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Principal facts
The applicants, Alexandru-Mihai Pop, Ioan Raita and Enescu-Marin Golea, are Romanian nationals
who were born in 1969, 1957 and 1957 respectively. They live in Romania.
In 2009 the applicants purchased second-hand cars in the countries of the European Union. In order
to have them registered in Romania, they were subsequently required to pay a pollution tax, which
had been introduced by a Government Emergency Ordinance (OUG no. 50/2008).
After having paid these taxes (about 650 euros (EUR) in Mr Pop’s case, EUR 2,220 in Mr Raita’s case
and EUR 500 in Mr Golea’s case), the applicants brought recovery proceedings, arguing that the
taxes were contrary to EU law and, in particular, that they breached the principle of the free
movement of goods, since they applied exclusively to imported vehicles. The Romanian courts
dismissed their applications in 2011, as the applicants had not complied correctly with the prior
administrative procedure.
On 7 August 2017 another emergency ordinance (OUG no. 52/2017) entered into force. It provided
for the reimbursement of the pollution tax. In the meantime, the applicants had brought other
proceedings to have the tax refunded, and their legal situations developed as follows: Mr Pop,
having failed to obtain reimbursement of the pollution tax, submitted an application which was dealt
with on the basis of the provisions in OUG no. 52/2017; Mr Raita obtained a partial refund of the tax;
Mr Golea obtained a full refund of the tax and partial reimbursement of the interest, following a
final judgment delivered by the Arad County Court on 30 October 2012.
Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court
The applications were lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 18 August 2011,
24 October 2011 and 5 March 2012.
Relying on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) and Article 13 (right to an effective
remedy), the applicants complained about having had to pay the pollution tax, which had been held
to be incompatible with EU law by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
The decision was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Denmark), President,
Krzysztof Wojtyczek (Poland),
Faris Vehabović (Bosnia and Herzegovina),
Carlo Ranzoni (Liechtenstein),
Georges Ravarani (Luxembourg),
Marko Bošnjak (Slovenia),
Péter Paczolay (Hungary),
2
Reiterating the subsidiary character of the Convention machinery, the Court identified two domestic
remedies that Mr Golea could have used.
Firstly, he had not submitted his complaint about the method of calculating the interest to the Arad
County Court. Nor had he lodged an appeal against that court’s judgment. Secondly, he had not
referred to a relevant CJEU judgment1 in his pleadings before the Timisoara Court of Appeal, nor
submitted a request for revision of a final judgment delivered in breach of the principle of the
primacy of European Union law. Lastly, Mr Golea acknowledged that he had failed to take any steps
at national level to obtain the reimbursement of the above-mentioned interest and did not put
forward any argument showing that such an approach would have been ineffective.
In consequence, the Court held that Mr Golea had not afforded the respondent State the possibility,
by using the legal remedies available in domestic law, of putting right the alleged violation. His
application was accordingly dismissed for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies.
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