Romanian judges and former judges did not establish a Convention violation from the incomplete or staggered payment of domestic salary awards, the European Court of Human Rights has decided.
The applications concerned final Romanian judgments ordering the Ministry of Justice to pay compensation for discriminatory salary treatment compared with other judges, prosecutors and civil servants. The applicants argued that the remaining delays deprived them of effective access to a court and interfered with possessions protected by the Convention.
Strasbourg declared the applications manifestly ill-founded. Its decision leaves the domestic awards in place but rejects the proposition that the manner of enforcement, on the facts before it, crossed the Convention threshold under Article 6 or Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.
The procedural distinction matters. This was an inadmissibility decision rather than a merits judgment finding for Romania after a full violation analysis. Such decisions are final and cannot be referred to the Grand Chamber. The applicants therefore have no further route within the European Court in these cases, although enforcement of the underlying Romanian judgments remains governed by domestic law.
The ruling comes amid wider disputes over the fiscal treatment of Romanian judicial pay claims. The court assessed the individual applications before it rather than establishing that delayed execution can never raise a Convention issue.
The European Court’s official case notice records the decision and its scope.
