CEDH · PRESS;ADMISSIBILITYDECISIONS;ENG — 6 mai 2010

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sA678F94A { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right; font-size:11pt } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s598389F8 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center; font-size:11pt } .s51D316E0 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:center; font-size:11pt } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .s2E932ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:11pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .sE202B2ED { font-family:Arial; font-size:11pt; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } .s1F6AC3E7 { font-family:Arial; font-size:11pt; font-style:italic } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s99A63BFE { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left; font-size:11pt } .s3F59B822 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-transform:uppercase } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s4BAE41EE { font-family:Arial; font-size:11pt } .s92A5AB2 { font-family:Arial; font-size:11pt; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } .sC7EAD8B { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline } .s9FE28126 { margin-top:0pt; margin-right:42.5pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left; font-size:11pt } .s1ED9948 { margin-top:0pt; margin-right:42.5pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:11pt } 366 06.05.2010   Press release issued by the Registrar Admissibility decision     Stoica v. France (application no. 46535/08)   Unanimously: inadmissible   LAW ON UNAUTHORISED INTERMEDIARIES IN ADOPTION OF MINORS PROVIDES SUFFICIENTLY CLEAR BASIS FOR CRIMINAL CONVICTION     Principal facts   The applicant, Veronica Stoica, is a Romanian national who was born in 1951 and lives in Bucharest. She has worked as a lawyer since 1978. Specialising in family law, she dealt with the adoption of Romanian children until 1991. She was subsequently authorised in Russia to act as a legal and logistical adviser to persons wishing to adopt. She worked with adoption organisations based mainly in France, Switzerland and the United States of America.   In December 2002 Ms Stoica was arrested and placed under judicial investigation in France for unlawfully acting as an adoption intermediary and for child trafficking. In February 2004 the investigating judge at the Paris tribunal de grande instance committed Ms Stoica to stand trial before the Criminal Court for her activity, between 1999 and 2002, as intermediary in the adoption of minors without having obtained the statutory authorisation. On 10 January 2006, based on the Social Action and Family Code, the Paris Criminal Court found Ms Stoica guilty as charged and sentenced her to a suspended term of two months’ imprisonment and a 15,000 euro fine. On appeal, Ms Stoica claimed that the notion of intermediary – on which her conviction was based – was not defined in the legislation applied by the judges and that only a reference to the decree of 18 April 2002 helped to ascertain an intermediary’s functions. On 27 April 2007 the Paris Court of Appeal upheld the judgment of the court below but varied the sentence, increasing it to a suspended term of four months’ imprisonment and ordering confiscation. Finding that only Articles 225-11 and 225-17 of the Social Action and Family Code were applicable, the court stated that an intermediary was “a person acting as a link between two others” or “a person intervening in a commercial distribution channel”. It held that this corresponded to the role played by Ms Stoica, who, being much more than a mere legal adviser, had provided a full service to her clients to ensure the successful outcome of their adoption procedures in Russia. On 18   March 2008 the Court of Cassation upheld the Court of Appeal’s judgment with the exception of the confiscation measure.     Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court   Ms Stoica argued that the notion of intermediary, on which the charges against her had been based, was not defined in the law and therefore did not fulfil the conditions of clarity and precision required by Article 7 (no punishment without law). Moreover, the domestic courts had unduly assumed that they were entitled to assess that notion independently. Lastly, Ms Stoica submitted that by knowingly disregarding the decree of 2002 enumerating the activities within the remit of a person classified as intermediary, the courts had breached their duty to ensure the clear and precise statutory definition of an offence.   The application was lodged on 16 September 2008. The decision on admissibility was given by a Chamber composed of seven judges:   Peer Lorenzen (Denmark), President , Renate Jaeger (Germany), Jean-Paul Costa (France), Karel Jungwiert (the Czech Republic), Mark Villiger (Liechtenstein), Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), Zdravka Kalaydjieva (Bulgaria), judges , and also Stephen Phillips , Deputy Section Registrar .     Decision of the Court   Article 7 required that legislation should clearly define offences and corresponding criminal sanctions. That requirement was met when an individual was able to ascertain from the relevant provisions, if necessary assisted by judicial interpretation, what acts or omissions engaged his or her criminal responsibility. In the present case the Court thus had to establish whether, at the time Ms Stoica committed the acts leading to her prosecution and conviction, there was a statutory provision under which those acts were punishable and the sentence imposed did not exceed the statutory limits.   Ms Stoica had been convicted on the basis of the statutory provisions classifying as an offence any unauthorised activity as intermediary in the adoption of children. Admittedly, those provisions did not define the notion of intermediary. However, it was frequent for legislation to contain relatively vague wording in order to remain adaptable to changing situations. In addition, the Court found that the notion of intermediary was sufficiently clear and precise for an individual to be able to find out, by consulting the Social Action and Family Code and the relevant international conventions, what acts or omissions could engage his or her criminal responsibility. The law was all the more foreseeable for Ms Stoica in that she was a lawyer specialising in family law, having worked for adoption organisations. She could not therefore claim that she had been unaware that by engaging in such activities – which went much further than legal advice and assistance to international adoption clients – she would risk being prosecuted. Lastly, the relevant French regulations could not have been unknown to her, because in the past she had represented a French association specialising in this field.   The applicant’s complaints, being manifestly ill-founded, were thus inadmissible: they would not be examined on the merits (application of Article 35 §§ 3 and 4).   ****   The decision is available only in French. It is accessible on the Court’s Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ). This press release is a document produced by the Registry; the summary it contains does not bind the Court.   Press contacts Frédéric Dolt (tel: + 33 (0)3 90 21 53 39) or Stefano Piedimonte (tel: + 33 (0)3 90 21 42 04) Tracey Turner-Tretz (tel: + 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30) Kristina Pencheva-Malinowski (tel: + 33 (0)3 88 41 35 70) Céline Menu-Lange (tel: + 33 (0)3 90 21 58 77) Nina Salomon (tel: + 33 (0)3 90 21 49 79)   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.