages, and, in the affirmative, is the method for their assessment the one set by the provisions of Art. 1.531 of the Civil Code?

Mandatory, as per the provisions of Art. 521 para. (3) of the Civil Procedure Code.

Rendered in public hearing today,  7 March 2022. 

After the considerations are drafted, and the judgment is signed, it will be published in Part I of the Official Journal of Romania.

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