Background
The dispute concerned property left by R.P., who died in 2000. Some property was bequeathed by will to his son R.I., while the remainder was subject to intestate succession. The applicants—R.P.’s widowed daughter-in-law and her two children—had lived on the property before his death and remained there afterward. In 2011, after R.I. obtained an inheritance certificate for part of the intestate property and donated it to G.V., litigation began over the applicants’ occupation and inheritance rights.
In the first set of proceedings, the Chișinău Court of Appeal held that the applicants had accepted the intestate succession by continuing to live on the property and that R.I. had not accepted that part of the estate within the statutory period. It expressly found that R.I. had no legal right to the disputed property. The Supreme Court of Justice upheld that ruling. In a second set of proceedings concerning the applicants’ respective shares, however, the domestic courts held that R.I. had also timely accepted the intestate property because his acceptance of the testamentary inheritance extended to the whole estate. That conclusion reduced the applicants’ shares.
The Court’s Holding
The European Court of Human Rights unanimously held that Moldova violated Article 6 § 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The first proceedings had finally determined that no one other than the applicants had timely accepted the intestate succession and that R.I. had no right to that property. The second proceedings reached the directly contradictory conclusion that R.I. was also entitled to inherit it, relying on an argument that had already been raised and rejected in the original litigation.
Although the original judgment was never formally set aside, the later rulings effectively undermined its finality. In the absence of substantial and compelling circumstances justifying a departure from res judicata, this failure to respect the final determination breached the principle of legal certainty. Because the later judgments also required the applicants to surrender part of the property secured through the first proceedings, the Court found a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. It awarded the applicants jointly EUR 3,600 for non-pecuniary damage and EUR 1,500 for costs and expenses.
Key Takeaways
- Legal certainty prohibits domestic courts from deciding an issue in a manner that directly contradicts a principal finding in an earlier final judgment.
- A breach of res judicata may occur even when the earlier judgment is not formally reopened or set aside, if later proceedings effectively deprive it of finality.
- Reducing an inheritance interest established by a final judgment through contradictory later proceedings may violate both the fair-hearing guarantee and the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions.
Why It Matters
The judgment emphasizes that courts cannot evade the Convention’s finality requirement merely by leaving an earlier judgment formally intact. When subsequent litigation revisits and reverses an issue already conclusively resolved between interested parties, the practical effect may itself violate Article 6 § 1.
The decision also illustrates the connection between procedurally defective litigation and property protection: where contradictory judgments diminish an established proprietary interest, the same failure of legal certainty can support a separate violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.