Almost 37 years of investigation: Strasbourg again finds Romania in breach of the right to life over December 1989

In December 1989, according to a 2008 letter from Romania's military prosecutors quoted by the European Court, more than 1,200 people died in Romania and more than 5,000 were injured. The criminal case opened in 1990 to establish who bears responsibility has still not ended, almost 37 years after the events. In October 2026 the European Court of Human Rights once more found in favour of families still waiting for an answer.

What the Court decided

The first judgment, in Gîndilă and Others v. Romania, is dated 22 October 2026 and joins 20 applications. The applicants were wounded by gunfire between 22 and 25 December 1989, or are relatives of people killed at that time, in Sibiu, Brașov, Bucharest, Otopeni, Giurgiu, Constanța, Târgoviște and Buzău. One of those killed was shot in Sibiu, outside the county headquarters of the militia, as the police was then called, and died of his injuries in February 1990. Another was killed near the military unit in the same city. One woman was wounded at a relative's home in Târgoviște.

The second judgment, in Sandu and Others v. Romania, is dated 27 October 2026. Iancu Sandu was shot on 24 December 1989 in Brașov, inside the hospital where he had been admitted. The applications were lodged by his wife and their two children.

In both cases the Court reached the same conclusion: the investigation did not meet the Convention's standards, in particular because it had not been conducted with the reasonable expedition required. The Court therefore found a violation of Article 2 of the Convention under its procedural limb. Article 2 does more than prohibit the taking of life. Where force, particularly by State agents, has resulted in death, it requires the authorities to carry out a thorough, impartial and effective investigation capable of leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible.

Both judgments were adopted unanimously by a three-judge Committee, the formation the Court uses where the issue is already covered by well-established case-law. They are final.

A case opened in 1990

The Sandu judgment summarises the course of the main investigation. The military prosecutor's office opened it of its own motion in 1990. In April 2019 military prosecutors indicted three people, including a former President of Romania, for crimes against humanity. From October 2020 the Preliminary Chamber of the High Court of Cassation and Justice examined irregularities in the indictment, and on 20 September 2024 it returned the file to the prosecutors. According to the Court, the domestic proceedings were still pending when it gave judgment. An indictment is not a finding of guilt: anyone accused is presumed innocent.

The European Court does not decide who is to blame for the events of 1989. It only examines whether the State investigated them as the Convention requires. It answered that question in 2011, in the leading case of Association "21 December 1989" and Others v. Romania. It found then that the investigation was defective because of its excessive length, long periods of inactivity, the insufficient involvement of victims and the lack of information given to the public. In the 2026 judgments, the Court says it found no reason to decide otherwise.

The right to know the truth

In its 2011 judgment, the Court stressed the importance of the right of victims, their families and heirs to know the truth about the circumstances of massive violations of the right to life. That right implies an effective judicial investigation and, possibly, compensation. The Court added that where lethal force has been used on a wide scale against civilians during demonstrations preceding the transition to democracy, an investigation cannot be considered effective if it ends through limitation periods because the authorities themselves remained inactive.

The Court also called on Romania to put an end to the situation, having regard to "the importance to Romanian society of knowing the truth about the events of December 1989". Fifteen years later, the October judgments show that the problem identified then has not yet been resolved.

How the Court answered the Government

The Government asked the Court to reject some of the applications. The Court's answers explain who may complain about an ineffective investigation.

Victim status. The Government argued that three applicants had no procedural standing in the Romanian case and that two others had said in 2018 that they did not wish to join it as civil parties. The first three showed that they had asked to take part. For the other two, the Court recalled that waiving civil-party status did not deprive them of victim status, and that it has consistently accepted applications by close relatives of those killed even where they had not been involved in the domestic proceedings.

Time limit. For three applications, the Government argued that the four-month time limit had started to run from an earlier Strasbourg judgment concerning relatives of the same victims. The Court replied that, in such a situation, what counts is the date on which the domestic proceedings are finally determined. Since they were still pending, and their length lies at the very heart of the complaint, the applications were not out of time. A word of caution: the Court expects people who complain about an investigation to follow its progress and to act with due expedition once they become aware that it is not effective. Not every delay is accepted, so time limits are assessed case by case.

The soldier's conviction. In Iancu Sandu's case, a soldier had been finally convicted in 2001 of aggravated murder and sentenced to three years and four months' imprisonment, and the widow had received about EUR 3,000 in damages. The Government argued that the family was therefore no longer a victim. The Court disagreed. Investigations of this kind must cover not only the actions of those who fired but also the surrounding circumstances, including the planning and control of the operations. The main investigation seeks to establish whether other State officials bear responsibility, and the soldier's trial does not answer that question.

What happens next

Romania must pay within three months from the date the judgments became final, with interest after that. Each of the 20 applicants in Gîndilă receives EUR 26,000 for non-pecuniary damage and EUR 500 for costs, EUR 530,000 in total. Each of the three members of the Sandu family receives EUR 23,000 for non-pecuniary damage and EUR 500 for costs.

Payment does not settle the matter. The execution of Strasbourg judgments is supervised by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, and what the Court asked for in 2011 was not compensation but an effective investigation that does not end through limitation periods.

If you are a relative of someone killed or wounded in December 1989, you can find out the status of the case by asking the prosecutor's office handling it in writing. Our guide on how to take a case to the European Court of Human Rights explains the general rules. Any application to Strasbourg should be discussed with a lawyer, because it depends on each person's situation.

This article is for information only and is not a substitute for legal advice. The judgments are published in English and French; quoted passages are taken from the English text.